[CW] Use of AR

Mon Feb 8 16:21:01 EST 2010

Sounds like old Joe must have been listening for local 80 Meter CW around 
here also ...

VE1DS
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ed Williams" <edwill1 at verizon.net>
To: "CW Reflector" <cw at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Monday, February 08, 2010 4:13 PM
Subject: Re: [CW] Use of AR

> Very well put Hans, Ed Williams, K5POC
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Radio K0HB" <kzerohb at gmail.com>
> To: "SX-25" <telegrapher at hotmail.com>; <CW at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 10:45 PM
> Subject: Re: [CW] Use of AR
>
>
>>
>>
>>>     Before the days of the give-away ham licenses,
>>> hams wanted to conform. Figuratively, those achieving a license
>>> wanted to "wear pink or black." It mattered not that we were
>>> not commercial or military operators; but it mattered.
>>> We wanted our performance to comply with the established
>>> and respected practices and traditions of this great institution.
>>> This meant sending good code, taking the time to learn the
>>> correct protocols and prosigns BEFORE GETTING ON THE AIR
>>> and not accepting ignorance and poor habits with insipid
>>> acquiescence so commonplace today.
>>
>>   --   THE LAST AMATEUR RADIO OPERATOR   -- 
>>
>>     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.  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.  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!"  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.  He refused to notice that after the
>> FCC created this new license category, the number of active hams
>> increased at a dizzying rate.
>>
>>     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.
>>
>>     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.
>>
>>     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.
>>
>>     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.
>>
>>     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.  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.  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!
>>
>>
>> 73, de Hans, K0HB
>> --
>> "Just a boy and his radio"
>> --
>> Proud Member of:
>>  A1-Operator Club - http://www.arrl.org/awards/a1-op/
>>  MWA - http://www.W0AA.org
>>  TCDXA - http://www.tcdxa.org
>>  CADXA - http://www.cadxa.org
>>  CWOps - http://www.cwops.org
>>  SOC - http://www.qsl.net/soc
>>
>>
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