Hi John,

Hmmm, I'd bet RFBD's copy of Now You're Talking is rather outdated, but I
will check that out.  There aren't ultimately any problems with us joining
Handiham.  I am trying to rejoin myself at this time, and, if she does earn
her license, I am sure Karen will join as well.  Karen and I are both
relatively successful.  Neither of us want or need any equipment.  We would
join and pay dues to Handiham because we want to belong to the preeminent
organization supporting hams with disabilities.

My information might be a bit outdated.  I was under the impression that it
was necessary to be a Handiham member in order to purchase the accessible
materials, and that all such materials were still only available on
cassette.  MP3 would be a bit better, but I'd still like to see real
accessibility.

Though I will conduct additional research, any additional information anyone
could provide would be very helpful.  I will soon be tackling amateur radio
and its accessibility in a future series of articles in the new Blind Access
Journal.  Check it out at http://nu7i.blogspot.com and participate.

Thanks and 73.






----- Original Message -----
From: "John Miller" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2005 4:53 PM
Subject: Re: Revisiting accessible amateur radio study materials.


> you don't have to join handihams to get the material, and I'm surprised
> that's not in MP3 format, the extra manual is, in fact I still have my
> copy
> somewhere in MP3 format, also, if joining handihams is the only issue for
> what ever reason, RFB&D has now you're talking on cassettes too though I
> like the MP3 CD's much better.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Darrell Shandrow" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Saturday, January 15, 2005 6:01 PM
> Subject: Revisiting accessible amateur radio study materials.
>
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I'd like to seriously revisit the current state of affairs of available,
>> accessible amateur radio study materials.  I am aware of the Now You're
>> Talking book being available from Handiham on cassette.  Though no
>> offense
>> toward Handiham is at all intended, I consider this level of
>> accessibility
>> to be insufficient if that's all there is.  The material is read on to
>> cassette rather than available in accessible electronic format.  That
>> means
>> all presentation of the information has been controlled by the reader,
>> not
>> by the user of that information as can be the case with electronic
>> formats.
>> A person on Handiham's staff has told me that the League is
>> "uncomfortable"
>> with making this material more accessible to us.  This is, obviously,
>> never
>> a sufficient reason for ongoing inaccessibility.  If we accepted that
>> reason, then blind people would have virtually no success at all in
>> society,
>> be it education, employment or anything else.
>>
>> If necessary, I'll begin a campaign to battle the League over this
>> inaccessibility of their amateur radio study materials.  I know I am
>> determined and I will ultimately succeed with this, but a lot of feelings
>> will be hurt and many otherwise good people in the amateur radio
>> community
>> will be deeply offended.  I'd thus like to get the job done in a
>> constructive manner.
>>
>> I have some ideas for making this work.  First, the League could sell a
>> copy of this material in BRF format.  These "Braille ready files" are
>> useless to sighted people but could be used by the blind with Braille
>> displays or certain other accessibility software applications and devices
>> that can successfully back translate these files.  Second, someone could
>> scan Now You're Talking and other study materials, clean up the OCR
>> results
>> and submit them to Bookshare.org for legal distribution to those with
>> print
>> disabilities.  Third, we could explore obtaining greater cooperation from
>> other providers of amateur radio study materials like Gordon West.
>>
>> Any other ideas or information on materials that might already be
>> available
>> would be extremely helpful.  Karen would like to study for her ham
>> license,
>> but she currently has no interest in going through the bureaucratic
>> process
>> required to join Handiham just for the privilege of obtaining study
>> materials which the sighted may purchase and read without such
>> requirements.
>>
>> Thanks and 73.
>>