[aprssig] Ham Radio, Use it or Lose it!

[Brian B. Riley]

  Bob is probably way too modest to say this and it needs to be said.  
For  the well over 20 years I have known Bob, he has taken a look  
around him and found ways to take what we already have and put it to  
use in new ways. He has presented us with a steady stream of ideas. He  
has done so in the face of a lot of negativism that would have daunted  
a lesser men. Made them pack up and find another hobby. He doesn't sit  
back and wait for that "perfect dream solution ... in the future."

A perfect example of this is his suggestion for ground stations to  
feed GO-32 downlinks to the network. Instead of someone needing to  
configure a fancy system to do it Bob hypothesize a network of dozens  
of otherwise idle Kenwood radios each of them with a 19" whip, only  
able to copy a few minutes of a pass (high overhead). This requires no  
new equipment, no fancy equipment and can be done now. Anyone with a  
Kenwood radio can go to his website, read the info and go set it up in  
less than an hour. No technological breakthroughs need be waited upon!

I get real tired of listening to people pooh-pooh his ideas about  
things we can do now with things we already have because "when we get  
that great new technology next [fill in the future time frame of  
choice] we will be able to do it better!" That's ridiculous, instead  
of doing and achieving there's a whole lot of you who would keep us in  
an  almost constant condition of waiting and dreaming!

You know in most states dealing with the DMV is a painful thing. One  
of many things I love about living in Vermont is my experiences with  
the state AOT-DMV. They have an exceptional attitude; instead of a  
stream of reasons why you can't do this or that, they say "Let's see  
what we can do to achieve what you want." We could use a lot more of  
that attitude around here.

cheers ... 73 de brian, n1bq

On May 22, 2008, at 9:42 AM, Robert Bruninga wrote:

> Ev said:
>> Do you realize the significance of APRS?
>> It was the ORIGINAL social network!  Don't tell
>> me that Amateur radio stopped advancing the state
>> of the art in the technological and social arenas
>> when our parents passed away. :)
>
> At the ARRL Technical Challenge Forum at Dayton, the ARRL
> technology leaders were lamenting that HAM radio needs something
> for youth to get excited about.  Something like: "Look at how
> kids have taken text-messaging as the be-all-end-all excitement
> of communications!  We need something like that in ham radio!
> Why aren't we developing things like this?"
>
> To which I jumped up from the audience and could not contain
> myself and exclaimed!  "We have!  We have had local/global text
> messaging and text email from a handheld since 1998 in APRS!  It
> is exactly what kids are doing today, but we have been doing it
> for 10 years!  But you know what?  All the old fuds in ham radio
> say 'How crude.  We need a keyboard.  No one is ever going to
> communicate by punching buttons on the front of an HT'!"  SO
> still, only 1% of ham radio is even aware of this routine global
> connectivity from a handheld that we have had for 10 years.
>
> As pogo said, "we have met the enemy and the enemy is us."
> Everyone keeps waiting for the "perfect dream" solution and then
> they dream of all the things they could do.  But you know what?
> The perfect dream solution is always in the future.  The few
> instances in ham radio that really excell in actual needed
> practical communications are those that ALWAYS take what they
> have and just do the MOST with it, NOW!
>
> My 4 cents (inflation)
>
> Bob, WB4APR
>
>
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