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Old 08-26-2014, 08:27 AM   #45
Mr. Ham
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Join Date: Aug 2014
Posts: 95
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Some people - are hams in license only.
They got a license for a specific reason - they wanted to be able to talk to a certain person and there was no cell phones 40 years ago, so they got a license, bought some radios and used it like a telephone.

40 years ago - many of the people that I call real hams - were still on the air.
Not that they were actual real hams, but that they had to know a little more back then to become licensed and they had to do a little more to keep their license.

The guy went to school with my parents, he knew my family, he grew up in the same little coal mining town as I did. He could have been a real asset to the local hams that came along after he did, if he would have gotten involved in amateur radio - beyond just doing it for his own benefit.

I grew up thinking that someone involved in electronics was a person that wore a white collar shirt with a pencil protector and a slide rule in their pocket. I came to find out that radio involves carpentry, masonry, electrical construction, engineering, having to have the ability to climb towers, install antenna's, and understanding the engineering side of radio.

A person with a backhoe and a cement mixer and some carpentry skills can be your best friend when it comes to putting up towers and installing beam antenna's.

Making yourself and your equipment available to new hams should be one part of amateur radio that should be expected of a person that is a licensed ham. 50 years ago - there were not a lot of hams, maybe 300,000 license hams, and the people that were involved in amateur radio were educated people and the pillars of the community.

It is my belief that these people purposely gave 11 meters to the General Public to keep them from becoming hams.
If you look at history from this perspective and the amount of 11 meter equipment in this world, had they opened the flood gate 50 years ago and left everyone into amateur radio they way they did CB radio we would have millions of licensed amateurs in the USA today and we wouldn't have a quiet place to talk - because all of the bands would be active with people trying to talk. The 3 watt AM / 12 watt SSB was a limitation placed on them to keep them on a more local scale.

Had the government allowed them up to 1500 watts transmit power, there would be no market for illegal transmitters and amplifiers in the 11 meters world today and most of the people that operates illegally on 11 meters today would have just went ahead and gotten the amateur radio license and been done with it.

To have a whole yard full of large beam antenna's and then not talk on them to me would be like buying a fine bottle of wine and then not drinking it, or buying a sports car and not driving it.

Anyone would be envious to have even just one of this guys antenna's and towers that he has in his yard.
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