Last Card Played
I listened to a fairly lengthy dissertation on the air last night about how “the ARRL is pushing the EmComm agenda down our throats just so they can sell more training and certification courses at $85 a whack”…
I can’t even begin to tell you how much I don’t care about this ongoing debate but everywhere I turn, more is being written and said about it than about anything else in all of Hamdom, or so it seems, and I suppose it deserves some attention – though now I’m only adding to the growing noise.
The history of emergency communication provided by wireless service prior to the 1980s is replete with examples of ham radio standing in the gap and saving the day whenever and wherever lines go down. I cannot find a single shred of evidence that these meritorious services were the result of hams having worked closely with the government. At any level. The War Emergency Radio Services (WERS) that came to be during World War II when ham radio was shutdown is an exception, but it was never intended as means of communication during natural disasters – more than anything it gave radio amateurs something to do so they wouldn’t be tempted to fire up on 20 meters despite the ban.
Loose lips sinks ships and all that rot.
This notion that we need to attend training, be deputized, get a badge and a flashing dash light is all relatively modern era detritus and frankly, I’ve just never bought into the need for it.
I spend my life trying to avoid the government at all costs. If I never have another single interaction with any employee of the federal, state, or local governments I will believe that life has been good to me.
Cops, firefighters, the IRS, the mayor, the dog catcher – I understand that society needs them, but I work diligently to avoid them all. The very idea that I would spend every other weekend at the local Red Cross center working with tin-plated government officials to prepare for some future disaster is as appealing to me as a raging case of syphilis.
Frankly, if it were a condition of licensing, I’d give up ham radio in a heartbeat.
In a real emergency, my station along with any technical and operative abilities that I can bring to the table shall be willingly surrendered to whoever might have need of them. But until then, I want to live life on the down-low in this regard and that doesn’t involve spending my weekends with local authorities to practice these things.
But ham radio does has a problem, a big problem, and I’ve come to believe that the ARRL’s constant messaging about “When All Else Fails”, (which by the way is more hubris than can be found anywhere other than on a church sign), is most likely very carefully calculated; and necessary.
Hams often prattle off about Section 97.1 of the FCC rules that govern amateur radio. It’s the “Basis and Purpose” preamble that sets out the reasons why amateur radio exists and why the government has carved out valuable RF spectrum for it.
Someone jump in here and correct me if I’m wrong, but this section of Part 97 has not changed for decades. In fact, I’m not certain it has ever been changed since first being written in 1934. As such, it’s an antique and no longer reflects either the hobby or the real world in which we now live.
Take a look at 97.1 – basis and purpose:
The rules and regulations in this Part are designed to provide an amateur radio service having a fundamental purpose as expressed in the following principles:
(a) Recognition and enhancement of the value of the amateur service to the public as a voluntary noncommercial communication service, particularly with respect to providing emergency communications.
(b) Continuation and extension of the amateur’s proven ability to contribute to the advancement of the radio art.
(c) Encouragement and improvement of the amateur service through rules which provide for advancing skills in both the communications and technical phases of the art.
(d) Expansion of the existing reservoir within the amateur radio service of trained operators, technicians, and electronics experts.
(e) Continuation and extension of the amateur’s unique ability to enhance international goodwill.
No one in their right mind would suggest that amateur radio enthusiasts are advancing the radio art in this 21st century and there is no longer a place or need in today’s market for a reservoir of trained operators, technicians or electronic experts. The days when TV, radio, or stereo equipment could be repaired went out with the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.
It did work out very well during WWII that radio hams were pre-trained, so to speak, to enter that great conflict as trained radio operators. But can you honestly imagine a modern conflict where the Pentagon would seek out 60 year-old men to serve because they have a proven ability to build a transmitter from a box of 2N2222 transistors and know the Morse code?
And as for enhancing international goodwill, that probably ended with the advent of the Internet. One only has to give a passing glance at the many online ham radio forums to see the flood of jingoism from a sea of thick-necked hams who congregate in these dimly lit back alleys of amateur radio and epitomize the notion of the Ugly American.
What does that leave? Non-commercial emergency communication services.
When it’s all said and done, the only thing that ham radio brings to the table in this new millennium is our unique ability to provide communications services when the normal channels are disrupted.
To be very clear, ham radio is fun. It can be a most enjoyable hobby that offers enough challenges and opportunities for personal learning and growth to fill multiple lifetimes and I’m a big believer that if you’re not enjoying it, you aren’t doing it right.
But in terms of what we offer the people of these United States in return for the billions of dollars of radio spectrum that they permit us to use as our very own playground, is nothing other than the free emergency communication services that we provide and the laurels from our past days of glory.
Simple as that.
And I suppose that we need to hope that they keep seeing it that way.
How can anyone not see that the ARRL is simply pushing that agenda in it’s incessant campaign to promote “When All Else Fails” to everyone who will listen?
on January 30, 2010 at 7:18 pm
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I agree. While a lot of amateurs (especially conspiracy theory wingnuts, which we have a lot of) would like to think emcomm is some sinister ARRL plan to generate revenue, it’s merely the only thing they’ve got to justify amateur radio’s continued existence and stave off spectrum reallocation threats. Such threats are going to be much more common the coming years for frequencies above 100 Mhz. As much as I feel emcomm is a futile effort, I can’t blame ARRL. Does anyone think they can justify amateur radio’s use of spectrum by what we hear on 80m phone, or guys sending macros on PSK31, or hams building radios in tuna fish cans?
97.1 is indeed antiquated, but how do we update it to reflect reality?
on January 30, 2010 at 11:20 pm
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This reflects some of my research into the ARRL’s initial pursuit (even prior to WWI!) of affiliating with the government in order to secure amateur access to the airwaves. It wasn’t until the Army’s budget crunch (and personnel cuts) of the 1920s when they finally agreed to create the Army Amateur Radio System (AARS). The Signal Corps’ major lesson learned from WWI was that during rapid mobilization there is not enough time to train soldiers in technical fields like radio operation. Through AARS, the Civilian Military Training Corps and the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Army trained civilians how to operate radios ans use Army procedure. Oddly enough, they never flagged any of these trained individuals as possessing special skills and it was only by chance or motivation that some of these individuals ended up in the Army. Even if they were previously trained, it didn’t guarantee they would get placed in a radio operator position. AARS just evaporated after Pearl Harbor. Instead of using AARS to support local and state officials, the War Department reinvented the wheel with WERS. After the war when MARS was (re)created – it was initially open only to service personnel!(?) I’m doing quite a bit of head scratching trying to figure out just what the military decision makers were thinking through this entire process. ARRL ends up on the winning end all the way through…. pretty easy to understand what they were thinking.
on January 31, 2010 at 12:22 pm
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As you have clearly elucidated, it isn’t hard to see why the ARRL might pursue justification of amateur radio as an EMCOMM service: especially in the post 9/11 post Katrina universe, they are able to make a case to government officials that this resource is valuable and needed, and therefore our spectrum allocations are justified.
But let’s face it, the picture that they paint of our participation in emergency communications is a bit of manufactured cover story. The simple fact is, “when all else fails, amateur radio still pretty much fails too”. Take for example the recent earthquakes in Haiti. The ARRL has been running stories about how important amateur radio has been in the release efforts, but in all of the pretty vague reporting, there has been little to suggest that anything other than a few personal messages have been passed by the amateur service. The FCC mentions the efforts of hams from the Dominican Republic, but it’s clear that there is a lot going on which has nothing to do with amateur radio.
The idea that our spectrum allocations should be preserved for EMCOMM is perhaps our best defense, but it’s a flimsy one. I can’t help but think that the ARRL should be pursuing a more balanced approach to justifying out spectrum use. Such as a) promoting education, b) self training and c) preserving a public resource for the benefit of all, just as we preserve our national parks and forests.