Hi All,
Further to Mike's comments, it is also useful to appreciate the strength
supplied by our not inconsiderable sympathy among the commercial interests
lobbying the regulators.
From my personal experience of a number of years active as an
officer of a trade federation, the amateur bands in general often come up for
discussion as they are eyed enviously by commercial interests. These
discussions are often influenced in our favour by the presence of licensed
amateurs among the ranks of professional business interests.
We enjoy privelages and facilities - in particular, bandwidth and
emitted power levels, which are denied other services who pay very dearly for
what they get.
It doesn't help those guys who often go to bat on our behalf when
some individual or group of mavericks destroy our credibility by riding
roughshod through the rule book.
With the growth of commercial useage of the spectrum, there has not
been a proportionate increase in the licensed amateur population. It follows
then that the proportion of licensed amateurs among the growing army of
professionals has not grown and, therefore , that part of our lobby is a
diminishing resource!
This is true in spite of the fact that radio amateur licences are
virtually given away these days. Someone has recently said the hardest part of
getting a licence these days is filling in the form!!!!!
If the STANDARD required to get a licence years ago was applied
these days you would be able to count on one hand the number of active radio
amateurs TODAY.
Most radio amateurs today are appliance operators and not
experimenters and a lot of would be radio amateurs are using mobile phones and
the internet. This approach is probably a lot cheaper and facilities
like ECHOLINK and others similar are as good as the real thing and you do
not have propogation to worry about, its 59 all the time.
Even dedicated experimental radio amateurs are contributing nil
these days of any interest to would be commercial users.
The sophisticated nature of electronics these days and the cost puts the
radio experimenter at a disadbantage, only the commercial operators and
government agencies can afford meaningful research then market it at a price
that is affordable to the appliance operator.
For instance, you could not construct all the ingredients
required to build a desktop computer or a modern transceiver for the purchase
price, and secondhand they are virtually give away.
The days of the valued experimental radio amateur have GONE.
Maybe if I was starting today as a young person interested in electronics
I would become an appliance operator, no need to solder anthing these
days, just throw the thing away and get another.
de Mal/G3KEV
Please don't make it harder for those that remain.
73 de Pat g4gvw
