Subj : Re: Packet Radio
To   : Andre
From : tenser
Date : Sun Jan 24 2021 03:05:39

On 21 Jan 2021 at 03:44p, Andre pondered and said...
 
 An>  te> But I think there's room for experimentation with data
 An>  te> and digital modes.  Things like NPR ("New Packet Radio")
 An> 
 An> Hadn't heard of it before now, but it looks pretty fascinating. A hell
 An> of a lot more interesting then AX.25.

Indeed.  I think there are some folks who want to double
down on old technology like AX.25, but ... why?  I mean,
I got it running here at my QTH and that was kind of fun,
but no one uses it for anything.

 An>  te> lot more sense) much of the argument is against the proposal
 An>  te> and much of the reason for that are septuagenarians and
 An>  te> older mad about PACTOR III.  "What's wrong with AX.25?!"
 An> 
 An> That describes literally every aspect of the ham radio community. ARRL
 An> and every club are so worried about losing the old guys with outdated
 An> interests that they keep wasting all their resources on that fear. Talk
 An> to any of the kids under twenty-five and they couldn't care less about
 An> EmComm, packet, Facebook groups, etc. They want to experiment and tinker
 An> and innovate and build, communicate about it on Discord... and send
 An> memes on SSTV.

It was telling to me that KB6NU noted that there was too much
emphasis on public service in the ARRL's latest mission on the
purpose of amateur radio.  I agree with him: we are simply too
focused on that as a mission, without understanding that the
agencies that are being served frankly don't need us.

Much ado was made about the 50 hams who went down to Puerto
Rico after Hurricane Maria and passed traffic, but it's
important to note that they exclusively passed health and
welfare traffic.

The places where amateur radio really serve the public as a
communications of last resort mechanism are almost entirely
in the developing world, and that's certainly useful, but in
order to participate (at least from the US....) you pretty
much have to have HF privileges.

The kerfuffle around the league proposing expanded HF privileges
for technicians is so representative: it's mostly gatekeeping
by old guys who fear that their contesting stations are going
to be drowned out by a bunch of lids, but what I think all of
these things fail to understand is that most techs have no
interested in HF: "talking on the radio" just isn't that
interesting.  What _is_ interesting is telemetry, remote
instrumentation control, interfacing with computers and robots,
and tinkering with radios.  All of that can be done with a
tech license, but why bother jumping through the hoops and
getting yelled at by a bunch of angry old men when you can just
buy a Zigbee hat for an arduino or raspberry pi and avoid all
of that, instead?

 An> That "when all else fails" mantra is fear-based too. "Please don't take
 An> our non-profit tax-free status and don't sell off our freqency
 An> allocations." We should be selling governments, youth, hackers, makers,
 An> and whoever else on the notion that we can be innovators again.

I totally agree.  The innovation is just not there.

 An> I don't know why I'm ranting. I started this reply merely to mention
 An> that I find your posts, Tenser, to be really valuable. 

Thank you!  I appreciate that.  I'm afraid I succumbed to the rant
urge myself.

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