Jeff, I was going to "dog" you for being a irritating spelling, punctuation, and grammar critic until I read your open letter to J F K (the one who "served" in Viet Nam) I take it all back.....and then some!!! You are OK in any book I have!! 73/Rick
Just another way for the government to take money from the citizens. Where is the FCC when you need them to clean up 7.200? Where are they on alot of other violators...Nowhere!
I understood "tax" in this context to be more than the narrowly defined taxation authority allowed to US Congress. The government can be "taxing" as in placing demands or burdens on the public. The federal government has a habit of finding new ways to take our time and/or money, which seems to be the lawmakers' way of justifying their existence. It would be nice to see them justify their existence by finding ways to get out of our way. It seems to me that people forget that the country is more than the government. When we ask ourselves "what we can do for our country" means to me that it's not just a burden on the individual to serve the country but also the lawmakers. If their idea of serving us is putting in place more fees and government services then perhaps they need to consider how getting out of the way of the people, and be less taxing, can be of greater service. My experience is that with every severe weather event the local Amateurs will assist the National Weather Service in being spotters for lightning, hail, tornadoes, and whatever else comes out of the sky. I will say that with the recent derecho event I can recall at least one house fire report that was passed along to authorities through Amateurs on the local repeater. With a great many outages of phone, power, internet, and cellular services there were a number of public safety reports that were passed on by "amateurs" in the first few hours after the storm. I really should remind myself to listen to the GMRS repeaters in the area during these events to see how the two services compare. If the Amateur radio is going to make an argument on providing a public service as a reason to avoid these fees then GMRS users could also make this argument. There's nothing special about weather spotting on Amateur radio that GMRS could not also do. Or is there? Of course Amateur radio is more than just VHF and UHF repeaters, there's the experimentation, there's HF communications, there are more modes than GMRS allows, and I'm sure most anyone reading this can list a dozen differences that makes Amateur radio distinct from GMRS. My point is that if those in the Amateur radio want to make an argument for how licensed Amateurs provide a service to the community then this argument needs to either include GMRS because of the similarities, and therefore GMRS should be exempt from these fees as much as Amateur radio operators, or point out how Amateur radio is unique and distinct, and therefore Amateur radio should continue to be a free license while GMRS would continue to have a fee. It would also help in this argument if there were more demonstrations of this unique capability. As an example I'd like to see image modes get more attention in events like Field Day. Slow scan and fast scan TV would come in real handy for things like storm spotting. Getting more people equipped for passing images would be one way I can think of in making the case in how Amateur radio is unique from other services and therefore deserving of unique treatment.
You're kidding , right? real electronics experimentation left amateur radio behind in the 70's Not sure what you mean by this..... The entire aviation, marine communications industry and the military are moving away from ancient amplitude modulation (AM, SSB) communications on HF as primary. You're suggesting (1970's PAINFULLY slow) amateur radio video modes can work better than a kids iPhone in a storm? Unfortunately, you're making my point......
Right, and everything worthy of a patent was created before 1900. I seem to recall mention of modes used on HF besides only SSB and AM. Considering the events of the last three weeks, yes, I am suggesting that Amateur video and image modes can work better than a kids' iPhone after a storm. It's getting close to four weeks since we had a derecho knock out people's phones and internet. I'm using a cell phone right now to post this since my cable internet still has not been restored. Three weeks ago I had trouble sending a text message with a photo attached to my brother a few miles away because of overloaded and/or downed cellular services. Phone calls were near impossible. Any attachments on SMS or e-mail were also likely to fail. The only thing that seemed to work were text SMS messages and text-only e-mail. If we both had something like a D-STAR radio then I could have talked to him, sent him photos of my caved in roof, and generally more easily coordinated repairs and the like. I'll repeat my earlier point of a house fire being reported over the local Amateur radio repeater while I was listening. Would you rather firefighter responses be delayed because people were not licensed before such storms since they were discouraged by a $50 licensing fee? What's your point? I'm not sure where you were going with this. Are you questioning that Amateur radio holds any value in responding to a storm?
Here's a graph for the last 20+ years, from the ARRL. Unfortunately I do not have data for the 1991 period when code was dropped. That's why I asked others, who might have it. There is a clear drop caused by non-renewal of novices, compounded by a solar min and a depression economically. 73 Chip W1YW
Here's a graph of Novice license numbers over a similar period to your graph. There was no real change in rate of the loss of Novice licenses over this period. The Novice license was apparently losing numbers for years prior based on data from here. This is a graph of Technician license numbers. It looks to me like a lot of people with Technician upgraded after 2000, with something of an "echo" of this happening again when the FCC dropped all Morse code testing. Here's the numbers for Extra. The numbers of Extra licenses is further evidence of upgrades from the reduction of Morse code speed tests, a rate that increased after the elimination of Morse code testing. A look at the losses from Advanced numbers shows a great many of this first gain in Extra came from there. Just so everything is on the same scale I'll post the total numbers as shown by AH0A. What I'm seeing as the largest influence in this relatively sudden loss of numbers is the announcement of ITU dropping Morse code testing from the international treaty on Amateur radio licensing in 2003, and the loss being reversed by the FCC acting on this in 2007 by removing Morse code testing for US Amateurs. I'm thinking that any claims of economic recession, sunspot numbers, or anything else having any real influence over this period is wishful thinking. That's not saying they had no influence, they might have but not near the level of Morse code testing. Seeing a loss in total of licenses of over 30,000 between 2003 and 2007, only to gain them back in three years, seems to indicate to me that Morse code testing drove this dip. The 10 year dip in Technician numbers from the 2000 restructuring until some kind of "steady state" was reached in 2010 also shows the effect Morse code testing had.
The fee is not for a 10 year license, it is an "application fee", and is supposed to cover the costs of filing that application (which reasonably should cost a few dollars). It doesn't pay for ham radio "usage" in any sense of the term, since hams are exempt from regulatory fees.
Free is nice, but there is no such thing as a free lunch... $50 really isn’t really that much, although I suspect many hams quit the hobby because of it.
