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G4EBT > IRLP 15.03.03 11:59l 128 Lines 6157 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 1F0807G4EBT
Read: GUEST DB0FHN DK5RAS DF1ND
Subj: Re: rsgb president supports irlp
Path: DB0FHN<DB0RGB<OK0PPL<RZ6HXA<SP7MGD<ON0BEL<GB7FCR
Sent: 030315/0931Z @:GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU #:50980 [Blackpool] FBB-7.03a $:1F0807G4
From: G4EBT@GB7FCR.#16.GBR.EU
To : IRLP@WW
Ian, G3ZHI wrote:-
> long live rsgb
There was a time when to get Ian to utter such a statement would have
been like pulling out his back teeth out without anaesthetic! He isn't
a friend of mine, but I do know that his commitment to the hobby in his
own way has been incomparable for more than thirty years during which
amateur radio has been his life.
Despite all the sniping at his lower case style, and his enthusiasm for
IRLP, which isn't too popular on packet, Ian has single-mindedly pursued
RSGB and the RA down the years to shake them up and modernise the hobby.
Thankfully, that's now happening.
He once tape-recorded an RSGB Annual General Meeting so that when the
notes didn't accurately report proceedings, he was able to hold the RSGB
to account, much to their embarrassment. He pressed the RA so much to
answer awkward questions that they tried to get rid of him by saying he'd
have to pay a large fee to be provided with any more info.
Big mistake - the RA is a public body, accountable to the people it
serves. They had to answer his questions, and pay him compensation. They
now have a protocol on openness and disclosure of information.
If a few lightweights on packet think they can knock him off course by
sniping at his use of lower case, or his enthusism for IRLP, they're
setting themselves up to fail, big style - he's quite impervious to such
attacks. It was due to his constant campaigning over many years in the
face of outright opposition from bigoted "stick in the muds" at RSGB,
and the "old guard" in the hobby, that eventually, the Novice Licence
was introduced.
It was an excellent concept, with practical and theory content, attendance
on a course was mandatory, and a multi-choice exam not much easier than
the full licence RAE had to be passed.
However, the frequency allocation and power levels were pathetic, not
commensurate with the effort involved, and people could by-pass the NRAE
and go straight to the RAE, which required less commitment yet offered
400 Watts. Hence, the NRAE never really took off. After more than a
decade, there are only 2,734 NRAE licensees out of 59,000 UK amateurs.
The new licence structure makes it mandatory to first gain a Foundation
Licence which allows 10 Watts all bands LF, HF, VHF, UHF to 440, excluding
10 metres. In the first year of its introduction, the FL has brought in
3,100 newcomers.
The NRAE has now been replaced by the Intermediate Licence, (50 Watts) and
the RAE is to be replaced by the "Full". After this year the RAE will be
scrapped, and it won't be possible to gain a "Full" licence without first
gaining an FL, and IL.
This is a much better structure. In my view, though I doubt Ian would
claim any credit for it, he was the catalyst that changed the thinking
at the RSGB and RA, who are now working well together, taking a fresh
approach to this tired old hobby of ours. Good to see the WIA are
thinking this way too.
Had RSGB seen "the writing on the wall" as Ian did - with declining
activity and a "greying" age profile, (Average age in UK now 58),
and acted a decade ago, maybe the hobby wouldn't be in the fix it's
in today. In 1988 RSGB had 39,000 members, it now has 25,000 or so.
Ironic too, that those at the forefront of repeater innovations -
designing logic etc, such as Dr Tony Whittaker, G3RKL, at Sheffield, with
whom Ian is acquainted, have also been involved in getting IRLP off the
ground.
They're being insulted on here by people who may never use repeaters
anyway, may never have contributed a cent towards their upkeep, and may
not even own a soldering iron - just a credit card. All too typical.
I've no more interest in IRLP than in repeaters, which I see as little
more than silent monuments to the ingenuity, commitment, and enterprise of
those who provide and maintain them. If people want to use IRLP, it
doesn't stop my enjoyment of my interests. Each to his own.
This hobby has two choices: Modernise, and use internet to supplement and
support aspects of the hobby, or allow the net to supplant the hobby as it
is doing. That applies just as much to packet as to repeaters. Some have
to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century or fall by the
wayside.
To use IRLP, you need a radio licence. You connect by RF to your local
repeater, linked to another elsewhere in the world. At that distant
repeater, a local amateur connects to it using his radio. Like it or
not, that's an approved mode of amateur radio.
No-one says it's DX in the conventional sense, but nor is packet. Packet
is a computing hobby - amateur typing. If someone in VK is reading a
message from the UK, it isn't DX, but it IS worldwide communication,
just like IRLP. It uses a mixture of radio and the net, just like IRLP.
(Anyone reading this relies on telnet as much as I do).
IRLP isn't compulsory, it's just an option becoming increasingly
available in this diverse hobby of ours. If people don't use it, it will
go down the tubes just like repeaters and 2M/70 Cm simplex, and packet is
doing.
I've yet to see a single well-reasoned argument from those against IRLP
which has any validity. Amateur radio is on its way out. The unmistakable
signs have been there for years. Like many other hobbies, it's lost its
appeal in a fast changing world. People are no longer fascinated by new
technology. Amateur radio nowadays is little more than button pushing.
Do people on here really think that anyone would be attracted to packet
just to read bulls insulting someone for using lower case, and slagging
him off as brain-dead just because they don't see eye-to-eye with him on
IRLP? Would you want your child to come into this hobby?
You can't create a future for this hobby by living in the past.
BTW, Ian trained as an ocean-going radio officer in the Merchant Navy, is
an accomplished CW operator, has been licensed for more than thirty years,
and could run rings round most of his critics. (You don't use upper case
on CW or RTTY).
73 - David, G4EBT @ GB7FCR
Message timed: 09:14 on 2003-Mar-15
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