Letter from the ARRL !

Perfect - except for the stealth antennas.

K2WH

 

I don't care to beat this thing to death, but one final comment: The tone of these posts sadly DOES sometimes carry over onto the air. One classic example could be found during the mess over  K1MAN's programs. Not to take a side on that issue or, God forbid, import it into this discussion, but the behavior of some of the "hams" who opposed Glenn's activitites, was nothing short of deplorable. The jamming, the obscenities, the music, snied comments, etc. did not present a positive image of what amateur radio is supposed to be about. Well, you all can quote me, dispute me, bash me , or whatever floats your boats, but this is my, or should I say IS (Hi) my last on this one.

73's to all.

Frank / AE4ZV

 

Why would you think anyone would flame you for your opinion. All we can do is agree or disagree. There would be no reason to flame you.

 

Man! I couldn't have said it better, so I won't try. Echolink is a technology, and as such it is neutral insofar as doing good or ill is concerned. WE are the ones making it work for good or ill.

You have SURELY hit what is the REAL point!

BRAVO!

 

AE4ZV - Yes you are right. Fortunately this sort of activity seems to focus on particular frequencies, and is not spread across the bands. I remember being disturbed listening to the 14.313 rants long before I got my ticket. A few of those folk have unfortunately become SK's. I also kind of treat 14.313 as "off limits" to this day.

 

Let me try and bring my own experiences to bear on this thread. Even though I can't make much sense from the orginal post I believe it's questioning the usefullness of echolink.

I got my ticket as an reactoin to pirate users in Cordova Alaska. The radio shop I worked at would modify 2 meter ic2100's and sell them to fishermen in order to communicate on private frequencies. Before people start to flame and scream and yell please understand I certainly did not understand what this meant legally. To me, modifiying the radio's was a challenge in soldering skill because of the size of the components. I knew the radio's where ham radio's and had met a few ham's before and though they where easily the coolest radio on the market I didn't really understand what a HAM was. I decided to get my a liscense and ordered up the book from the ARRL.

To make a long story short the more I read the more discusted I became with my employers actions. I eventualy quit and began to work more on my ticket. I received my ticket from the south central radio club in anchorage and soon enough ordered a VX7R from AES.

Here was the trouble though. I was a new tech in Cordova, ham population 3 including me. I contacted one of the other ham's in town and found out he wasn't very active lately. We did chat via 2 meter every now and then though. I decided I should just get my general and get out on HF. This meant more study and more equipment though.

Shortly after I got my ticket I broke one of my ribs and was laid up for about a week or so. Messing about on the computer one day I stumbled across echolink. I was shocked to find that it didn't require a radio at all. I signed up and had my call verified and was soon enough talking to a couple of calls in iraq. To say that these contacts increased my interest would be putting it lightly. I soon enough got my hands on one of those ic2100's and started building a sound card interface from scratch. I cobled togeter a server for it and put a 2 meter antenna up in a tree. I was limted to about 25 watts because I didn't have a large enough power supply but with a bit of testing and alot of paitence and elmering by KL7R in juneau I got my echolink node on the air. Being able to wander around town with my HT relaying calls from england and the rest of the world was a blast!

What did echolink bring me? It gave me the oppourtunity to get on the air and start to learn how to operate effectivly. Echolink is a very forgiving enviroment and the operators and owners of the other nodes are very forgiving of a new ham's mistakes. The folks in *LINUX* put up with plenty of mistakes made on my part for sure. And here is the kicker, they helped me figure out the mistakes and corrected me!

Because of echolink I became interested in homebrew applications and building my own gear. For someone with not much money this was very important. But most of all I got on the air and chatted. The more I chatted the more I wanted to go further. Eventualy I decided to go back to school and headed up here to Fairbanks. Once in fairbanks I had many oppourtunities to chat on repeaters that only fueled the fire for me to head up to general.

Now i'm going to be putting up a IRLP node here in Fairbanks donated by a ham in Anchorage. Hopefuly sometime next week Fairbanks and Anchorage will be linked together again. IRLP is much more disciplined than echolink but still serves a important purpose. It allows people to talk and communicate over the internet. When HF isn't looking good and people don't have a ton of money for other modes, IRLP and echolink provide a way for people to get on the air.

So please, when you think of echolink do not become upset because it may not involve radio's on either end. It still involves ham's talking and communicating. When talking to KL7R we both found ourselves checking our practice and making sure we identified and took the breaks that form the backbone of what makes ham radio work.

Anyway, rant over. Back to CW practice.

73 everyone
KL1RL

 

Frank - you are SO right. There is nothing about Echolink worth the venom and hate that's been spewed from some quarters. There is enough in ham radio so that anyone who cares about it can find something to be happy about. If it doesn't make you happy, leave it (and those whom it DOES make happy) alone! It's that simple. Nobody FORCES any ham to Echolink. If one had to be forced to Echolink - or, for that matter, to upgrade a license - it wouldn't mean much, would it?

And I'll even insert an analogy. And before anyone replies with venom to my analogy, I emphasize I'm using it ONLY for an analogy, not to start a socio-political war on these pages. But: It's quite the thing in some circles these days to talk about how this or than will "destroy our institution of the family" or "of marriage." Guess what? That's so much bovine refuse! Nothing OUTSIDE my family, or OUTSIDE my marriage will destroy it. We in my family might destroy it. My wife and I might destroy our marriage. But somebody off in another state somewhere won't destroy my marriage by their behavior or what they do. Same is true for amateur radio. There's not a general huge conspiracy out there to destroy ham radio with technology. WE, who are hams, can destroy ham radio. By destroying each other (figuratively, by how we treat each other). But nobody on the internet or on cell phones or on a computer or in a Japanese radio factory is going to destroy ham radio.

73,
Bill (KI4FZT)

 

Just one more thing for all the Cry Babies to bitch and moan about.

 

Just a quick note to all who have ridiculed echolink since it is not ham radio. And saying it's nothing more than Yahoo or AOL. I pose this question. What are you doing on this forum then? Is it not one ham communicating with many other ham's via your computer and internet? Well, "it's different" you say cause it's not supposed to be radio. Well, echolink, as we all know, is not radio either. It's VOIP. And it's a tool used to keep hams in communication. No different, no worse, no better than this message board. It is simply a tool to stay connected. If you don't like it, don't use it.

BTW, sorry if doubled someone elses opinion. I didn't read the entire 29 pages of rant. I got bored after about the second one.

 

KB4QLZ, you need to take a hammer to your computer and get on the air more....anger management therapy would be a great help as well

 

CHECK THIS OUT. I AM A NEW HAM.. JUST GETTING STARTED. TECHNICIAN CLASS WITHOUT CODE. I AM WORKING TOWARD MY GENERAL CLASS AND I WILL GET IT!!!! HOWEVER, I CAN CALL MY FRIEND HAMS ON THE PHONE, ON 2 METERS, AND ECHOLINK. NOW, HOW MANY "REAL HAMS" ONLY TALK TO OTHER HAMS OVER THE RADIO AND NOTHING ELSE.. GUESS WHAT? NONE. SO WHATS THE DEAL? ECHOLINK IS NOT RADIO, NOT HAM RADIO, JUST 2 OR 3 OR 4 HAMS GETTING TOGETHER TO CHAT.... AND ONLY HAMS!!!!!!. SO IF YOU WANT TO CW YOUR HAMS BUDDIES, DO IT. BUT I WILL TELL YOU THIS MUCH, FEW NEW HAMS LIKE ME ARE INTERESTED IN UPGRADING. IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME, LOOK AT THE TECH STATS COMPARED TO THE REST. AWFULLY LONELY AT THE TOP ISN'T IT. THE WHINING SOUNDS JUST LIKE CB'ERS IF YOU ASK ME. LEAVE THE ECHOLINK ALONE... I LOVE IT AND WILL CONTINUE TO USE IT EVEN AFTER I MAKE EXTRA.

 

How would you know how much air time I get. How many Field Day contacts did you make? You will be able to check my number of contacts on the ARRL site as soon as it's posted. I think you may be surprised just how much I am on the air. Wanna compare Logbooks?

 

Gentlemen:

This has not been ham radio's finest hour.

Think about it. Please.

73,
Chip N1IR

 

Come on Chip. People are expressing their opinions. Some for and some against. How can that be a bad thing? It's interesting to hear everyone's opinion.

As far as the point of the original post, it had nothing do with anything other than trying to promote echolink. The people that know the originator understand his agenda, the people that don't think he was slighted.

 

No no.

The OPINIONS part is fine! In fact, KL1RL's post is one of the most inspired (and inspiring) I have read in some time.

Its the most recent mean-spirited stuff that I;m alluding too...the p'ing match on Q's...

Not even witty...

73,
Chip N1IR