[Elecraft] Not All Hams are Technicians (WAS: Microphones)

[David Woolley (E.L)]

Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:
> Agreed Dave! Hams are not necessarily electronics technicians or engineers.
> Many simply want to operate with what they feel is the best commercial gear
> their budget will allow. 

However, very few hams have their installations professionally installed 
and monitored, so hams do have to be technicians to at least a small 
extent, unless they want to be limited in the same way as legally 
operated CB stations.  The very minimum they need is to be able to 
recognize when a system exceeds their ability to evaluate its 
interference potential and safety risks, and install it properly, so 
higher powers need more technical skills.  It's also been the case that 
people have argued, on this list, that type approval should be abandoned 
for commercial amateur radio equipment on the basis that all hams are 
trained technicians, not that I agree with that.

(Low power users need technical skills in order to get the best of their 
limited equipment, rather than for safety reasons.)

> We've always had that disparity among Hams. Decades ago, before
> "radiosporting" was popular, those operators were largely traffic-handlers
> in the days when a telephone call to a city 100 miles away was both
> expensive and difficult. Hams offered an excellent way for people to pass

In the UK, and I suspect most countries, such traffic handling was 
illegal (recently there are some relaxations) on the basis that it 
undermined the businesses of the telephone companies and commercial 
users of radio. The current relaxations are probably more to do with 
stopping the reduction in the number of amateurs self training than in 
reduced threat to businesses, although the reduced cost of commercial 
communication channels would be a factor, too.

The reason that the radio regulations have special provisions for 
disaster relief are to override the ban on third party traffic in a case 
  where public policy considers that commercial considerations should be 
overridden.  On the other hand, spectrum pricing (creating a market for 
radio spectrum) actually means that governments would prefer that 
services not be provided for free on the basis of cheap amateur radio 
licences.

-- 
David Woolley
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