[PVRCNC] Motorola Apologizes for trashing hams

[Bob Lukaszewski]

SINCE THIS REFLECTOR IS SO ARCHAIC.... HERE IT IS IN TEXT FORM...


-I didn't see the original story in the Wall Street Journal, but here is
part of the article. Then, an apology from Motorola.
I got this from a legit source. 
Disasters bring out the best, and the worst in folks.
Bob RLC

Here is the offensive paragraph from the WSJ story which most people are
referring to.

"The hams also get little respect from telecommunications-equipment
companies, such as Motorola Inc. "Something is better than nothing, that's
right," says Jim Screeden, who runs all of Motorola's repair teams in the
field for its emergency-response business. "But ham radios are pretty close
to nothing." Mr. Screeden says ham radios can take a long time to relay
messages and work essentially as "party lines," with multiple parties
talking at once. Says Mr. Leggett at the Monroe operations center: "We are
the unwanted stepchild. But when the s- hits the fan, who are you going to
call?"

-------------------

Motorola apologizes for the way Mr. Screeden's comments appeared in
Tuesday's Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, Mr. Screeden was taken out of
context.

Motorola fully recognizes the incredible work that the amateur radio
operator community has put forth during the Hurricane Katrina response
efforts. In fact, Motorola has at least 100 of its own employees who are
amateur radio operators.We also understand the cooperation and partnership
that Motorola has developed with the amateur radio operator community in
introducing our Broadband Over Powerline solution.

We will continue to work to highlight the unique capabilities that public
safety communications and amateur radio operators both bring to significant
natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. Once again, as demonstrated by
the recently publicized cooperation with amateur radio for the Powerline LV
test at ARRL headquarters, Motorola values it's relationship with amateur
radio and respects the critical and unique work they are doing to help with
the Katrina recovery efforts. The recent WSJ article was taken out of
context in comparing the simple amateur radio communication capabilities
with the very complex Public Safety and Enterprise solutions.

We appreciate the work you and the amateur radio operator community is
putting forth. You may not know that Hurricane Katrina has become the
largest single disaster recovery effort in our company's history too. We
also hope we'll be able to establish a level of understanding and keep our
focus on the folks that need it most ... those impacted by Hurricane
Katrina.

Sincerely, Jeff Madsen

Director, Communications & Public Affairs Motorola, Inc.
Government & Enterprise Mobility Solutions
Email: jeffrey.madsen at motorola.com<mailto:jeffrey.madsen at motorola.com>
Office: (847)-538-7660 Mobile: (847)-341-4462


Bob ConderK4RLC
k4rlc at earthlink.net






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