No, dollars aren't all we are after.  We are interested in public service,
emergency communications, and protecting our spectrum.  Cute and clever
works among your friends, but has no place in the wider world of radio
where communication is the issue.  I have heard so many instances in which
the clever degrades comprehensibility that I have little patience with it.

The idea is to communicate.  Use the ITU phonetic alphabet or something
close to it.  I have heard too many broken QSOs in which somebody tried to
be cute, but language barriers, QRM, QSB, QRN, and just differences in
style prevented communications.  And there are people like me whose hearing
is bad.  If you play games, you and I can't talk on the radio, except on CW
which I did on SKN.  Communication, not cleverness, is the name of the game.

...and I am president of a ham club, an officer of ARES, and an officer of
REACT.  Money is nice, but it doesn't define us.  Communication defines us,
and cutesy stuff degrades what we are.  Have fun with your friends, but
don't bother to speak radio pig-english with me.

73
Don KD1XU

At 03:42 PM 1/2/2005 -0700, you wrote:
>I prefer saying seventy freeze.  Difficult to do on CW but what the hay.
>Furthermore, on voice, I have created a whole new set of things.  For
>example, on two meters, a bunch of us now say, Bull Winkle when we mean
>affirmative.  Signing off, I say,toodles which is short for toodleilou.  It
>drives People crazy.  I often also, on two meters in particular since there
>are so many ham cops on there telling others how to operate their radio,
>sign off with somebody saying this is K0NX over and out.  The club I am a
>member of let's me get away with it because I have brought so many new hams
>into their club.  Money means everything in ham clubs.
>
>Phil.