karo said:
I still fail to see how making someone take a test to use a portion of bandwidth make you any smarter.
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No argument here.
There are plenty smart people on the 11 meter band and no one gives them any credit.
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One doesn't have to be "smart" to turn on an oven, or open a refrigerator. CB radio is a
consumer appliance that doesn't
REQUIRE smarts!
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I feel it's wrong for the US government to control who can or cannot use radio bandwidth that is not used by any government or military organization.
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Right. *YOU* feel. Based on what data, degree, or training?
However, we DO have representatives in Congress who have delegated responsibility to agencies and trained people to do the job. It ain't perfect, but it generally works!
For what it's worth I see it as segregation of the air waves and I feel it's time for desegregation.
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Fences! If you were a farmer and another farmer's cows trampled your wheat, how would you like that? What if there were NO fences, or laws, that allowed you to keep others' "cows" out? Oh, I reckon you'd be fairly livid with rage and ready to do harm to that OTHER farmer...............or yelling
"HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MR CONGRESSMAN, GIT THEM COWS OUT OF MY WHEAT!! PASS SOME LAWS!!!!!!!!!! CALL THE LAW!! DO SOMETHING!!!!!!!" :evil:
It's called "anarchy"--the absence of control, mayhem,--even danger to others lives, property, or........even to be able to use a radio with any reasonable effectiveness!
There are several reasons RF spectrum is regulated centrally.
1) BECAUSE it cannot easily be contained.
2) Because it can create crippling interference.
3) Because of the potential for loss of life or property.
So what must be contained since we can't contain Radio energy? We have to control the
behavior of the users in order to make it viable. And, further, the users (cows, if you will) are placed in "fences" (or "frequency allocations" to separate them from the others.
A little history. "It's time to 'desegregate radio'". Hate to tell you this, but there's not that much new under the sun because it was LIKE that prior to 1934; a free for all!!! It took YEARS to get it under control, and finally Congress passed the Communications Act of 1934 which brought some semblance of order. States tried to control radio, towns tried to control it, counties tried to control it---even TAX it, but it was the central control of FCC that made radio as effective and orderly as it is today. Not perfect, but
better than what went before.
Those of us who try to encapsulate radio from the sum of their experience with CB are seeing it ONLY from that point of view. Radio fulfills many requirements from THOUSANDS of viewpoints and it fills the same number of needs. These radio services are NOT a "hobby". They don't "ratchetjaw", they don't CARE about "skip". They are trying to do a JOB the same way a carpenter uses a hammer. While a CBer might get on with "How 'boucha, Central Naw'th C'lina, we tryin'! Break skipland", the utility user may say TWO words. Then nothing for a week!
But he doesn't want YOU on there tying up the frequency "playing" when he DOES need it! :x So that's why there are laws to prevent YOU from doing exactly that--with penalties for it that can run into the thousands!!! It is why "freebanding" is WRONG! Just because the assigned user isn't using it NOW, it is STILL HIS LEGALLY, and he has a reasonable expectation to be able to use that frequency when he WANTS to. Likewise, if you have a garden tiller out in your shed you haven't used for awhile, does that mean that *I* can just come
borrow that tiller without your knowledge?
"But, Mr Po-leeceman, I was
just borrowing it; he wasn't using it"!
Try THAT excuse either with the cops OR FCC because the law treats both concepts the same way!
Last is, it only takes ONCE to lose a life! You can't get it back.
So let's say that you got all this "desegregation" done. HOW would you like to be on an international flight trying to land in fog, and some goof with the disease I.M.P. (Infantile mental paralysis
) was on the frequency, "HOW 'BOUT IT CALIFORNIA, YUH GOT A COPY? I GOTS THE PEDAL TO THE METAL AND FIRE IN DA WIRE"! The equation changes when it's YOUR butt in a sling and about to die!!!! So if you want this "deregulation", just listen to your CB when the "skip" is howling. That noise is caused by THOUSANDS of unregulated signals, hordes pouring over the RF border. That is what the rest of radio would be like (shudder). Most of us don't WANT that!
Take that Amateur test. Don't just memorize. LEARN something from it!!!! It will give you pride and a sense of achievement!
We don't all have to be RF engineers, but a modicum of radio knowledge goes a LONG way! And you will then know WHY we don't want 'desegregation'!
That's why our regulations are the way they are.
CWM
