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Author Topic: Spectrum Management Bill, HR 607, Threatens Amateur Frequencies  (Read 51137 times)
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Pete, WA2CWA
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« on: February 17, 2011, 04:13:06 PM »

This bill could potentially put our 440 MHz frequencies in jeopardy if passed. More information can be found on the ARRL web site: http://www.arrl.org/news/spectrum-management-bill-threatens-amateur-frequencies
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« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2011, 07:59:16 PM »

.
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Pete, WA2CWA
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« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2011, 09:02:35 PM »

Thanks for the link. I'm not surprised to read this. It is likely the FCC notices the dearth of activity on amateur frequencies.


The FCC isn't initiating this. First line of linked report from previous post: "On February 10, Representative Peter King (R-NY-3), Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, introduced HR 607, the Broadband for First Responders Act of 2011."

Quote
This bill seems to exempt 440 to 450 mHz, where seldom-used 70 cm FM repeaters operate. Amateur activity at 70cm and down doesn't justify retaining the allocation(s). Come to think of it, 2 meters is in a long-term downtrend in terms of activity, but those wavelengths seemingly hold little appeal to commercial and public safety interests.

The area around 432 MHz is a very active CW and SSB section

ARRL Band Plan 70 Centimeters (420-450 MHz):
420.00-426.00    ATV repeater or simplex with 421.25 MHz video carrier control links and experimental
426.00-432.00    ATV simplex with 427.250-MHz video carrier frequency
432.00-432.07    EME (Earth-Moon-Earth)
432.07-432.10    Weak-signal CW
432.10    70-cm calling frequency
432.10-432.30    Mixed-mode and weak-signal work
432.30-432.40    Propagation beacons
432.40-433.00    Mixed-mode and weak-signal work
433.00-435.00    Auxiliary/repeater links
435.00-438.00    Satellite only (internationally)
438.00-444.00    ATV repeater input with 439.250-MHz video carrier frequency and repeater links
442.00-445.00    Repeater inputs and outputs (local option)
445.00-447.00    Shared by auxiliary and control links, repeaters and simplex (local option)
446.00    National simplex frequency
447.00-450.00    Repeater inputs and outputs (local option)

Unless you're way out in the middle of nowhere where you can't hear any 70 cm activity, the band is active all the time. 70 cm FM repeater activity in metro areas is generally quite active, along with numerous D-Star repeaters and EchoLink activities, and even a number of EME stations. The same can be said for 2 meters and even 220 MHz.
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Steve - K4HX
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« Reply #3 on: February 17, 2011, 09:51:05 PM »

From what I hear on 440, if they turned off all the repeater that are just copies of the ones on 2-meters, there would be little or no activity. Hams better wake up to the fact that 440 is prime real estate for commercial use. Our puny use of it is not going to keep the hounds at bay.
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« Reply #4 on: February 18, 2011, 09:17:07 AM »

I know there was a decision made by the FCC to tighten bandwidth restrictions on all radios above 148Mhz. At work we have to purchase new radios that create a smaller "FM footprint". I can't remember the spec but it was a fair amount of bandwidth.
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Bill, KD0HG
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« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2011, 02:49:41 PM »

From what I hear on 440, if they turned off all the repeater that are just copies of the ones on 2-meters, there would be little or no activity. Hams better wake up to the fact that 440 is prime real estate for commercial use. Our puny use of it is not going to keep the hounds at bay.

Our 70 cm band is quite heavily used for repeater links, remote base stations and repeaters in the west, especially on the west coast where 2 meter FM channels are all occupied.

The US Gummint also has more designs on that spectrum. Stuff like wind profilers and etc have been trashing 450 for years. Same for our 23 cm band.
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Jim, W5JO
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« Reply #6 on: February 20, 2011, 02:56:40 PM »


The FCC isn't initiating this. First line of linked report from previous post: "On February 10, Representative Peter King (R-NY-3), Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, introduced HR 607, the Broadband for First Responders Act of 2011."


Isn't this guy one of the kind who has raided the Social Security trurst fund, spends money whe don't have and thinks any radio specturm should be sold to companies who contribute to his re-election/retirement fund? Sounds like a politican to me.   He should be subjected to a barrage of emails from hams about this. 
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WA3VJB
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« Reply #7 on: February 20, 2011, 03:05:33 PM »

Patrick, it's the type of proposal from Rep. King that makes it risky to invite outside groups to "evaluate" the Amateur Service.

http://amfone.net/Amforum/index.php?topic=26371.0

> > The objective of the bill -- which is supported by the ARRL -- is
> > for the Secretary of Homeland Security to study the uses and
> > capabilities of Amateur Radio communications
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« Reply #8 on: February 20, 2011, 03:34:57 PM »

Jim said:
Quote
Isn't this guy one of the kind who has raided the Social Security trurst fund, spends money whe don't have and thinks any radio specturm should be sold to companies who contribute to his re-election/retirement fund?

Without making this a politcal thread but more about political actions and threats to our bandspace, I would invite you to check out the following URL which shows who got how much $$$$$. Personally, I was stunned. I think Rep. King is more concerned about First Responders. Pay close attention to the Telcom Services & Equipment and Telephone Utilities. I didn't see his name listed in any of them.

http://www.opencongress.org/money_trail
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Mike(y)/W3SLK
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Steve - K4HX
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« Reply #9 on: February 20, 2011, 04:16:20 PM »

All Congressman and Senators have raided Social Security for decades. Get real and please stay on topic.
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WD8BIL
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« Reply #10 on: February 20, 2011, 09:14:15 PM »

Quote
Isn't this guy one of the kind who has raided the Social Security trurst fund,

The short answer is no. There never was a "trust fund", "lock box" or any other pool of SS money!

But, on topic, Steve's right. At least here in the east, Bill, 440 is really nothing more than a 2 meter mirror band.
Other than that use it's pretty dead here.
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Steve - K4HX
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« Reply #11 on: February 20, 2011, 09:25:51 PM »

And between my home QTH and the Baltimore/Washington area, there is precious little repeater activity on 144 or 440 MHz compared to 20 years ago.
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« Reply #12 on: February 20, 2011, 09:44:58 PM »

I know there used to be quite a bit of 440 schtick over in the Lynchburg, VA area when I was there. Of course you had your denziens of RF engineers from Antenna Specialists, GE/Ericckson, & Allen Communications.
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Mike(y)/W3SLK
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« Reply #13 on: February 20, 2011, 11:49:49 PM »

Once you get past HF and lower VHF, there isn't a lot of difference in propagation regardless of frequency. Other than for what little frequency-sensitive experimentation that goes on in amateur radio, 2m is just like 70cm, which is just like 1 gHz as far as propagation is concerned.  The differences lie mostly in ease of access and demand for the spectrum by competing services.  If we don't use our VHF/UHF/microwave spectrum, we'll eventually lose it, and the vast majority of hams won't even miss it.  Hell, we can't keep 10m occupied when there is no skip propagation.

I am leery of the very concept of auctioning off spectrum; it's a scam concocted by politicians to siphon off more revenue from the public.  The radio spectrum isn't the government's to auction off; it is a public resource already belonging to the citizenry.  The government's only legitimate claim is recouping their expenditure for licensing and policing the spectrum in the manner as necessary to give every member of the citizenry fair access to what limited spectrum is available.  

In other words, this is in reality a hidden federal tax imposed on everyone who lives in the country. The ungodly sums of money paid by the corporations who win spectrum auctions doesn't come out of thin air or from the good graces of the CEOs and stockholders. It comes as part of the overhead expense of operating a business, meaning that the prices of the products the companies sell are driven up a little in order to pay for the spectrum purchased at auction. This cost is passed on to their customers in the form of higher commodity prices, and since those commodities and telecommunications are ubiquitous in the business world and society in general, this expenditure ultimately trickles down to you and me, the public.
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Don, K4KYV                                       AMI#5
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« Reply #14 on: May 16, 2011, 12:31:05 AM »

The number of Amateur licensees has been declining for years and for years the "Old School" operators have been complaining about how easy it is these days to get licensed (both true!). With the decline of HAMs has come a decline in band usage. That is how it works. What needs to be done is to increase the number of HAMs out there who will use the 70cm bands, we need more Technicians! That means we need to either engage a younger generation in amateur radio or embrace the "HAM-Cram" testing model. I suggest we do both!

 I think that these days very few people get interested in radio because there is so much more to do in terms of global communication, so it is difficult to engage a kid in something that is over a century old (although it is interesting to consider the close similarities!).

 My bet is that most of you got into radio because some relative, or neighbor or what have you kind of showed you the ropes. Or maybe it was the only way for you to have a conversation with anybody from somewhere else. It's not the same these days with SKYPE, the Internet, Twitter, cell phones and instant messaging. It's a different world and we need to accept that and adapt to it rather than just bitch about it. That does not mean that we have to give up 70cm though. It is well used here on the West Coast by many HAMs, many of whom are involved in ARES/RACES. Giving up 70cm would mean we would have to use 1.25M instead, which we are not set up for. That means that we would have collectively wasted millions, if not billions, of dollars on our 70cm equipment.     
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Pete, WA2CWA
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« Reply #15 on: May 16, 2011, 03:55:51 AM »

The number of Amateur licensees has been declining for years and for years the "Old School" operators have been complaining about how easy it is these days to get licensed (both true!). With the decline of HAMs has come a decline in band usage. That is how it works. What needs to be done is to increase the number of HAMs out there who will use the 70cm bands, we need more Technicians! That means we need to either engage a younger generation in amateur radio or embrace the "HAM-Cram" testing model. I suggest we do both!
 

You should check your statistics. As an example, for total amateur radio station licenses, January 2009, 664,272, and April 2011, 698,074. And for Technicians, January 2009, 323,248, and April 2011, 342,572. If you want to promote activity on 70 cm, you need to sell why it has value to amateurs over any other VHF/UHF band.
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« Reply #16 on: May 16, 2011, 06:42:47 AM »

ARRL has their undies in knots over 70 cm but far more hams use HF and 160 m. which are in the process of being destroyed by unintentional radiation from appliances and about which ARRL has done absolutely nothing as far as I can tell.
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« Reply #17 on: May 16, 2011, 12:47:56 PM »

The number of Amateur licensees has been declining for years and for years the "Old School" operators have been complaining about how easy it is these days to get licensed (both true!). With the decline of HAMs has come a decline in band usage. That is how it works. What needs to be done is to increase the number of HAMs out there who will use the 70cm bands, we need more Technicians! That means we need to either engage a younger generation in amateur radio or embrace the "HAM-Cram" testing model. I suggest we do both!
 

You should check your statistics. As an example, for total amateur radio station licenses, January 2009, 664,272, and April 2011, 698,074. And for Technicians, January 2009, 323,248, and April 2011, 342,572. If you want to promote activity on 70 cm, you need to sell why it has value to amateurs over any other VHF/UHF band.

The number of HAMS may be increasing, but the number of hams has been on the decline for at least a decade. FCC data base statistics don't tell the whole story.  Compare the congestion on 160-80-40 to-day with what it was a generation ago, and then take a listen to your local 2m repeater activity.

This decline in activity is not necessarily a bad thing.  If the level of congestion had continued to rise as the number of hams increased exponentially, as was the case in the late 50s and early 60s, saturation point would have soon been reached, with dire consequences. Uncontrolled growth was stopped dead in its tracks by incentive licensing, which is about the only good thing that can be said about that debacle. Since then, we have seen slo-growth, no-growth and periods of negative growth. While there has recently been a small but steady increase in numbers in the FCC data base, activity on the bands has continued to decline, not just on HF, but on 2m repeaters as well.

What we should hope for would not be a return to exponential growth, but for the active ham population to reach a stable equilibrium point with a reasonably comfortable level of congestion. Remember, "growth" was one of the main instigators that fuelled the anti-AM mood and the obsession with "bandwidth" that existed from the early 60s through about the mid 90s. OTOH, too much negative growth could result in loss of our frequency spectrum by default, particularly at VHF and above.

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« Reply #18 on: May 16, 2011, 01:37:18 PM »

Quote
"growth" was one of the main instigators that fueled the anti-AM mood and the obsession with "bandwidth" that existed from the early 60s through about the mid 90s.

SSB's struggle for acceptance in the early 1960s was successful in part because of rapid growth in those days among licensed radio hobbyists who primarily operated on HF.

When that lump of activity moved toward 2m in the late 1970s, the level of HF congestion plateaued, and in the past 10 years has begun to improve markedly.

Somewhere preceding and concurrent with that was the increased popularity of AM on HF, where we eventually encountered only a few leftover attitudes about "bandwidth," and the League's discredited companion mantra, "spectrum efficiency."  

A number of years ago, I had a conversation with Fredrick Wentland, now retired from the NTIA1, who often was quoted or cited by the ARRL as providing the sentiment behind the League's push for "bandwidth" conservation.

The problem for the group in Newington is that he said he never placed the kind of emphasis on the matter that the ARRL had done (surprised? not me). In fact, he said when he was a kid his best memories of "ham" radio involved listening on a Hammarlund receiver of the era.  

We would have been on AM, and he said those of us who are on AM are contributing to the hobby like anyone else.

So the mentality that inexplicably held AM in lower regard may have had a basis in congestion on the phone bands in the 1950s, that was largely resolved by the 1960s.  Anything beyond that had no such basis and was rooted in traditional rivalry and bias.



1In 2003, Fredrick Wentland was named Associate Administrator for Spectrum Management at the Department of Commerce's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).
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« Reply #19 on: May 16, 2011, 02:03:11 PM »


So the mentality that inexplicably held AM in lower regard may have had a basis in congestion on the phone bands in the 1950s, that was largely resolved by the 1960s.  Anything beyond that had no such basis and was rooted in traditional rivalry and bias.


THIS IS TRUTH
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« Reply #20 on: May 16, 2011, 02:04:51 PM »

With the decline of HAMs has come a decline in band usage. That is how it works. What needs to be done is to increase the number of HAMs out there who will use the 70cm bands, we need more Technicians! That means we need to either engage a younger generation in amateur radio or embrace the "HAM-Cram" testing model. I suggest we do both!    

The "HAM-Cram" testing model has done tremendous damage to our radio service. Hearing all the CB-isms, rancid CB operating habits, foul language, and CB lingo on our bands shows me that these HAMs (sic) are not in decline. On the contrary, they are infesting our bands like cockroaches in a city tenement. When we have "Extras" who don't even know how to make a simple dipole antenna, something is seriously wrong. People who obtain licenses through cram sessions are no more qualified to be in amateur radio than those who memorized the old Baltimore Catechism are qualified to write discourses on theology.

BTW, the term "HAM" (spelled in all capital letters) is itself a CB-ism. And there already is a band for those HAMs (sic), a band which is not currently being threatened by anyone: 27 MHz. When will we start hearing phony Southern accents and "Smokey Bear" reports on 2 meters?

Good use of 70 cm and other bands comes from those who can innovate and build. The very existence of repeaters on the amateur VHF and UHF bands is due to people who bought land mobile equipment that was rendered obsolete by a change in the FCC rules and adapted that equipment to our bands. The late K2IEZ was such a pioneer in New Jersey. Glorified CBers who cram for exams are hardly an asset to amateur radio. The "old school" kind of amateur radio was a good stepping stone to careers in communications and electronics. It led me to a 39 year career in broadcast engineering. And THAT is what we need to be teaching to our young people.

The hottest places in Hell should be reserved for those who run cram sessions for our licensing exams. Quality, not quantity!
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« Reply #21 on: May 16, 2011, 02:55:50 PM »

With the decline of HAMs has come a decline in band usage. That is how it works. What needs to be done is to increase the number of HAMs out there who will use the 70cm bands, we need more Technicians! That means we need to either engage a younger generation in amateur radio or embrace the "HAM-Cram" testing model. I suggest we do both!    

The "HAM-Cram" testing model has done tremendous damage to our radio service. Hearing all the CB-isms, rancid CB operating habits, foul language, and CB lingo on our bands shows me that these HAMs (sic) are not in decline. On the contrary, they are infesting our bands like cockroaches in a city tenement. When we have "Extras" who don't even know how to make a simple dipole antenna, something is seriously wrong. People who obtain licenses through cram sessions are no more qualified to be in amateur radio than those who memorized the old Baltimore Catechism are qualified to write discourses on theology.

BTW, the term "HAM" (spelled in all capital letters) is itself a CB-ism. And there already is a band for those HAMs (sic), a band which is not currently being threatened by anyone: 27 MHz. When will we start hearing phony Southern accents and "Smokey Bear" reports on 2 meters?

Good use of 70 cm and other bands comes from those who can innovate and build. The very existence of repeaters on the amateur VHF and UHF bands is due to people who bought land mobile equipment that was rendered obsolete by a change in the FCC rules and adapted that equipment to our bands. The late K2IEZ was such a pioneer in New Jersey. Glorified CBers who cram for exams are hardly an asset to amateur radio. The "old school" kind of amateur radio was a good stepping stone to careers in communications and electronics. It led me to a 39 year career in broadcast engineering. And THAT is what we need to be teaching to our young people.

The hottest places in Hell should be reserved for those who run cram sessions for our licensing exams. Quality, not quantity!

 My apologies for using the wrong nomenclature.

 I won't argue that there are not poor manners on the radio (and everywhere else, including the Internet) these days (something that never happened on the radio before I obtained my Tech license in 2002 I am sure), but how can you be certain that these offenders are actually licensed through ham-cramming? From the way you put it I presume that one of the problems is they are not identifying every 10 minutes either, am I right? I have seen posts on different forums where people admit to operating without a license with impunity (one forum posting I recently read said that this subject comes up at least once a week in a new posting, and the person is flamed to a crisp in no time at all). This is a different problem to me than the Spectrum Management Bill, HR 607 that the OP is about.

  If there are not enough people using the bands then perhaps the FCC would be well justified to take them away from amateur use and auctioning them off. My post was only a suggestion as to how amateurs might address declining use of 70cm. It is my opinion that 70cm gets used mostly by newly licensed technicians more than by the Extras who have been licensed for many decades. Perhaps that is an incorrect assumption on my part though.

73
 Hans KG6TJU   
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« Reply #22 on: May 16, 2011, 09:53:52 PM »


The "HAM-Cram" testing model has done tremendous damage to our radio service. Hearing all the CB-isms, rancid CB operating habits, foul language, and CB lingo on our bands shows me that these HAMs (sic) are not in decline.

This is one of the reasons why I began to operate AM 98% of the time.  I grew tired of SSB qsos in which no topic was off limits.  Most of the time on AM you still find the civility and adult polite society of on-air operating that was common place when I became a ham.   The same can be said for CW.  On 75 SSB it is like unbleeped satellite talk radio every 3 or 4 kc.   
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« Reply #23 on: May 17, 2011, 04:45:47 AM »

Hans, welcome to the board -- don't sweat the use of the term HAM.

Capitalized or not, it's a nonsense term that means nothing to those outside the hobby. The reference doesn't even have a foundation within the hobby.

It's just a stupid nickname that distracts from simply saying what we do. I use it only as a pejorative.




To the points in your post --  short range FM lends itself to clandestine activity. Even the police have figured out they can create a back channel for their own chit chat, stepping around dispatchers and assigned channels to stay in touch among patrol officers. Indianapolis (Indiana) city police are probably the most celebrated case of operating with impunity this way.

Because of some political sensitivities*, the ARRL delayed any public acknowledgment of the problem for weeks after the scandal of illicit radio use by police that had been uncovered and reported by a local television station. When Newington did finally express some awareness, their people gave only a third-party summary, and did not include any salacious details of what police were saying on these back channels that the TV reporter had documented, triggering the FCC probe.  

Normally you could expect a preachy, judgmental, patronizing editorial along with the group's coverage. Instead there was only a tepid response from a onetime ARRL contest manager.

http://www.arrl.org/news/fcc-indianapolis-police-department-address-unlicensed-operations

It's also true that the newly licensed radio hobbyist typically begins to operate on FM repeaters, where there no longer are large numbers of seasoned licensees to help mentor the newcomers into procedural traditions and, to encourage compliance with regulatory matters to the lesser extent that was ever needed.  

I mean, once licensed, you're in and there's not much in the way of Rules to meet.

As for use-it-or-lose it,  I think this explains why the group in Newington has discontinued its "spectrum efficiency" rap that was used for so many years.  The first time an outside industry does a monitoring survey of band occupancy, they can make a case that we are not effective stewards of spectrum those commercial interests may then petition to acquire.

This threat may have been the motivation behind all the cross band and internet-related connections among repeaters, to leverage what little activity there is into "occupancy" on multiple outlets.



* The League may have wished to avoid taking responsibility for this scenario. It was widely thought by various licensees participating in public radio blog discussions that the ARRL's "emergency responder" campaign targeting municipal workers gave such workers the idea they could use "HAM" radio for casual activity like this, licensing matter aside.

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« Reply #24 on: May 19, 2011, 11:30:57 PM »



The "HAM-Cram" testing model has done tremendous damage to our radio service. Hearing all the CB-isms, rancid CB operating habits, foul language, and CB lingo on our bands shows me that these HAMs (sic) are not in decline. On the contrary, they are infesting our bands like cockroaches in a city tenement. When we have "Extras" who don't even know how to make a simple dipole antenna, something is seriously wrong. People who obtain licenses through cram sessions are no more qualified to be in amateur radio than those who memorized the old Baltimore Catechism are qualified to write discourses on theology.

Oh, please.

Ability to take a test, no matter how difficult, is no predictor of on-the-air behavior.  How does on-the-air behavior relate to whether one can make a dipole or not? 

I don't know what you're listening to, Phil, but I sure don't hear any evidence of this "infestation" you're talking about.   There have been complaints about poor behavior on the bands for as long as ham radio has been in existence.  Take a look at some of the early 1930s QSTs and read the "Phone Band Phunnies" column, where the ardent CW aficionados in the ARRL poked phun at the antics in the phone bands.

Quote
BTW, the term "HAM" (spelled in all capital letters) is itself a CB-ism. And there already is a band for those HAMs (sic), a band which is not currently being threatened by anyone: 27 MHz. When will we start hearing phony Southern accents and "Smokey Bear" reports on 2 meters?

If they are, so what? 

Quote
Good use of 70 cm and other bands comes from those who can innovate and build. The very existence of repeaters on the amateur VHF and UHF bands is due to people who bought land mobile equipment that was rendered obsolete by a change in the FCC rules and adapted that equipment to our bands. The late K2IEZ was such a pioneer in New Jersey.

The beauty of ham radio is it's a hobby with many niches and one need not conform to someone else's narrow view of "good use" to have fun with it.  History is all well and good, and there are many around that still convert commercial gear to these bands but others just have a great time with commercially-purchased equipment.   Where's the sin in that?

Quote
Glorified CBers who cram for exams are hardly an asset to amateur radio. The "old school" kind of amateur radio was a good stepping stone to careers in communications and electronics. It led me to a 39 year career in broadcast engineering. And THAT is what we need to be teaching to our young people.

It still can lead to a technical career, and it doesn't matter a whit where they came from.  Why you would put the hate on someone just because they came from CB is beyond me.

Quote
The hottest places in Hell should be reserved for those who run cram sessions for our licensing exams. Quality, not quantity!

The purpose of the exam is to ensure someone knows enough about theory and rules/regs so as not to cause interference with other services.  It's not a personality detector.  It's not intended to weed out potentially unsavory behavior.  It's not intended to point someone towards a career in broadcast engineering. 

The worst behavior I've heard on the air has been from old school hams, none of whom so far as I'm aware had been CBers.  W4VAN, W2VJZ, and others come to mind.
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FCC:  "The record is devoid of a demonstrated nexus between Morse code proficiency and on-the-air conduct."
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