The AM Forum

I happened upon this on QRZ.com. Reportedly, it is a posting on Craigs List in Pittsburgh, Pa.


I hope the person who wrote that did better on his amateur radio exam than he did in Freshman English. 

You don't get a second shot at a first impression.

Just whom should we be aiming for in the general population as we look for new hams to replace us old buzzards as we die off?

Click here to view the entire thread (http://forums.qrz.com/showthread.php?t=194864)

I hate to tell you, but radios is gramatically correct. I sincerely hope you didn't think there was supposed to be an apostrophe there. Also, Gran Prix is correct. It's not a "Grand Prix".

Otherwise, he only half-changed "licenses" to "license classes", mis-spelled "Morse" and dropped an apostrophe.

I've seen far worse abuse of the English language on this very board, usually by people claiming that nobody has their level of understanding about life.

I guess Dan Quayle would spell it radioes.

He's from Picksburgh what do yuuns expect....LOL.....

I was much more involved with NHRA ... All Power, One direction, Get-r-Done... 8)

Left turns, Not an Option...

73
Jack.

No, the point about "radio" was the multiple repetition of the word.  He's using grade 4 level English.  It would have sounded much more pleasing to the ear and to the intellect as "They use base stations, along with mobile and hand held radios to talk all over the county using a series of repeater sites."

You're right about Gran Prix.  But I wonder why it's spelt that way.  I always assumed it was taken from French because of the way it is pronounced, and the only forms of the word are grand, grande, grands, grandes, although I have seen grand-chose (never grande-chose), written as gran'chose and grand-père as gran'pere.

Something that really grates like a fingernail scratching a blackboard is the improper use of it's.  You  see it all the time, even in what passes for scholarly and professional writing, for example "the station lost it's tower in a storm".  It's is used when and only when meant to be a contraction of it is.

But NO one makes fun of a guy with a gun  8)

I couldn't help but post on a thread entitled "Dumbing Down", have a reputation to keep up.  :)

Ok, now I posted.  ;)

And pronounce it R-ah-dioes.

It is a problem, though.  There's a guy on another reflector, got his first license 3-4 months ago, bought a relatively expensive high performance R-ah-dioe, passed the Extra class exam this month, and is still confused about what AGC is all about.

So it goes ... won't ever be the same.  Too many guys with 2-letter calls still trying to figure out how to compute the length of a dipole, much less anything a bit more serious.

Grant/NQ5T

LOL. It never was the same.

The names of the licence classes are way out of date, and none of them any longer reflect the essence of the classes they represent.

There is no real "Extra" class any more.  Per Dictionary.com:
ex⋅tra 
–adjective
1.    beyond or more than what is usual, expected, or necessary; additional: an extra copy of a newspaper; an extra charge.
2.    larger or better than what is usual: an extra binding.

That realistically described the top grade of licence back when it was essentially a trophy  licence, a stroke of the ego; when there was a two-year tenure requirement, a high speed code requirement, and it carried no additional operating privileges, and even after incentive licensing, when it carried only a minuscule 25 kHz exclusive CW segment on each band and a minuscule 25 kHz phone segment in some bands.  Following incentive licensing, the Advanced  became the workhorse ticket that carried a majority of the useful privileges.

Now, that the Advanced class has been retired and Extra Class is mandatory to shed the severe restrictions imposed on the General class, while the tenure requirement and high speed code test are long gone from the Extra, and 50 questions have been whacked off the written test, the so-called "Extra" has become the workhorse ticket, no longer primarily a trophy, but mandatory in order to not miss out on a large portion of the privileges available to amateurs. It no longer fits the category of something "beyond or more than what is usual, expected, or necessary" or "larger or better than what is usual". It is  no longer "unusual" because new licensees must acquire it in order to fully enjoy amateur radio.

In reality, the Extra is the new General class.  It should be renamed something  like "Full Licence".

Now, let's look at the General.  Per Dictionary.com:

gen⋅er⋅al  –adjective
1.    of or pertaining to all persons or things belonging to a group or category: a general meeting of the employees.
2.    of, pertaining to, or true of such persons or things in the main, with possible exceptions; common to most; prevalent; usual: the general mood of the people.
3.    not limited to one class, field, product, service, etc.; miscellaneous.
4.    considering or dealing with overall characteristics, universal aspects, or important elements, esp. without considering all details or specific aspects: general instructions; a general description; a general resemblance one to another.

That used to accurately describe the General Class ticket.  It carried the overall,  prevalent, usual, universal, important privileges.  But to-day, it carries very limited operating privileges, and licence holders are extremely restricted, able to enjoy only a fraction of the overall amateur privileges.  A more accurate name would be "Restricted Licence".

The Technician class was originally designed to promote experimentation with the upper VHF, UHF and above frequencies.  It was designed for the technically minded person with little or no interest in two-way communications beyond experimentation with the apparatus.  The Tech would not be passing traffic, working contests or ragchewing, unless the ragchewing involved technical discussions with hams of like interests, about breaking new technical barriers at UHF and microwave.

To-day's Technician class is about everything but the above.  It has become the new Novice, or entry level class.  Techs are not expected to know a tremendous lot about what is inside the radio.  The class has long been criticised because a large number of licensees simply buy a radio and work the repeaters or ragchew nightly on 2m. simplex with the local yokels.  Techs are not even allowed to operate AM in their limited 10m band space because is assumed that building an AM transmitter or converting an old CB rig to the amateur frequencies would be beyond their capability, and it is expected that they will simply buy a ready-made SSB radio in order to communicate.

Therefore, a more appropriate name that would more accurately describe the present-day the Technician class ticket would be the "Communicator Class Licence".

This is not to say that there was anything wrong with the FCC's decision to simplify the licensing structure; all those licence classes we used to have (extra, advanced, general, novice, technician-plus and no-code technician) was unwieldy, burdensome to the FCC, and served no useful purpose.  It needed to be streamlined. 

But the three remaining grades of licensing should have titles that accurately reflect their purpose and the privileges they carry.

Well, we have a choice, don't we.  We can try to bring him up to speed, or decide he is not "worthy", and make fun of him.  The former might help, the latter surely won't.

No kids, no lids.....

Amen.

If you keep listening to that Steve guy, you'll ALWAYS be a radio moron.  ;D

I love the Morris code but "it's" is one of my favorite blunders also.

Thanks for saving me the trouble of looking it up.

I tend to use the ' for the usual possessive but I guess it's just one of those quirks of our wonderful language.  Just when you think you know the rules, here comes the exception.

Another one is putting "anymore" at the front of a sentence.  I hear this all the time, it makes perfect sense but sounds totally illiterate but I can't think of any rule that it violates.  I know, too many buts.

js

I like Katoes...Morris wudda made a good AMer... ;D

It's the attitude menzes..

73
Jack.

One of my personal faves is when someone being interviewed is asked a question, and the first two words out of their mouth are "I mean...".

Huh? You haven't made a single noise until this point, what portion of your silence is it that needs to be clarified?

It's just another one of those stupid things we do as a society as though they made sense.

Or when someone sprinkles their conversation with "you know".  No, I don't know. That's why I want you to tell me. 

I once watched Tony Blair in an interview while he was still prime minister, and even he sprinkled his discourse full of "you know's".

If you have a chance, watch the movie 'Idiocracy'.  It's a satirical look at the future of the US if current trends are any indication.  The idea is that well-educated people are having the fewest children, so the reverse-Darwinian 'natural' selection will push the national IQ down. (The XYL and I have 5 kids, so draw your own conclusions.)
The America of 2100 is depicted as being full of strippers, monster trucks, and professional wrestlers.  And misplaced apostrophe's.

 ;D

French speakers can be worse than English speakers about spelling.  Written French is much more phonetic than written English, but their spelling system is very complicated, and nearly any pronounced syllable has more than one possible spelling.

When you study French in school, you have the proper spelling of the words pounded into your head, and you are expected to get all the accent marks correct, etc.  But if you ever look at an example of Geo Bleau's writing, you may find a tremendous number of spelling errors even though the words are written so that when read phonetically, the pronunciation comes out perfect.

This is very conspicuous in French language chat rooms and message boards, plus the garbled text is usually mixed in with cyper-abbreviations and acronyms.

French schools constantly drill proper spelling into the kids' heads with frequent, long and difficult dictation exercises, but many still never quite get it.  English has its own spelling difficulties, but I don't think I ever remember having to do dictation exercises in my English or spelling classes in elementary or high school.

So does the current Prez. And a ton of ughs, when off the teleprompter.

He does it a little more fluently and more smoothly than his predecessor.

Not sure how fluent one can be considered when every other word is uuuuuh. Smooth? Sheister salemen are smooth.

I agree as far "never the same"-- and at least the "novice" of years ago knew how to calculate the
length of a dipole, and knew ohms law, which is more than can be said nowadays with "todays
requirements" or should I say "lack of requirements".

                                                73, K1MVP ::)
                                           

This is true.

When we were training in NYC as young stockbrokers, there was always some kind of script when cold calling.  No matter how smooth we got with it, we were told to, "slip up" on every call to make it sound more natural.  We would intentionally stutter or say an "uh" just to make it sound more spontaneous and like a real person.  Nothing worse than a fast talking salesman with a perfect rap to trigger the subtle con-man barriers up in a prospect...  ;D

So, next time you're working DX, HUZ, no more Mr. Smoothie. Lets hear some more, "Name here is Steve, spelled Jig-Item-Mary - and for you, my friend, uh, uh... 58... no 59, my go-goo-goo-good friend!  ;)

T

Or name here is Tom, short for Jacque.   ;)

Jacque's got the strap.  :)

I was never really Found of the French I met in 77 or 78..Great liberty Tourist traps...But alot that i ran into were Snobs and thing-a-ma-bobs,,,they just didn't like service personnel very much.. oh well give me Scotland, London or Ireland or Switzerland...Germany...there i pulled some great liberty...


France...Sniff...

73
Jack.

Taking Don's #9 post a little further, and discussing two-letter calls along with Extra Class, only a small handfull of 2's were issued between the end of ww2 and 1967. Beginning with incentive licensing (that horrible mistake of the the ARRL), two-letter calls were issued to those with Extra, 20-wpm, BUT ALSO REQUIRING HAVING BEEN LICENSED CONTINUOUSLY FOR AT LEAST 25 YEARS. That amount of time sorta considered the applicant enough of an old timer to deserve a two-letter suffix.

Now, however, a newcomer can sit down and pass the extra exam with no code at all in one exam session, and as soon as he receives a KA, KB, KC, etc call sign he can immediately request a two-letter vanity call sign. This bit of down grading takes away any of the traditional value of the 2-L sign.

I earned mine the hard way in January of 1968, 41 years ago with having already been licensed for 35 years. There was nothing hard concerning the 20wpm code however, because when at WMFJ, Daytona Beach in 1940, we still had no RTTY for news, only Press Wireless WCX/WJS cw at 38 wpm, which I copied on the mill, and then read it into the mike later during the news hour.

But them days is long past. (Pardon the Southern grammar, Don.)

Walt, W2DU

Congrats on being licensed for 76 years, Walt!  That's quite a feat, OM. You've seen a lot of changes in the hobby for sure. 

This December makes it 45 years licensed for me... just a pup... ;D

T

This summer will make it a half-century for me.  An honorary Old Buzzard.  Tom's just a young whippersnapper.

As for the vanity callsign, I had once entertained the idea of getting a 1X2.  I had sort of a tongue-in-cheek 1X2 at my QTH in Cambridge, MA, when the FeeCee decided to start giving them away, by allowing anyone with Extra class to apply for the 1X2 of their choosing.  That had to be about 1978 or 1979.  I didn't hear of anyone else showing interest, so I applied for W1JS.  At that time you could keep your original callsign, and apply for a "secondary" station licence.  I was living in MA at the time, and had been operating several years as /1. I got the callsign, but got a job offer in TX about the same time, so I used it in W1 land for about 2 weeks before moving to Houston.  I operated there as W1JS/5 for a couple of years, but by the time it came to renew, I had just moved back here and the FeeCee had taken a 180° about-face in policy, and would no longer recognise "secondary" station licences, so I had to choose between my K4 callsign and the W1.  I decided against the W1 because this was my original callsign and I was the original holder thereof, while the W1 was a  dead man's call.  Plus, as flaky as the FeeCee was in that era, I was afraid that some time in the near future they would abruptly change policy once again and say that you had to have a callsign to  match your geographical district, and not renew my W1, and I would be stuck with one of those Alfa Alfa Four calls, so I opted to keep my original and let the W1 go.  Plus the fact that many people had known me under this callsign for decades.

When the present-day "Vanity callsign" program was first announced, once again I had entertained the idea of applying for a W4 1X2 call.  But an incident happened that made me abandon the idea once and for all.

The incident occurred some  years ago on 160m, long after AM had pretty well become established on 1885.  Over the summer, activity on the band pretty much dwindled in the QRN, but one year, a bunch of slopbuckets, obviously located very close to each other, started a up a dead-air group on 1888.  They were obviously newbies freshly from 11m, with their conversation still well spiced with CB lingo. When AM activity across N. America began to resume in the fall, they began to regularly gripe about the AM QRM.  Typical slopbucket tactic, when the AM QSO had already been in progress, they would start up 2 kHz away even though there was 15 kHz of vacant space either side of the frequency, and then complain bitterly about the AM QRM: the sideband splatter and the fact that we were "throwing" carriers. One evening I was talking  with Tom, W4UOC using his DXs100 in Atlanta, GA when the slopbuckets started up.  After we had finished, I monitored the frequency a  little while, and heard one of the slopbucketeers say "The guy in Atlanta was running regular AM, but that guy in TN was running AM and sideband at the same time.  I don't know how he does it, but I'm pretty sure it's illegal."

A few weeks later, the FeeCee opened up the vanity callsign program.  Almost immediately, nearly every one of the stations in that dead-air group showed up with brand new W4xx 1X2 callsigns.  Once upon a time, a 1X2 callsign signified a ham with many years of experience and a degree of technical expertise, but this told me that not only had the Extra Class lost any significance it ever had, so had the 1X2 callsign.  That's when I finally decided just to keep my original.

I had toyed with the idea of getting W2YGF after the original owner went SK, but the WB2 is now a more accurate indicator of experience since none of the n00bs seem to want WB2xxx as a vanity call (yet). My Aunt got one of the few WD2 calls before they went to the KA calls.  Why the heck couldn't the FeeCee continue with the WD's???

If Tom is a pup at 45, guess I must still be in the womb at 40 yrs.  Still not ready for the QCWA.  Thats for "old" folks. :)

I am eligible for two memberships in QCWA.   I got the extra years ago, but I planned on keeping my old call K3EZS forever.   At the time the FCC was not giving out the K calls to new hams.    With the dumbing down, I realized that to ever get a 1X2 of my choosing, I decided to change while I a desirable call would be available.    What I didn't realize is that my family and friends always knew me by my old call and it was just like changing my name to them.

I have a question.
Now I am by no way an english language expert but doesn't the english language have different rules for different situations? For instance Don mentioned the above quote but doesn't the same sort of thing indicate a possessive such as, "My son's house."? How is the rule actually stated? Because of different rules and different pronunciations for the same word I think english is a difficult language to use correctly.

As for vanity callsigns: I was WA1QWT but now I am W1QWT due to the vanity program. Why did I do it you ask?
Well two reasons. First a lot of people I was working on the air would get it as W1QWT anyway and secondly it is easier to say and remember for me as I enter my 'golden' years! (Maybe these are my 'brown' years!)

Regards
Q
PS
Happy Saint Patricks day! I'll be marching in the parade tomorrow and drinking Guinness or Smithwicks.

I thought we wern't worried about spellling on the forum..like it's some sort of gotcha now cue...Flick'em...

we're all friends here man, screw spelling..just get yer point across...what the heck.

73
Jack.

I view good spelling, the proper or good use of grammar, and punctuation, even on this forum, similar to having good personal hygiene habits. I get annoyed with myself when I post something anywhere on the web and then find out I let a spelling error slip in. When it's posted on the web, anybody and everybody can read it for a long time. Pride in how you write should not be an option.

For one time I agree with Pete.  I try to spell correctly and use proper grammar, although I am pretty poor at both.  What we leave on the net here, and other places becomes a first impression and a legacy.

Well I could dig that if one is producing something to share with others, some document for study...but fer general QSO...is this the way we act kaa kaa On the air as well...NOT>...........

Oh you rude speller feller You..arm pit BO you know.. ;D

I make it a habit to use good spelling and grammar just because some of the teachers at my scholl would havea fit if I didn't.
As for vanity calls, I would either have wanted K3PQX, which was my uncle's old call, or W3VFC. I've decided against that anyway, besides people have a hard enough time trying to remember the KB3OUK, most people still think I'm saying KB3AUK even after I repeat it 10 times.
Shelby KB3OUK

And of course that includes recruitment literature for amateur radio.  To get the best quality people, we need to leave a certain impression with the general public.

Let the 3878 and 3892 crowds take care of attracting people who take pride in their ignorance.

If I'm going to bother to write something, I'm going to make sure the person on the other end can read it.

Yes, this is a QSO, but in a QSO you want everyone to be able to copy you. If the spelling or grammar are too mangled, the reader has to stop and translate the actual meaning. That's the written equivalent of having a signal that the listener has to strain to hear.

I put a lot of pride in my writing, and I get a lot of praise for it, which tells me it's worth the effort. That means someone finds my writing worth reading, but it also means I'm at least being understood, even if not agreed with.

Just my $0.02.