dudmuck said:
CWM has some interesting posts there.
But the reality of amateur radio is that it is primarily an old mans hobby.
Thats all well & good if your into the technical aspects of hobby radio. But a big part of the radio hobby is chewing the rag with your own kind. This is a big part of what keeps CB going, the younger guys chewing the fat with their own clique, where they can let their hair down without being all prim & proper as you must behave on ham radio.
11 meters is in a unique place, where mobile antennas can be reasonably efficient, and where skip occurs when the sun cooperates.
This morning (Nov 20) I heard all kinds of spanish speaking skip coming over the car radio on 11 meters. I heard Puerto Rico which is 3,300 miles away, and we are at solar minimum right now. Since 11 meter use is so pervasive outside the USA, how could 26-28MHz ever possibly be allocated to any legitimate radio service? The only reason this band cant be permitted by the FCC to allow DX is because the hams would scream bloody murder that the FCC is sanctioning unlicensed amateur radio.
Just to clarify my point: radio hobby is as much (or more) about talking to friends, as it is about the art of radio itself... ham, cb or whatever.
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1. But the reality of amateur radio is that it is primarily an old mans hobby.
One of the popular CB myths used to try to legitimize, downtrod, and equate that band to the very REAL and legitimate hobby that made CB radio possible. Funny......I keep running onto 8 year kids on Amateur radio.
OH, that other myth about "ham radio is dying"? The numbers are actually UP!!!
2. If it were NOT for those "old men", your precious "hobby" would not exist. It is those "old men" who are technically competent that invent, sustain, renew, and repair the equipment that jaw-flappers can't.
3. The reason that they cannot, do not, will not allocate the surrounding bandwidth near 27 MHZ is, FCC
does not have the authority, does not have the power, is superceded by another agency that controls government and military communications. If you think I am full of hot air, Google "NTIA" (National Telecommunications and Information Agency (authority) and see what you come up with. Contrary to CB myth and legend which CBers are not GOING to admit the truth of (because if they did, they'd have to admit that their perceptions of there being a "freeband" is a LIE), there are agencies who STILL carry assignments in that area. You can howl until Hades freezes over, but they are THERE! One of those agencies that we have discussed here before is Civil Air Patrol. There is a REASON why these frequencies are kept and what they are used for. The difference in CB operators and these who are trained by USAF and their own communications people is, THEY are
PROFESSIONAL communicators who know a durn sight more about what they are doing than someone that got his toy "reddio" down at Joe's CB emporium!
First and foremost, their frequencies below 27 MHZ (I cannot personally reveal the actual ones due to USAF/CAP directives),
are there as a buffer against interference that is caused by illegal operators that have no business there anyway. Next, the reason they are used is to provide
short-ranged communications in and around a local area. IOW, communications on a base of operations. Contrary to the CB mantra of "I just got to git out jist as far as I kin", they don't WANT to "get out" far. It provides comms from a command post to a flight line (maybe a distance of 100 yards), it is used by runners and messengers. It is used by mobiles out to 50 miles or so (at 150 watt level) to separate traffic and relieve radio congestion. Used as relay---all designed to relieve pressure on other circuits. Sometime used at 5 watts AM, again to provide communications in a very LOCAL area. That very "I wanna talk, talk, talk, talk, yap, yap, yap, yap" is indicative of the lack of knowledge you see no need for. The nearby (to 27 MHZ) frequency is ideal for the purpose because the VHF circuits tend to be loaded with aircraft traffic. By placing an aircraft in a "grid" and a mobile, the mobile station can toggle back and forth between VHF and HF, receiving traffic from aircraft above, relaying data to the base which is then used to add to the puzzle. Then there is yet another use for that frequency. By using the HF instead of the VHF-FM, and the SSB mode, it can frustrate the news media whose scanning receivers may not decode single sideband. Coupled with codes and ciphers, the media snoops, who will indiscriminately "leak" information regarding a search operation, simetimes cause much dismay not only to the searchers themselves, but to a family who might accidentally find out their relative is deceased in a crash BEFORE the proper people have had a chance to meet with them. Families sometimes have their OWN scanners, but by using HF instead of VHF, such distress can often be avoided.
Again this agency (CAP) DOES use its HF resources just below 27 MHZ. And, yes, it sometimes has its communications disrupted by untrained, unauthorized operators who
think they know what they are doing. These people are
appliance operators who aptly deserve the names they receive from hams and professional communicators alike. Some of the names are derisive, dripping with contempt.
The radio "hobby" as it applies to CB wouldn't exist if it werent for those "old men". It takes nothing to turn on a TV, and it takes nothing to turn on a CB "appliance", either. The difference in the two, is that the CB is capable of creating great harm and massive interference in the hands who know
sh-- from shinola about radio. I shudder to think of the things that wouldn't have been invented if the only thing we want to do was sit on our duffs and expect technology to mysteriously appear for our gratification. If you believe this isn't the case, just LISTEN to a CB. You decry the hams, as you put it, "all prim and proper" and wax almost eloquent in your admiration for "SCREEEEEEEEE, HOOOOOOOOOOOWWL, ROOOOOOARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR", "Let's put some 'far in th' w'ar" and "stomp them thar mudducks". Sorry, there's more DX on 14.195 MHZ than 11 Meters ever could ever wish for in a millenium! And the hams do it with-OUT all that noise. Wanna know WHY? Because they DO follow rules of technical competence, courtesy, and more fully understand what they are doing.
The real difference in a CBer and a ham is, it takes more to challenge a ham than mere jabberjawing.!
CWM
