[Michael A. Terrell]

Sure. Family is still important. I'd like to be closer now that
my mother is getting older (92) and won't be around forever. We
missed being close to my MIL (died a year ago) and the FIL (20
years ago). Seeing family once or twice a year is a negative.
Living next door is on the other extreme, however.

My dad and stepmom live next door. It makes it a lot easier for me
to check on them that way. I don't drive much anymore, so I wouldn't
see them very often if they were across town.

--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Mike Coslo]

Once you get past a certain point, any further doesn't mean much.




Sure. Family is still important. I'd like to be closer now that
my mother is getting older (92) and won't be around forever. We
missed being close to my MIL (died a year ago) and the FIL (20
years ago). Seeing family once or twice a year is a negative.
Living next door is on the other extreme, however.

Ain't that the Truff! While our respective siblings moved away, My XYL
and myself get the fun job of taking care of all the aging related
catastrophes of the parental units, while the others just do whatever it
is that they do.

- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -

 

[Keith Williams]

Ain't that the Truff! While our respective siblings moved away, My XYL
and myself get the fun job of taking care of all the aging related
catastrophes of the parental units, while the others just do whatever it
is that they do.

My brother and SIL got delegated that task, though they live 50mi
away. We spent Christmas week visiting mom and my brother spent it
in Costa Rica with the SIL's family (Brits).

 

[Joerg]

Hello Keith,

And when we go back it's an eighteen hour drive, each way. It's a
PITA flying the last 200mi and I'd need to rent a car anyway.
Driving isn't a lot more expensive and we can take a lot more junk
with us.

In Europe that was easier. You could do it in a little over half that
time for the 900 miles. The best we did for the 400 miles to the inlaws
was 4 hours and 8 minutes. Last time it took longer per mile but that
was because my father's car won't go above 110mph.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Joerg]

Hello Mike,

Ain't that the Truff! While our respective siblings moved away, My XYL
and myself get the fun job of taking care of all the aging related
catastrophes of the parental units, while the others just do whatever it
is that they do.

Doesn't necessarily mean they signed off. We live way too far from any
relatives. So, we picked some 'instant relatives' in nursing homes and
so on. There are plenty of people there who are never visited by anyone
else.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Too_Many_Tools]

"I believe that the shrinking engineering school attendance is directly

related to the shrinking engineering job opportunities in the US.
Global
communications have enabled large US corporations to move a significant

portion of their high paying technical jobs off shore to lower cost
regions.
With fewer and fewer opportunities, the out of work engineers, find
themselves competing for fewer and fewer jobs. HS students selecting a

college major see this and many of them decide that it is more
important to
be able to make a living than to pursue this discipline. Many of my
former
peers elected to change careers with a significant reduction in salary
when
they were unable to find engineering work during the last few years. "

Roy is right...kids are not entering tech fields because the writing is
on the wall.

If you haven't noticed, millions of tech jobs have been offshored in
the last few years with the blessing of the government...and in a time
of war no less. Time after time I have heard a parent say that no kid
of his is going to be an engineer, computer programmer or scientist to
have his livelihood taken away when he/she reaches 40. In my own
opinion, until this country gets its priorities straightened out and
reward those who truly contribute to the bottom line we will not see a
change. Kids are smart and they follow the money...and science and
engineering is not where it is at. Also if there was a REAL shortage of
technical people you would see the wages for that speciality
rise...instead we just see more green cards issued. What companies want
is good cheap labor and their complaints are because as offshoring
continues the low cost wage employees are being more scarce overseas
which causes their labor costs to go up.

Read this article to see what society really wants...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20...ayD0aXrB2YD;_ylu=X3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-

"The $106,000 salary and signing bonus was up 13.5% from 2004,
according to a GMAC survey of 5,829 2005 grads. Salary alone increased
to $88,600, surpassing the previous high of $85,400 set in 2001."

Money talks.

TMT

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Doesn't necessarily mean they signed off. We live way too far from any
relatives. So, we picked some 'instant relatives' in nursing homes and
so on. There are plenty of people there who are never visited by anyone
else.

How true, and I'm glad to hear that others have the same attitude
towards the elderly. A request was made yesterday on our WOCA
"Veteran's News" program for people to take the time to visit veterans
in a couple nursing homes. Most of them have little or no family left,
or no family close by. I used to visit some old veterans when I lived
in Ohio. They were neighbors who had plenty of relatives who couldn't
be bothered to visit, till they died. Then they were there, badgering
the widows for all of his possessions. These days I have a lot of
trouble getting around, and my time is tied up with the computer
project, and a website of Veterans news and information. BTW, there is
a new VA website for prescriptions. Anyone reading this who is a US
veteran and in the VA medical system can refill their prescriptions at
https://www.myhealth.va.gov/ and not hassle with the mail-in forms or
wait while on hold on on the telephone. I've used it, and it works.

Part of my "Computers for Veterans" project is to place at least one
working computer in any nursing home or long term care facility near
Ocala that has any Veterans in residence. I know that not all of them
will be able to, or even want to use a computer for E-mail and browsing
the web, but I want to make sure the ones that can and do, will be able
to.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Joseph2k]

Sooner or later, one would hope that that kid in the mall would like to
see beyond the "magic" and have a sit-down chat with the man behind the
curtain. The Internet, cell phones, etc. ARE very cool, but if one can
start to understand the technology behind them, hopefully they'll also
understand why something like HF radio, simple AM/FM receivers, etc. can
be cool as well.

There was an article in some IEEE magazine not too long ago where the
author was lamenting the fact that not only are things like digital radio
and video very complicated to understand in the first place, but in nearly
all cases today the details of their formatting/modulation/etc. are
purposely obfuscated and the content itself encrypted, so pretty soon it's
going to be pretty much impossible for a motivated youngster to build a
contemporary radio receiver even if he or she did have access to the
appropriate
hardware. A good example would be something like IBOC -- something like
GNU Radio is inexpensive (i.e., something a youngster could reasonably
obtain access to), yet there's no way to demodulate it since the standard
behind it
is proprietary. :-( This despite the fact that it's being broadcast on
the "public" FM frequencies...

You must have built a different GNU radio than i have seen. When i priced
building it, the result was between $1000 and $2000. I have other things
that i want to do with that much money first.
Just the same, i expect that if someone could come up with an affordable
[$100 - $200] software defined radio, with really good tools to experiment
with, that it would change the world.

 

[Joseph2k]

Roy,

I believe that the shrinking engineering school attendance is directly
related to the shrinking engineering job opportunities in the US. Global
communications have enabled large US corporations to move a significant
portion of their high paying technical jobs off shore to lower cost
regions. With fewer and fewer opportunities, the out of work engineers,
find
themselves competing for fewer and fewer jobs. HS students selecting a
college major see this and many of them decide that it is more important
to
be able to make a living than to pursue this discipline. Many of my
former peers elected to change careers with a significant reduction in
salary when they were unable to find engineering work during the last few
years.

Bob

Aye, the first great American engineering layoff was in the early 1970's and
the second in the early 1990's. In both cases over 10% left engineering
permanently. When the kids ask around they hear about this, small wonder
it has become unpopular. Also publishing papers is done by academics,
engineering is done by engineers.

 

[Joel Kolstad]

Considering that some 73 percent of email is spam and/or virus laden
garbage, and that there are much better ways for Hams to get their email
if they really want to, utilizing HF for email solutions is like an answer
to ten year old questions.

For people who actually get significant portions of spam, I agree with
you -- I'm a little leery of them getting their e-mail via HF! On the other
hand, I think that most people who make a minimal effort can deal with
having multiple e-mail accounts, and being very careful to keep the
"important" ones off of spam lists. (I have a couple that have never
received spam, because probably no more than a dozen people know of them!)

Besides - thinking that email is "High-Tech" is to start off with an
erroneous assumption.

It's as "high tech" as SSB voice.

 

[Joel Kolstad]

Hi Mike,

I dunno, Joel. Are you saying that using a Ham radio to send email is
going to impress someone?

I'm saying that putting up a big sign saying, "Send e-mail here!" and
sitting people down in front of a computer (say... a mini Mac running
Outlook or some similar easy-to-use mail client that pretty much anyone
(who's active on the Internet at all) can figure out how to use is a
considerably bigger help than putting up a sign saying, "Voice
communications relayed here!" and having a licensed ham sit there, take
someone's message, relay it to another ham outside the affected area, they
make a phone call to a family member (or whatever). The former just seems a
lot more efficient to me.

It just seems so odd to me that people who can now text message others
with their cell phones, and IM each other on a regular basis are going to
be impressed by a big HF setup.

Sure, if those people are actually in a city, interstate corridor, etc.,
where there's cell phone service. If not -- as folks into sailing the ocean
quickly find out -- suddenly having at least some low bandwidth e-mail
connection is a lot better than nothing.

I've posted before that my "grand vision" for amateur radio runs along the
lines of people within cities or major corridors using WiFi, EVDO/EDGE,
WiMax, etc. -- multi-megabit per second connections, that use ISM bands so
actually don't require hams at all to set them up, those who are
camping/hiking/traveling outside of such places using a presently
non-existant network of hilltop repeaters that operate at some many tens to
low hundreds of kilbits per second (128kbps is a favorite of mine) with,
e.g., 5W handheld radios, and those truly out in the "the middle of nowhere"
(the ocean, the outback, etc.) use HF at a couple kilobits per second.
Developing that "middle" ground of speed vs. coverage would do a lot to
relieve pressure on HF where of course there is so little specturm to begin
with; I have a suspicion that an awful lot of, e.g., WinLink traffic comes
from people who are still easily within range of being able to hit at least
a couple of hilltop repeaters with 5W or less.

---Joel

 

[Mike Coslo]

Hello Mike,



Doesn't necessarily mean they signed off. We live way too far from any
relatives. So, we picked some 'instant relatives' in nursing homes and
so on. There are plenty of people there who are never visited by anyone
else.

Doesn't necessarily, true enough. But I'd be willing to wager that in
most cases it is exactly that, signing off.

- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -

 

[Mike Coslo]

For people who actually get significant portions of spam, I agree with
you -- I'm a little leery of them getting their e-mail via HF! On the other
hand, I think that most people who make a minimal effort can deal with
having multiple e-mail accounts, and being very careful to keep the
"important" ones off of spam lists. (I have a couple that have never
received spam, because probably no more than a dozen people know of them!)

Not the point Joel. That 75 percent is the 3:1 signal to noise ratio.
Or rather noise to signal! 8^) It is there whether you filter it out or
not.

It's as "high tech" as SSB voice.

Well, maybe a tad more H-T! I like to get people to think of other
things besides imitation. These days everyone looks at the Internet as a
high tech playground. And they want to fit "Internet training wheels" on
everything. When you consider what Hams are doing these days to get a
good wide bandwidth Internet connection across large distances, the
transmission of email on HF just seems a day late and about ten dollars
short.

What I would like is a digital HF voice connection that doesn't require
channelization (I'd like to be able to tune like I do with SSB) and not
have to know when the other OP starts transmitting. I also want that
digital voice to take up *less* space than SSB. I'd like SSTV that isn't
SSTV - I want real motion with small bandwidth. I want HF with a lot
less noise. It doesn't need to be FM, but I would like adaptive
algorithms that sort out the signal and pretty it up so that my poor
ears can make good sense of it without too much strain. I want my rig to
have a wireless interface to my computer and or other rigs in the
vicinity. I *don't* want my computer to be my rig. If that happens it
means I have to buy another computer because I use my computer for other
things while I talk on my rig.

In short, I want the ARS to move into the future. I just don't think
that email is that move.

- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -

 

[Don Bowey]

Not the point Joel. That 75 percent is the 3:1 signal to noise ratio.
Or rather noise to signal! 8^) It is there whether you filter it out or
not.


Well, maybe a tad more H-T! I like to get people to think of other
things besides imitation. These days everyone looks at the Internet as a
high tech playground. And they want to fit "Internet training wheels" on
everything. When you consider what Hams are doing these days to get a
good wide bandwidth Internet connection across large distances, the
transmission of email on HF just seems a day late and about ten dollars
short.

What I would like is a digital HF voice connection that doesn't require
channelization (I'd like to be able to tune like I do with SSB) and not
have to know when the other OP starts transmitting. I also want that
digital voice to take up *less* space than SSB. I'd like SSTV that isn't
SSTV - I want real motion with small bandwidth. I want HF with a lot
less noise. It doesn't need to be FM, but I would like adaptive
algorithms that sort out the signal and pretty it up so that my poor
ears can make good sense of it without too much strain. I want my rig to
have a wireless interface to my computer and or other rigs in the
vicinity. I *don't* want my computer to be my rig. If that happens it
means I have to buy another computer because I use my computer for other
things while I talk on my rig.

In short, I want the ARS to move into the future. I just don't think
that email is that move.

- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -

You can have all those "I wannas" on the day you invent zero bandwidth CW
(you know, those old-fashioned dit and dahs). In the meanwhile, grow up and
get a brain.

Don

 

[Fred Bloggs]

It strikes me as a simple case of consequences of actions. US public
education is of low quality, so people arent coming out well educated,
motivated, or able to make good of their lives. When a country's
education is as good as it can be, instead of as bad as it can be, not
surprisingly people come out more capable, more motivated and so on,
and go on and do well.

This is a basic error in American politics. Spend as little as possible
so I get to keep my share, but its then a greater share of less in
total. The only way a country will do better and better over time is if
education is as good a quality as one can get.

When you produce so many badly educated people, there becomes no longer
the ability for the masses to understand the issues well enough to make
the right policy choices, and things decline even further. Through
history, those societies that have done relatively well have been ones
where education was regarded as real important. It is a simple choice
for US to make, but US seems to show no insight into its condition.

Those published statistics about the US education system have been
debunked as utter bull_sh_t! Some U of Arizona specialists dared to be
politically incorrect and reform the statistics on the basis of
percentage of students "living in poverty"- codeword for black. Those
schools with zero per cent, and there are enough of them, lead the world
in output of highly educated students. Even the schools with as much as
25% of student body living in poverty placed in the top ten. Then of
course as the poverty crowd becomes larger the quality of output
nosedives into the sewer.
Another very common misbelief of you engineering centric know-nothings
is that engineering education is somehow very tough- and at the personal
level I find that to be highly laughable- engineering eductaion is pure
recreation to those so-inclined. Anyone finding it to be a challenge has
picked the wrong course of study. There are other fields of study that
are far tougher and challenging than engineering.

 

[Joerg]

Hello Mike,

Doesn't necessarily, true enough. But I'd be willing to wager that
in most cases it is exactly that, signing off.

I think you are right about the majority of cases. We see that a lot in
nursing homes. People think that once they got Grandpa signed up there
it's all taken care of and they can go about their business. There are
people who haven't had a relative visit in months. No idea why. I mean,
where else could you listen to someone talking about the great
depression who has actually lived through it? It dashed his engineering
career but he became the head barkeeper in a famous hotel where movie
stars hung out. Lots of more stories. He passed away now and his
grandkids probably never heard many of those stories. It's been a while
but I still miss him.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Joel Kolstad]

Hi Mike,

Not the point Joel. That 75 percent is the 3:1 signal to noise ratio. Or
rather noise to signal! 8^) It is there whether you filter it out or not.

I disagree. When you start finding that every e-mail message you receive
takes a minute to receive (rather than 15 milliseconds), people start to
become a lot more cautious with their e-mail addresses, and thereby
inherently reduce the amount of spam to little or nothing. I'd wager that
the Winlinks, for instance, receive nowhere _near_ 75% of their e-mail as
spam; I'd be surprised if it's 10%.

I also want that digital voice to take up *less* space than SSB.

Well, coding theory is very well understood these days, so you can certainly
have it take up less space that the typical 3kHz SSB transmission if you're
willing to start trading off quality for reliability (...both of which also
trade off with power, of course).

I'd like SSTV that isn't SSTV - I want real motion with small bandwidth.

Well, again, it's all a matter of tradeoffs. "Real motion in a small
bandwidth" implies something along the lines of (1) lots of power or (2)
lots of compression, which will break down for, e.g., fast action scenes.
The problems you're citing here are exactly the same as what the cell phone
guys have to solve, and believe me, there are lots of clever people working
on solutions. Getting that technology transferred over to amateur radio is
going to be the tricky part...

I want my rig to have a wireless interface to my computer and or other
rigs in the vicinity. I *don't* want my computer to be my rig.

You know that something like a Bluetooth interface on your rig would
actually take up more transistors than a complete vintage-'80s computer like
an Apple II or a Commodore 64, right?

If that happens it means I have to buy another computer because I use my
computer for other things while I talk on my rig.

Sure, but with decent desktop computers (complete with monitor, etc.) going
for <$500 these days, can't you just think of it as a "$500 rig accessory"
and not a computer?

---Joel

 

[Ben Bradley]

"In a crosspost to a large but apparently related set of newsgroups,
specifically:
sci.electronics.design,
rec.radio.amateur.homebrew,
sci.electronics.equipment,
sci.electronics.repair and
comp.robotics.misc; "

Is there a problem with posting a suitable topic to a number of groups
that would find it interesting?

It definitely was not meant to be spam.

I didn't call it spam, as I said the topic does seem related to all
the groups listed. I didn't mean to sound TOO irritated, though a
large part of the thread degenerated into a debate over whether
amateur radio is still a viable activity in light of the Internet and
other things.

But I'm disappointed no one commented on the content of my post.
Perhaps I didn't quite know the operation of the things I made with
those kits, but I can fairly well remember the schematics, and of
course know NOW how they work.

Did anyone else learn anything from these kits???

 

[Too_Many_Tools]

"Another very common misbelief of you engineering centric know-nothings

is that engineering education is somehow very tough- and at the
personal
level I find that to be highly laughable- engineering eductaion is pure

recreation to those so-inclined. Anyone finding it to be a challenge
has
picked the wrong course of study. There are other fields of study that
are far tougher and challenging than engineering."

And those other fields are?

In my opinion, science and engineering ARE some of the most toughest
and competive fields that exist.

TMT

 

[Don Bowey]

"Another very common misbelief of you engineering centric know-nothings

is that engineering education is somehow very tough- and at the
personal
level I find that to be highly laughable- engineering eductaion is pure

recreation to those so-inclined. Anyone finding it to be a challenge
has
picked the wrong course of study. There are other fields of study that
are far tougher and challenging than engineering."

And those other fields are?

In my opinion, science and engineering ARE some of the most toughest
and competive fields that exist.

But, as you implied, only to those who are not so-inclined.