QRZ! Ham Radio 4/QRZ Ham Radio Callsign Database - Volume 4.iso/digests/policy/940077.txt

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Date: Mon, 21 Feb 94 04:30:05 PST
From: Ham-Policy Mailing List and Newsgroup <[e-mail]>
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Subject: Ham-Policy Digest V94 #77
To: Ham-Policy


Ham-Policy Digest           Mon, 21 Feb 94       Volume 94 : Issue   77

Today's Topics:
                                Hello
Morse Code testing (was Re: ARRL's Lifetime Amateur licenses) (2 msgs)
              Policy and Procedure in Bahama Islands ..
         What can be done about unlicensed 2-meter operation?

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Problems you can't solve otherwise to [e-mail].

Archives of past issues of the Ham-Policy Digest are available
(by FTP only) from UCSD.Edu in directory "mailarchives/ham-policy".

We trust that readers are intelligent enough to realize that all text
herein consists of personal comments and does not represent the official
policies or positions of any party.  Your mileage may vary.  So there.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 20 Feb 1994 13:07:39 -0800
From: agate!apple.com!apple.com![e-mail]
Subject: Hello
To: [e-mail]

[e-mail] (bonnie freeland) writes:

>[e-mail]
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^
                       ^^^^^^^^^^^
>Hello, my name is Bonnie and I am a good friend of smokeman. He gave me
>your address and I thought I drop you a few lines.
 [ rest of "personals" deleted ]


PacketCluster alert!  Thatsa some rare DX!

Maybe Ms. Bonnie is mistaking this newsgroup for alt.flames.
It has lately been difficult to tell them apart :-).

73,

Kok Chen, AA6TY                [e-mail]
Apple Computer, Inc.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Feb 1994 15:07:03 GMT
From: elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!gatech!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!eff!news.kei.com!world![e-mail]
Subject: Morse Code testing (was Re: ARRL's Lifetime Amateur licenses)
To: [e-mail]

Dan Pickersgill ([e-mail]) wrote:
: [e-mail] (David R Tucker) writes:

: > Okay, English is a language, but speech (or speech sounds) and writing
: > and manual alphabet and morse, all of which can express English and
: > other languages, are not.  How's that?  Well, there's still the
: > expression "the spoken language is less formal than the written
: > language" - does mathematical linguistics allow for such common
: > usages? - so there must be the "morse language," too.
: >
: > Well, no, that description's not quite right.  Basic phonics and basic
: > letter formation are like copying by hand.  Fluency is a sort of
: > automatic understanding.  There's a spectrum of more "cipherlike" to
: > more "languagelike" that applies to all this stuff.  "Ciphers" - with
: > painful, concentrated decoding - aren't "bad," they're merely a
: > preliminary stage of mastery.  When people say, "morse is a language,"
: > we can interpret that to mean "you can develop that same automatic,
: > painless fluency for morse language that you can for written, or
: > spoken, or signed, language - and it's a joy to do so."  Not, "morse
: > is like French in having a separate grammar from English."

: I have heard people expound the greatness of Morse Encryption by telling
: everyone that they had a "QSO with a guy in France now I would have to
: learn French or he would have to learn English to do that on SSB, see
: how wonderfull CW is". And I have heard this more than once.

True, and it is fun to do that, but not much of a point for morse,
really.  The same result could be achieved if everyone had to learn
QSO English, or QSO French, or QSO Finnish, or QSO Esperanto, putting
the same amount of time in, couldn't it?  (Incidentally, was it
English or French that was the language encrypted in that contact?)

: >
: > I'm afraid the strict linguistic term is too narrow for our purposes.
: > That's okay, - linguists don't have a monopoly on setting terms.
: >
: > But, haven't we really gotten off the point - that all these forms of
: > language are conditioned responses, and that memorization is needed
: > for all of them, but that doesn't necessarily make them contemptible?
: > Dan heaped contempt on all mere conditioned responses - compared
: > developing them to surrendering one's humanity (by becoming dogs,
: > presumably).  But I can't figure out how he typed his post in without
: > using a number of them.
: >
: > -drt

: Dan did what? Humm... More like;

: Dan Pickersgill ([e-mail]) wrote (replying to Ed Hare):

: >Ed, the only thing I would take exception to (and you mentioned it) is
: >that morse is an encryption method not a language. And it IS memorized
: >the fact that you have limited time to respond is a conditioned response
: >again, not learned. Conditioned. Any one remember Dr. Pavlov?

: I didn't realize that the above was heaping contempt on conditioned
: responses.

Sure.  The Pavlov crack gives the game away.  The mental image of
people learning code is subserviant salivating dogs, and it's a pretty
clear image.  You really didn't find that contemptuous, especially
given the tone of this and your other posts on the topic?  Even on
second reading?

-drt

------------------------------------------------------------------------
|David R. Tucker        KG2S              [e-mail]|
------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Feb 1994 15:32:33 GMT
From: world![e-mail]
Subject: Morse Code testing (was Re: ARRL's Lifetime Amateur licenses)
To: [e-mail]

Dan Pickersgill ([e-mail]) wrote:
: [e-mail] (David R Tucker) writes:

: > Dan Pickersgill ([e-mail]) wrote:
: > : [e-mail] (David R Tucker) writes:
: >
: > : > But all these points tell against the Roman alphabet, do they not?
: > : > Yet written language is not encryption.  Or is it?  You neglected to
: > : > say.  Maybe we can agree that morse bears most resemblance to a cipher
: > : > at 5 wpm, and gradually becomes more like spelling aloud (as opposed
: > : > to spelling on paper, i.e., writing), or even an aural form of the
: > : > manual alphabet, when you can copy whole words without having to write
: > : > it down?
: >
: > : So morse is slang english? ...
: >
: > Why the sarcastic response to a conciliatory post?
: >
: > : ...Is ASCII or EBCDIC? No, it is an encryption
: > : method that uses (acording to this discussion) a wetware modem. Period.
: >
: > But the question you ignored while merely restating your claim is: Is
: > writing just the same thing, "an encryption method that uses a wetware
: > modem?"  And furthermore, doesn't that mean you believe mastering
: > writing to be undesirable for that reason?  If not, why not?

: The question is not, is written english a language,

Yes, it is, and I'll tell you why.

: the question is; Is
: morse code a language. By its self, without english. And if it is then
: can we say the same about ASCII.

And the alphabet.

If "written English" is a language, then "morse English" is a language.

If "Morse English" is not a language, then "written English" is not
a language.

But knowlegable people continually speak of "written English" as a
language, even though the alphabet clearly is not.  Therefore ....

If you agree here that written English is a language, you're stuck.
But you don't see any way to argue that written English is not, in
some sense of the word, a language.  The "out"?  It's not "the
question."  But, logically, it is.

I've tried to draw the distinction between learning the letters, morse
or written, and the language, either morse or written.  But you would
have none of it.  I will agree that the alphabet is a cipher if you
will concede that, at a certain stage of fluency, morse English
becomes a language in the same sense that written English does.  Any
other position isn't really consistent and doesn't reflect well on
your code position as a whole.

-drt

------------------------------------------------------------------------
|David R. Tucker        KG2S              [e-mail]|
------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Feb 1994 00:37:37 GMT
From: elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!howland.reston.ans.net!darwin.sura.net!perot.mtsu.edu!raider!theporch!jackatak![e-mail]
Subject: Policy and Procedure in Bahama Islands ..
To: [e-mail]

[e-mail] (Sonny Johnson - KF4VB) writes:

> I am a scientist at the University of Florida and also a ham operator.
> I anticipate being in the Bahama Islands (Eleuthra) for several months
> this summer on a research sabbatical.
Nice island...not sure how it has managed through the recent
Hurricanes, but several years ago we used to go to Governor's Harbor
and operate during the CQWW...nothing serious, just four guys, a light
aircraft, a ton of beer and some radios...

drop a line to [e-mail] and ask him to send you a reciprocal
operating packet for the Bahamas. I am not sure what the fee is these
days, but it used to be $6.00US/year...renewable.

Part of the reason I am foggy on this is we found a loophole to crawl
through and have a Bahamian callsign now... we keep it current and
whoever is there uses it.

Hope this helps...
73,
Jack, W4PPT/Mobile (75M SSB 2-letter WAS #1657 -- all from the mobile! ;^)

+--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--+
| Jack GF Hill        |Voice: [phone] -             Ham Call: W4PPT |
| P. O. Box 1685      |Modem: [phone] -  Bicycling and SCUBA Diving |
| Brentwood, TN  37024|Fax:   [phone] -          Life Member - ARRL |
| [e-mail]  -   "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose" |
+--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--+

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Feb 1994 18:46:17 GMT
From: agate!howland.reston.ans.net!news.intercon.com!udel!gvls1![e-mail]
Subject: What can be done about unlicensed 2-meter operation?
To: [e-mail]

One morning in mid-January, in the middle of all of the messy weather we were
having, my scanner stopped on an out-of-the-way 2 meter FM simplex channel
that a friend and I often use.  I heard one side of a conversation.  A female
voice.  The conversation went on for a good 15-20 minutes during which time
the voice never identified.  I could not hear who she was talking to but from
what she was saying, the best I could figure, she was some guy's wife
(at home and unlicensed) talking to her husband out driving around in all
the ice.  As the conversation continued it drifted towards a less urgent
content.  She rambled on about several subjects that were not related to
the hazardous road conditions.

Not knowing any of the details of their circumstance, and given the severity
of the weather and road conditions, I didn't think too much of the whole
thing.  I figured that it probably was a one time incident and let it drop.


But... a few days later during the next storm I heard the same voice again.
This time I heard the "wife" apparently calling her husband using the
following procedure:

   N3XYZ QSL?  ...  N3XYZ QSL?  ...  N3XYZ QSL?  ...  Over and over.

QSL? (!)  This sounded suspicious and perked my interest.  She eventually
established contact with someone (I assume the same mobile station as before)
and talked for a several minutes, but never identified.  Since then I have
heard her at least two more times and my friend has also heard her.  I have
the actual callsign of the station she was "calling".  I would guess that
it was issued about 6 months ago, but none of the callbook servers are
up to date enough to confirm this.

I am trying to decide what to do about this.  For now, I am continuing to
listen hoping to gather more clues as to where/who this person is.  The signal
is fairly strong but does not sound like it is in the immediate area.  I
have never heard any traces of the mobile station she is talking to -- yet.

If I could hear the mobile station (licensed?) I would rather confront him
first.  He should know better.

What is the best way to handle stuff like this?  Does the FCC really care?

=================================================================
Pete Rossi - WA3NNA                  [e-mail]

Unisys Corporation - Government Systems Group
Valley Forge Engineering Center - Paoli, Pennsylvania
=================================================================

------------------------------

Date: 20 Feb 1994 10:36:10 -0600
From: agate!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!menudo.uh.edu!uuneo.NeoSoft.com!sugar.NeoSoft.COM![e-mail]
To: [e-mail]

References <2k672t$[e-mail]>, <2k68im$[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>for-
Subject : Re: Bad Radiographers (was: Dan Pickersgill - USENET POSTS)

In article <[e-mail]>,
Jeff Herman <[e-mail]> wrote:
>In article <2k68im$[e-mail]> [e-mail] (A great x ray technician!) writes:
>>
>>--
>>Radiographers who are able to use a radiographic machine well are
>>great assets to the health care facility in which they are employed.
>>
>>   --Dianne C. DeVos, "Basic Principles of Radiographic Exposure"
>
>What an unusual statement. Did she mean to imply that there are some radio-
>graphers who are NOT able to use a radiographic machine? Frightening.

Yes. They are the ones who whine and complain that they shouldn't have to
learn math to calculate the correct MaS, or they shouldn't have to learn
positioning to correctly position the patient. Isn't it strange how
radiography imitates amateur radio?

--
Radiographers who are able to use a radiographic machine well are
great assets to the health care facility in which they are employed.

   --Dianne C. DeVos, "Basic Principles of Radiographic Exposure"

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Feb 1994 15:45:38 GMT
From: agate!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!news.umbc.edu!eff!news.kei.com!world![e-mail]
To: [e-mail]

References <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>, <2k3gmd$[e-mail]>
Subject : Re: Morse Code testing (was Re: ARRL's Lifetime Amateur licenses)

Kim Elmore ([e-mail]) wrote:

:     Really, I don't see the point of the "Morse is a language! No
: it isn't!" debate.  As Ed Hare (KA1CV) so eloquently pointed out,
: either it is relavent to Amateur Radio, or it isn't.  *This* is the
: point that merits debate.  It's similarity or lack of it to language
: is a Red Herring.

Well, I'm sorry you don't see the point of the "sub-thread," Kim, but
it isn't really "who's right about the code requirement."  I think the
question, more than red herring, is interesting in and of itself, and
I'm learning more talking with people in this thread than I do from
your run-of-the-mill code wars.  I'm sorry others don't - we aim to
please - and nothing prevents a good, polite, well-reasoned discussion
of the code requirement at the same time.  I agree with you that
whether morse is a "language" or a "cipher" or whatever doesn't much
matter in that debate.

I'll try to remember to change the thread name in any future posts
on the subject. :->

-drt

------------------------------------------------------------------------
|David R. Tucker        KG2S              [e-mail]|
------------------------------------------------------------------------

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End of Ham-Policy Digest V94 #77
******************************