[Qcwa] The Blackout of 2003

[qcwa@mailman.qth.net]

Frankly, I�m surprised my tongue-in-cheek posting about the blackout elicited 
the meager response it did.  I wonder if that is because we�re finally 
getting the message or that the message is no longer relevant.  I�ll explain.

I am deeply concerned for the future of Amateur Radio in this new environment 
where the proliferation of low-power wireless services is so rapid and where 
worldwide communication is now available at the click of a computer mouse.  
What reason can I possibly give to a youngster to persuade him to invest vast 
amounts of time studying for a ticket and building a station and vast amounts 
of money on decent equipment � when a five hundred dollar computer and 20 
bucks a month puts him on the Internet?  Heck, how can I convince an inactive 
ham to log off the Internet and get back on the air?  Much more important, 
what arguments can we proffer to the public and public officials to give 
Amateur Radio priority and protection from incursions by wireless devices and 
technologies such as BPL?  Can our governmental leaders really be expected to 
protect Amateur Radio at the expense of new technologies that offer services 
to millions and that will nurture new industries?  

Look at the age-old TVI/RFI problem � have we been able to convince the 
Government to require manufacturers of home entertainment equipment to make 
them less prone to our signals?  Given our �success� with TVI, does anyone 
really think that a technology like BPL will be denied to the public to keep 
a bunch of CB�ers from having their chatter interfered with?  

Yes, I mean CB�ers.  It is an undeniable fact that the vast majority of the 
American public refers to Radio Amateurs as �CB�ers� and has no concept of 
what the Amateur Radio Service actually is.  That was the reason I made my 
blackout posting.

I received only one answer to my posting and it contained the same old clich� 
answers about �service�.   How will the future of Amateur Radio be guaranteed 
by our public service when that service is largely unknown and unacknowledged 
by the very public we profess to serve?  Furthermore, have we taken a hard 
look at exactly what our �Public Service� is actually accomplishing for 
others outside the hobby.   Is there in fact, a genuine need for what we can 
provide in this wireless phone and Internet age?

In the first half of my thirty years of being a Ham, I volunteered for just 
about every type of event that needed communications assistance.  (I only 
regret that family and work took precedence in the second 15 years, I hope 
that when I retire, I can return to full enjoyment of the hobby.)  The 
important fact to note is that in the 70�s, telephones that used radio as a 
link were rare commercially, and such a service was mostly the domain of 
Radio Amateurs through Autopatch and HF Phone patches.  Thus our 
contributions were necessary and clearly justified our existence.  When I was 
deployed during the 1991 Gulf War, I sure didn�t need MARS to get a message 
home, the troops had banks of phones set up for them to call home and if a 
landline wasn�t available, I grabbed an INMARSAT terminal and got through 
that way.  

Perhaps even more important, after all the events I volunteered for, I always 
checked the nightly news afterward for coverage.  Rarely did I ever see any 
coverage for our efforts.  If any was given it seldom amounted to a few 
seconds buried amongst all the �important� news.   The only coverage I heard 
about hams in the NYC blackout was a short piece on AM radio about �Amateur 
Radio operators using World War I technology to help people whose cell phones 
didn�t work�.   A few days ago, the ARRL sent out its letter about Amateur 
Radio�s �service� during the blackout.   Will anyone outside of the Amateur 
community even see that letter?   And what if they do?  Do you know what 
handling 500 pieces of traffic means to the public?  Absolutely nothing!  The 
only lesson the public learned from Blackout 2003 was that our cellular 
networks need to be made more robust and more spectrum needs to be taken away 
from the �CB�ers� to make sure there is enough wireless bandwidth for 
subscribers.

You�ll notice that this posting contains many questions and very few 
answers.  That�s because I don�t have the answers.  I�m an ordinary rank-and-
file ham who�s always looked to the leadership of such organizations as the 
QCWA and the ARRL for these answers.  You�ve had more experience as hams and 
more experience at life than I have but I believe that you are starting to 
lose sight of serious problems that are on the horizon.  I think you�re 
beginning to believe your own �hype�.  Instead of wasting time debating the 
utility of CW and such irrelevant issues, we must pose and debate the basic 
question, is Amateur Radio still relevant and will it survive. 

You and I both know the answer to that question, but can we make our case 
outside the Amateur community?  Unless we can prove our relevance to the 
public and their elected officials whose laws control our future, I do not 
believe that we have a chance of competing against encroachment and eventual 
extinction by other wireless services.  Amateur Radio spawned the age of 
electronic communications and later, spawned the original computer hobbyists 
like myself who built the information age � God help us.  I don�t know what 
future technologies will arise or from where they will come.  I�m just hoping 
that the Amateur Radio Service and Amateur Radio Operators will still be 
around toward the end of the decade when I can finally retire, get that HF 
antenna up and get back to my favorite Ham Radio activity � Rag Chewing.  

73.


--
Mike Sturm, KA2E
http://home.att.net/~ka2e