Attitudes and Anarchy, Community and Service

Ed,

I just read a post in the forum in which you discuss the "attitude problems" within the amateur community. Like I've said in the past, I think you are on target with your analysis and opinions. I'd like to share my thoughts as they relate to an experience I had that I believe indicates the core problems facing the amateur radio service today.

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There seem to be two schools of thought on how to save amateur radio, those who advocate increased use of better technology, and those who think that we need to increase membership in the amateur service. Poppycock. Hogwash. And a few other choice expletives.

Some say that amateur radio is becoming obsolete because we cling to outdated modes. Others say that newer, cheaper, more efficient means of communications exist that are rendering radio itself obsolete as a medium for personal communications. If we allow this issue to become framed in terms of technology, then we are already lost. We will NEVER be able to compete with the deep pockets of the telecommunications industry, but that has been the case for the last 50 years, nothing new here! That was never our purpose! Amateur radio was never intended to be THE MOST ADVANCED communications service, it was intended to provide a useful public service.

Those who think the problem can be solved by increasing our numbers are short-sighted. True, a few hundred thousand more hams would result in a few tens of thousands of ARRL members, and increase the lobbying effort to protect spectrum, but let's face it, the Amateur Service was never INTENDED to be a communications medium for the masses.

It boils down to two main issues, and both involve the PEOPLE, not the TECHNOLOGY:

#1) We absolutely MUST re-establish a sense of "community" within the amateur service.

#2) We must also put SERVICE back in the amateur service.

First, the sense of community:

Many hams today lack a sense of being "connected" to a larger whole. Those who have these bad attitudes do not appreciate the damage done to other hams and the amateur service. My club will likely lose its most important annual service project because of one SINGLE ham. (More on this in a minute.) If I believed this to be an isolated event it would bother me a lot less, but I don't think it is.

Read the newsgroups, this forum, listen to 80 meters, or wherever, and you'll find a plethora of example of how we have lost respect for each other and ourselves. We will not solve our problems if we cannot discuss them openly, intelligently, and with an attitude of mutual respect, ESPECIALLY where there are differences of opinion. That means that we should be POLITE and RESPECTFUL to each other when discussing things like license restructuring.

The term "ourselves" exempts nobody. Those of us who operate our stations using "best practices" are part of the problem - by allowing things to degenerate to this point. To fix this problem then we must recognize that the actions of every licensed ham affect every other ham, even if only a tiny bit. If we become labelled as a bunch of rude, selfish, self-important, frequency hogging idiots, it is because WE ALL allowed it to degenerate to that level.

It's not about CB'ers this, or "appliance operators" that. It's not about membership in the ARRL or any other group. Each one of us MUST promote best practices in all modes, on all bands, at ALL license levels. We must also guard the amateur service from those who don't. I don't care if that individual is a brand-new no-code Tech, or if they hold a braggin' rights 1x2 call with 50 years in the game; you're either part of the solution, or part of the problem.

On re-emphasizing SERVICE:

If you read FCC§97.1, you will notice that service is heavily emphasized. Amateur radio is intended as a SERVICE, not a HOBBY. I think many of us have forgotten this.

In §§(a), you will read that one of the purposes of the reg is to recognize the "...value of the amateur service to the public...particularly with respect to providing emergency communications.

I'll also put §§(b) here: "Continuation and extension of the amateur's proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art."

There is our "reason for being" - public service. Public service can take place directly, by providing assistance in time of crisis, or indirectly, by adding to the base of knowlege and understanding of the technology. Most of us will never contribute materially to this second service, but there are (even still) those who use amateur spectrum as an R&D medium.

Back to the problem at my club's public service event. The event is an annual Christmas parade held in my community. Historically, my club has been the exclusive provider of radio communications services to the group that sponsors the parade. Largely due to one rude ham, the parade sponsors looked for viable alternatives - and found one.

They borrowed radios from our city government, part of an 800 MHz trunked system. I served as the NCS for the amateur radio net. I can tell you that our system using 2 meters worked better (because of our training) but was less useful, because the parade committee rarely used the operators that were provided to them.

In closing I leave you with this parting thought: If the amateur radio service does truly die at some point in the future, it will not be because our radios are old, or our numbers are down. If the amateur service dies, it will be because those who control spectrum have concluded that the Amateur Service is no longer providing meaningful public service. And that has a lot more to do with the operator behind the radio than the radio itself.