A PREDICTION FOR HAM RADIO

[ae4tr]

http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif # There is talk going around that Bush and some of the rest of his Clique want's to tax the use of email. That may be a dead issue now, but could be revived in the near future.

How about this: #I predict that soon you will see in the works a fee for using the airwaves for any reason. #Consider this: #If you have a cell phone, you pay for using it. #You pay for the use of the internet. #You pay for any use of the airwaves, except for Ham Radio. #I forsee that there will come a day when you will receive a "bill" for the time you spend on the air. It can't be done you say... think again. #They have the means of identifying your transmitter now. #Every transmitter has it's own unique footprint. #And there is (available now) the technology and equiptment to identify any one of the millions of transmitters on the air, your voice print etc. #Once you get on, and give your callsign.. They have your voice print, and your transmitter footprint, who you talked to, their voice print, transmitter footprint..etc. ##Your bill will include the time you spent on the air, where you were at the time, and your personal identity. #You will have to register (another fee) your transmitter's model, serial, etc. #If you should happen to sell it, or give it away, the registration will have to be changed or else, you will be billed for the time someone else uses it.
In case of failure to register, or failure to pay, there will be penalties, that will include fines, jail time, and forfiture of equiptment. #In this day and time of super computers, satellites, etc. this is not too far fetched. #The goverment is in the red, and must have more of your money NOW!!!... They even want to charge veterans some $250. bucks a year for VA health care. #Charge the elderly for use of medicare etc.
The mindset of the Gov. is to be constantly searching for new ways to tax us citizens in the name of national security, or whatever. # We have very little privacy now, and they wish to take what is left away from us.

[WA2ZDY]

Colonel,

I just got home from abdominal surgery yesterday. #Surgery was 19 May and I've still got some considerable discomfort.

May I have some of what you have over there? #It MUST be better than the morpine I have.

Thanks.


PS: #All BS aside, the email fee you mention was a hoax that hit the spammers' trail about five years ago. #There was never any such proposal by the government, and if there had been, the corrupt previous administration was still in place making believe they had power. #Naming the sitting president in that sentence is just plain evil.

Now Colonel, what I'm hoping is that your post was a joke. #I've always respected your writings in the past. #Please advise.

[ae4tr]

http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif #I plainly stated that there was talk about the email fee for using email.. #please read more carefully.. #
The rest of the post is a prediction on my part. #Take it for what it's worth. The technology and equiptment does already exist and that is a fact. #There was a demostration about 6 years ago in the railroad radio shop, that I worked in, on transmitter footprints. Radios of the same make, model etc. had distinctly different footprints. No two were the same. Thank you. for your response. #http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[n0iu]

Quote[/b] (ae4tr @ May 28 2005,04:26)]Once you get on, and give your callsign.. They have your voice print, and your transmitter footprint, who you talked to, their voice print, transmitter footprint..etc. ##
Thank goodness this won't affect me since I use CW almost exclusively. I don't even have a microphone attached to my radio. Yeah I know they would still be able to identify my radio's "footprint", but they would never be able to identify me! Why not? We all know the Federal government has abandoned Morse code as a means of communication for the military and the only reason it still exists for amateur radio is because of some ridiculous international treaty. So maybe there is a reason for us hams to keep this antiquated mode of communication alive so we can keep our communications secret from the Feds!

Actually, we already to pay a tax on our radios, at least the ones that come from Japan. Its called an import duty.

[WA2ZDY]

You're right Colonel, there WAS talk of an email fee/tax. The talk was fortunately confined to the lunatics of the spam world.

And yes, every transmitter has a footprint, or fingerprint, the term I hear more often. We hams have used transmitter fingerprinting for at least 20 years to catch repeater jammers. FM rigs tend to have more easily identifiable fingerprints since nobody really seems to care about chirp and such on the FM services.

I hope your prediction is incorrect and based on the little I know after over 30 years of hamming, I'm going to bet it is. Time will tell.

[ai4ij]

Quote[/b] (ae4tr @ May 28 2005,04:26)]http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif There is talk going around that Bush and some of the rest of his Clique want's to tax the use of email. That may be a dead issue now, but could be revived in the near future.

How about this: I predict that soon you will see in the works a fee for using the airwaves for any reason. Consider this: If you have a cell phone, you pay for using it. You pay for the use of the internet. You pay for any use of the airwaves, except for Ham Radio. I forsee that there will come a day when you will receive a "bill" for the time you spend on the air. It can't be done you say... think again. They have the means of identifying your transmitter now. Every transmitter has it's own unique footprint. And there is (available now) the technology and equiptment to identify any one of the millions of transmitters on the air, your voice print etc. Once you get on, and give your callsign.. They have your voice print, and your transmitter footprint, who you talked to, their voice print, transmitter footprint..etc. Your bill will include the time you spent on the air, where you were at the time, and your personal identity. You will have to register (another fee) your transmitter's model, serial, etc. If you should happen to sell it, or give it away, the registration will have to be changed or else, you will be billed for the time someone else uses it.
In case of failure to register, or failure to pay, there will be penalties, that will include fines, jail time, and forfiture of equiptment. In this day and time of super computers, satellites, etc. this is not too far fetched. The goverment is in the red, and must have more of your money NOW!!!... They even want to charge veterans some $250. bucks a year for VA health care. Charge the elderly for use of medicare etc.
The mindset of the Gov. is to be constantly searching for new ways to tax us citizens in the name of national security, or whatever. We have very little privacy now, and they wish to take what is left away from us.
There are quite a few "problems" with your scenario that you aren't considering:

1 - First, and foremost, there is a limit to the amount of taxation the population will withstand, before the people will replace the overly taxing government - even if it means violence. The government knows this; and, they tread that line very carefully. Furthermore, they are almost at that limit.

2 - The cost to adminstrate such systems of taxation would be astronomical - so much so that the benefits of any such taxes would be largely consumed by the sheer bureacracy of it.

3 - The enforcement of such taxation systems would consume the rest of the funds collected.

4 - Such taxes would clearly be seen as unreasonable and a drain on the economy - in other words, self-defeating.

The only real answer to the fiscal problems of our government is to STOP SPENDING MORE THAN IT HAS. That means, stop starting wars we cannot afford to wage. Stop instituting programs and projects we can't afford to pursue - in other words, start treating the budget like it should be treated, instead of ignoring it.

73
Rchard
AI4IJ

P.S. - By the way, why is this topic here, anyway? Doesn't it belong in Talk and Opinions?

[w5alt]

Quite a few years ago there were fees charged for an amateur radio license, but they were dropped. Personally I still pay my "radio tax" in the form of my vanity license fee.

But, in response to your original post, an imagination is a terrible thing to misuse ...

73,
Walt, W5ALT

[KA8NCR]

Quote[/b] (ae4tr @ May 28 2005,04:26)]
Quote[/b] ]
There is talk going around that Bush and some of the rest of his Clique want's to tax the use of email. That may be a dead issue now, but could be revived in the near future


Only in urban legends was the government concerning taxing email. They're not.

Other talk is a token system where the sender pays a token fee, like 1/100th of a cent. To most people, this is nothing, but to people who send millions of messages per day, it's a burden. Interesting concept, but unless you give the keys to email to the likes of Microsoft or Network Solutions/Verisign, it's not going to happen.


Quote[/b] ]
The goverment is in the red, and must have more of your money NOW!!!... They even want to charge veterans some $250. bucks a year for VA health care. Charge the elderly for use of medicare etc.
The mindset of the Gov. is to be constantly searching for new ways to tax us citizens in the name of national security, or whatever. We have very little privacy now, and they wish to take what is left away from us.


They charge the elderly now for the use of medicare. It's ostensibly billed during their working lives and the benefits paid later.

Listen Colonel, your mindset is part of the problem with government. In one breath, you're complaining that the Feds want to charge for VA benefits, and that they're expecting senior citizens to pay for medicare, yet you complain that the government is searching for new ways to tax the people. HECK YES they are, because the people haven't quite made the connection that when the government pays for it, it generally means the cost is spread among ALL the tax payers.

It works like this; you want lower taxes, quit asking the government to pay for all your stuff. I'm all for it, myself.

While you adjust your tinfoil hat, let's continue this discussion in a more appropriate forum.

[WA2ZDY]

Actually, taxes could be easily controlled. Or at least we could be more satisfied with how our tax dollars are spent. As I recall, we just gave the Palestinian Authority $50M. Now we will give the other Arab nations some more to make it seem we're treating everyone equally. Then of course we have to give Isreal more money so they still think we're their friends. We'll give zillions of $$$ to combat AIDS is Africa. We'll continue to protect our friends in Europe from our other friends in Europe. And somehow, we'll manage to lose a few more multi-million dollar spacecraft.

Personally, while I understand the value of making and keeping friends all over the world, I could also understand the value of making and keeping friends here in the US. That's right, if poverty is the source of so many ills here at home, let's do something about poverty. With what the US spends on keeping "friends" of other nations, we could ELIMINATE poverty here.

I know, you're thinking I've gone looney left and am proposing GIVING it away to non-working undeserving ghetto dwellers in the South Bronx, in Watts, in Detroit, in San Juan, in Camden . . .

Well, looney left I'm not, but why the hell NOT give it to natural born AMERICANS in ghettos? We're giving it to everyone else right now. At least I don't see the folks in US cities by the thousands with AK47s holding the US Army at bay and killing US servicemen as "thanks" for what we give them. In fact if we just give them tons of cash, and there's no more poverty, they might even no longer be ghettos.

Baghdad is and will forever be an anti-American ghetto, no matter how much $$$ we throw at them.

Think about this. How many countries have we "saved" over the decades? How have they thanked us for it? France? They'd be speaking German. Iran would have been the Iranistan SSR if uncle joe had gotten HIS way. Afganistan in the 1980s?

Yeah, throwing money at the rest of the world sure is making and keeping friends for us, isn't it?

THERE'S a good place to cut spending. Think about it.

[KF6PGG]

The reason you pay for other services such as cell phones and emails is because you rely on a company to provide these for you. With ham radio you do not, hence.... no charge, other than possibly filing paperwork and such if they ever bring that back.

[ae4tr]

http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif n0iu... I believe you said: " but they would never be able to identify me! " Because you use CW exclusively. You do transmit your ID, do you not. Your transmitter would have to be registered to you, as I said in the post, therefore, you will be identified, no matter what mode you are using. Not to dispute some others that think the code is a dead issue, It is still required to get a license. I don't wish to start another code/no code debate, but you never know when or who is monitoring your transmissions.

Another said: >> While you adjust your tinfoil hat, let's continue this discussion in a more appropriate forum <<

Thanks, I probably needed that. But the headline of the post was: A PREDICTION FOR HAM RADIO.
These are my and only MY opinions, to which I am entitled to, and usually stuck with. I don't try to get anyone to see things MY way. Take it with a grain of salt, but if it should happen, don't say you were not warned. That's all, enough said. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif

[KA3RFE]

Quote[/b] (ae4tr @ May 28 2005,04:26)]http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif # There is talk going around that Bush and some of the rest of his Clique want's to tax the use of email. That may be a dead issue now, but could be revived in the near future.

How about this: #I predict that soon you will see in the works a fee for using the airwaves for any reason. #Consider this: #If you have a cell phone, you pay for using it. #You pay for the use of the internet. #You pay for any use of the airwaves, except for Ham Radio. #I forsee that there will come a day when you will receive a "bill" for the time you spend on the air. It can't be done you say... think again. #They have the means of identifying your transmitter now. #Every transmitter has it's own unique footprint. #And there is (available now) the technology and equiptment to identify any one of the millions of transmitters on the air, your voice print etc. #Once you get on, and give your callsign.. They have your voice print, and your transmitter footprint, who you talked to, their voice print, transmitter footprint..etc. ##Your bill will include the time you spent on the air, where you were at the time, and your personal identity. #You will have to register (another fee) your transmitter's model, serial, etc. #If you should happen to sell it, or give it away, the registration will have to be changed or else, you will be billed for the time someone else uses it.
In case of failure to register, or failure to pay, there will be penalties, that will include fines, jail time, and forfiture of equiptment. #In this day and time of super computers, satellites, etc. this is not too far fetched. #The goverment is in the red, and must have more of your money NOW!!!... They even want to charge veterans some $250. bucks a year for VA health care. #Charge the elderly for use of medicare etc.
The mindset of the Gov. is to be constantly searching for new ways to tax us citizens in the name of national security, or whatever. # We have very little privacy now, and they wish to take what is left away from us.
This has been going along for years. It's an urban rumor. Connect to snopes.com and look up "modem tax.' There are several versions of it.

73

[kb2vxa]

Hi all,

The only thing I take seriously is this but not for reasons of Big Brother.

"Thank goodness this won't affect me since I use CW almost exclusively."

Don't kid yourself, CW is one of the easiest fingerprints to take. Carrier rise and fall times are very distinctive and there are several characteristics of a transmitter to consider that are beyond the scope of this discussion.

Transmitter fingerprinting is done all the time with those having the need and with the proper computer software, it's easy. I know of a repeater in NY that was repeatedly jammed, users voluntarily fingerprinted to eliminate them and soon enough the jammer was identified when he showed up elsewhere using his callsign, instant match.

Meanwhile Chicken Little, remember you're still a chicken Boo and chicken is always on another Kentucky Colonel's menu. (;->)

[KC0REY]

Troll Alert!

[W5HTW]

Hey moderators! Doesn't this belong over on the "Ragchew and BS" forum?

How about moving it?

Ed

[N0KLT]

Sounds like some of you boys might be in the market to buy a bridge or some nice ocean front property in Arizona. If you believe that email is going to be taxed or have postage charged, then you have probably already invested in this kind of real estate. Taxing ham radio transmissions won't happen either.

[ae4tr]

Quote[/b] (N0KLT @ May 29 2005,13:22)]Sounds like ................................
Taxing ham radio transmissions won't happen either.

Here is a #QUOTE from #eham.net #survey
Survey View Results & Other Surveys!
By the way, the results so far show 64% yes. #36% no.
In a country where majority rules, what do ya think now??

Would you be willing to pay an annual fee ($5-$10) on your ham license if the money went to pay for tougher FCC enforcement of the amateur bands?

Enforcement huh?? #And just how do you supposed they will do any real enforcement.... This could be a step in the direction of what I posted above. # Fees? yep, you betcha!!

[ae4tr]

Quote[/b] (W5HTW @ May 28 2005,23:43)]Hey moderators! #Doesn't this belong over on the "Ragchew and BS" forum?

How about moving it? #

Ed

http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif # I agree it should be moved. #It has gotten longer than I ever suspected it would. # So go ahead moderators, move it.
http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif

[ka5s]

Not Ham Radio, but how about this (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1508650,00.html)?

Cortland
KA5S

[k4kyv]

The radio tax already exists in the form of spectrum auctions. The FCC "auctions" radio spectrum to the highest bidder, which like e-Pay items, often brings in astronomical sums of money.

But the fed gov't never "owned" radio spectrum to begin with. The FCC was created by congress to ensure orderly usage of the public's airwaves and telecommunications facilities through prescribed administrative procedures, and nothing more. That big fat auction fee is effectively an astronomical federal tax on spectrum use. The corporations with the winning the bids pay big bucks, which go directly to the US treasury. These corporations don't just absorb the cost. This added cost of doing business is passed along to their clients, and since telecommunications are ubiquitous to all levels of government and business, it eventually trickles down to raise the cost of everything throughout the economy, so the US public eventually foots the bill, indirectly.

The bottom line is, radio spectrum auctions amount to a new, indirect tax the American public is now forced to pay to the federal government through higher costs for all goods and services.