CWM[/quote]
Talk about being "stuck in the mud"!
Your ARRL anti-CB propaganda is getting a bit old!!!![/quote]
I'm not a member of ARRL. I am telling you the actual reasons AND the truth of the matter. All one has to do is make a reasonable comparison between the two.
CB: 40 channels AM and SSB. All that is allowed. Yet the users of it squirm and wriggle looking for "extra channels" that don't belong to them. They make excuses as to why they "need" to go into a so-called "freeband", and ignore the laws that prohibit it.
Ham: TEN HF bands + MARS( if one likes to participate in it) of THOUSANDS what CBers call "channels" (frequencies) with AM, Upper and Lower SSB, FM [on 10 Meters], repeaters, packet, teletype, Pactor, Morse Code. Then there's 2 Meters, 440 MHZ, all modes with the same options listed above. And there's 6 Meters (50 MHZ)--also with repeaters, AM, FM, SSB and all the same other modes as well.
CB: There's never enough "watts"! Watts, watts, watts, watts, the all-encompassing mantra! It is MO' powah, mo' mod-ju-lation, louder and louder, all controls to the right. The users, for the most part have NO idea what they are doing; their buddy Joe over at the CB shop told 'em how to run that there "box", and "if I double my power, I'll get twice the distance and twice the signal." NOT!
Ham: Up TO 1500 watts. BUT! Hams are taught and encouraged to run ONLY the amount of power necessary to establish and maintain communications. If it TAKES 1500 watts because of conditions, fine so long as you are not causing interference both IN and outside of amateur radio. If everybody else is running 100 watts, and Bob Ham is always running 1500, then he CAN get a warning or even a fine. All hams are supposed to operate under a principle of "good amateur practice" which does not mean that it's OK to run gobs of power just because you WANT to! Part of what the powers that be want us do is learn something about how our operations affect others. It is the difference between an "appliance operator", and a
REAL radio operator!
Trouble is, many people only want everything handed over without exerting any effort at all. Amateur testing has been reduced hugely over the years, and yet, we STILL don't want to lift a finger to EARN anything or LEARN anything. We only say, "Gimme, gimme, gimme". I don't care if I bother someone in
Pheonix, In fact, it makes me feel GOOD that I "walked all over someone else". (See 'stomping mudducks') What inadequacy does such behavior make up for, gentlemen? The TRAINED radio person simply QSY's to another frequency, or, hearing nothing, "IS this frequency in use?". Then, if the answer is "yes", then he merely moves away to find another spot to operate.
At times, we bemoan the shenanigans on CB--people singing off-key, whispering "I've got my panties on.........", cussing, fighting over the air, keying up on top of each other, the noise, the hash and trash, and, yet, we never stop to think about WHY it is that way. It is because CB is a totally unregulated free-for-all, available to anyone with a few dollars
(a great mistake). When it fills UP with nonsense because WE ourselves fail to manage it, organize it, recognize HOW to USE it effectively, it simply fills up------YES! With
appliance operators[/i] with not a clue! SO! We want MORE of the same, so we can fill up the ADDITIONAL frequencies with hash and trash ("SCREEEEEEEE, HOOOOOOWL, ROOOOOOOOOOOARRR!")!
When we completley FUBAR that, we want yet MORE so we can FUBAR THAT................and so on and so on. It would never end because the operators themselves don't understand what is causing the problem to start with! (MO Powah, Mo 'channels', Mo Modju-la-tion, Mo this, Mo that!) And it won't change a darned thing.
Therefore, those who understand this, went to engineering school to work in it, want us to LEARN how to operate a radio and let the OTHER guy participate, too, without messing HIM up as well. Thus, this is why taking a few tests, actually LEARNING WHY things work the the way they do, makes it better----not perfect, but better than the alternative. It is for those reasons that all the petitions, all the pleas for "extra" channels, all the cries for relaxing CB Part 95 falls, and continue to fall, on deaf ears.
With all one gets in return for a small investment of time, there is no reason to even compare the two, or try to equate 11 Meter CB with amateur radio: the father of ALL radio. When I can take a little walkie talkie that fits in my pocket and talk to the next state (or even a cellphone), and a CB radio even with 500 watts can't do it, technology wins everytime! I can't force the facts to change. It is the way it is.
73 to all,
CWM