[CW] Leave no ham behind

[N2EY at aol.com]

In a message dated 7/27/05 9:33:46 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
k-zero-hb at earthlink.net writes:
> 
> 
>           --   THE LAST AMATEUR RADIO OPERATOR   -- 
> 

Author?



> 
>      It was a warm sunny day, with just a slight breeze.  Joe 
> squinted at the top of his tower, admiring the five-element 20 
> meter monobander he had built the previous winter.  It was an 
> imposing sight, yet had never been used. 
> 
>      Yes, never been used, because you see, Joe was the last ham. 
> 
>      Joe never intended to be the last ham, but it worked out 
> that way.  He thought back to how it had all started in the 80's 
> when the FCC created the no-code Tech license.  

1991 was not "the 80's"


Joe considered 
> 
> that action the biggest blunder any government agency had ever 
> perpetrated on the citizens of the United States of America. 
> 
>      "Just think of it," Joe had remarked, "an amateur radio 
> license with no Morse code requirements!  It will mean ruin for 
> us all!" 

People have all sorts of opinions. Some are based on facts, others
aren't.


 Joe ignored the fact that the no-code license brought 
> 
> new blood into the hobby after the amateur ranks had been 
> shrinking for many years. 

Except that the facts show the amateur ranks growing all through
the 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s. 

 He refused to notice that after the 
> 
> FCC created this new license category, the number of active hams 
> increased at a dizzying rate. 
> 

That's a good thing.


>      Joe hated no-code hams.  He wouldn't accept the no-code 
> license as just another way of entering Amateur ranks, and 
> refused to acknowledge that many no-coders upgrade to higher- 
> class licenses.  No explanation was good enough for Joe. 

Some people are like that. 


> 
>      Joe and some like-minded cronies hung out on the local 
> repeater, where they expounded at length their belief that the 
> new hams are somehow less than human.  They even suggested that 
> the way to clean up the ham bands was to get rid of all 2-by-3 
> calls.  They joked that everyone ought to own a no-code Tech. 
> When new operators dared talk to Joe or his buddies, they found 
> themselves humbled, scolded, and scorned. 
> 

They were doing all this on 'phone, right?


>      In his zeal to control "his" airwaves, Joe monitored the 
> local repeater with a stop-watch, to make sure interlopers 
> "ID'ed" on time.  If they went a little over, he gave them a 
> tongue-lashing.  He even harassed them when they operated 
> perfectly, just to make sure they knew they weren't welcome. 
> 

Doesn't sound like a nice guy at all.



>      Of course, Joe never gave his callsign when he did this.  He 
> regarded himself not as a jammer, but as a radio cop -- keeping 
> the ham bands pure.  Soon others joined Joe's cause.  After all, 
> "The new no-coders made two meters sound like CB!" 
> 
>      Slowly at first, then at a faster and faster rate, newcomers 
> dropped out of the local clubs, then off the air completely.  Joe 
> was ecstatic.  It was working; he was saving the airwaves. 
> 

Uh-huh.

I suppose all the newcomers treated all the old-timers with respect.
It was only Joe and his cronies that were the bad apples, right?



>      The number of active hams dropped to far fewer than when he 
> started.  He figured only the "real hams" were left, so he didn't 
> mind when the Callbook shrunk to the size of a comic book. 

The Callbook isn't printed anymore. If it were, it'd be enormous.



 But 
> 
> with so few hams, the political power of Amateur Radio 
> diminished.  Soon ham spectrum shrunk, too. 
> 
>      That didn't bother Joe; he cared only about 2 and 20 meters. 
> He thought it was funny when the FCC auctioned many VHF and UHF 
> bands, "those no-coder hangouts," to commercial interests. 
> 

>      Finally, citing "no further need for an Amateur 
> license category," the FCC stopped issuing new licenses.  

FCC's headed that way now. Fewer license classes. Lower requirements,
written too, not just code. .



Before 
> 
> long, Joe and his buddies were the only hams left.  But that was 
> fine.  After all, they all got their licenses back when hams took 
> tests at FCC offices, and not at one of those VEC jokes that 
> allowed an applicant to take a test here or there. 
> 
>      Joe and his cronies spent long hours ragchewing on 20, 
> bragging about how good things were.  Occasionally they paused, 
> but only to note when one of their clan became a "silent key." 
> 
>      Then, one day, Joe called CQ on twenty meters and got no 
> reply.  He tried again the next day with the same result.  He 
> kept trying for a week, but no one ever came back to him. 
> Finally, he called one of his friends on the twisted pair, to set 
> up a contact.  But, an elderly-sounding lady informed him 
> that his friend was no longer among the living. 
> 
>      Joe paged through his old, dog-eared Callbook.  But he 
> couldn't find a single listing of anyone he had worked recently. 
> That's when he realized he was the only one left. 
> 
>      Joe had just started back toward the house when he suddenly 
> tired.  He at down to rest on the grass.  He felt a squeezing 
> pain in his chest, and his left arm ached.  He lay back. 
> 
>      His antenna, and clouds drifting by above it, were the last 
> things he saw.  But Joe and his like-minded friends had lived 
> long enough to accomplish their goal; 
> 
>                 THEY HAD CLEANED UP THE AIRWAVES! 
> 
> 

All progress requires change.

But not all change is progress.

It's important to know the difference.

Remember "New Coke"?

73 de Jim, N2EY