[ARC5] CW/MCW (I'm well away from the original topic)

[Leslie Smith]

  For some years I have been thinking about the quality and value of
  knowledge.
 
 Tom's question was: "Seeing this talk of BFO's and CW/MCW I have often
 wondered what is the
>  real advantage of using MCW other than if your receiver lacks a BFO  control?" 
The answers to Tom's Q have led me to understand a good deal about the
quality of knowledge in our society.

All knowledge is valuable, including knowledge got from books, but here,
the best answer to Tom's question, came from experienced operators, not
deduced from a book or theory.
That's interesting, because our society is moving more and more to value
formal education, not experience.

In our modern society we place a great deal of value on "book learning"
and less on the value of experience, so the engineer with a university
degree is considered more valuable than a tradesman who has years of
experience on a lathe or milling machine.  I've worked with engineers
and I've worked with tradesmen, and only the tradesmen can say why drill
bits should be placed sharp end down in the drill-keeper.  Engineers
have not idea why this is so, and put drills in the drill keeper sharp
end up.  
(Putting the drill-bit in the keeper blunts the drill a little bit each
time you put the drill in the keeper, right?)
Why then, do tradesmen always put the drill in the keeper sharp end
down? 

Our society engages 'experts'  to advise politicians about the best
course of action, (and we should get the best advice when seeking a
solution) but often neither the politician nor the 'expert' have  the
experience to understand the real nature of a problem.  Then,  when a
politician makes the wrong "call" (assuming he's genuine and not acting
from self-interest) we blame the politician (politicians are stupid,
right) rather than seeing that simple questions are often deep, and the
reason for and answer is not easily understood.

It was a good question, Tom.
The various answers I saw here made me think a lot.


  73 de Les Smith
  vk2bcu at operamail.com

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