Colleen,

I’m not Jim, or even *a* Jim, even if
I’ll honorarily change my name to Jim for the evening. Which 
I might just do. Because, you know,
the Echolink net is really the Jim net.

But anyway, 

I don’t think Jim objected to the request
so much as to the delivery of said request.

You can certainly make a reasonable request, but
when you make it in an unreasonable way, it can
perhaps taint the reasonableness of the request.

On Jun 13, 2014, at 4:01 PM, COLLEEN ROTH <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hello Jim and All,
> Well I think that if someone has Emergency Traffic to handle that it is reasonable for you to move if you are just calling CQ.
> It is possible that the two stations have agreed to move to that frequency to pass the traffic and that it was very hard to hear on the original frequency.
> If your area had a Natural Disaster occur will would want those who were relaying the information concerning the details of the Emergency and the needed equipment and sersonnel to be relayed as soon as possible.
> If I know there is a regularly scheduled net I respect those on the net enough to move.
> Sometimes though people do have to move to a nearby frequency to hold a net.
> One of the most important reasons for the Amateur Radio Service is Public Service as we all know.
> It always amazes me when blind people say they can't do Public Service.
> I have been an NCS for several events. This is a way to contribute to the Ares Group in your area.
> Some people use their blindness as an excuse to be a little off the wall.
> One guy always makes a comment about his blindness in a way which says he wants his blindness to be very important.
> I do not think you can go five minutes without knowing he is blind.
> I am not saying that you should avoid saying that you are blind but you do not have to make sure that this is front and center in every conversation.
> When I am taking traffic it isn't necessary for me ssay that I am writing it in Braille. If my Braille Writer jams or I lose something because a piece of equipment isn't working quite right or if it is a new piece of equipment I might make a comment.
> I do ask for help with equipment or antennas but I also volunteer for any Emergency Communication, Skywarn or Traffic Net I can.
> It's up to us as blind people to do our best and to help others when we are able to do so.
> Colleen Roth, N8TNV;
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jim Shaffer <[log in to unmask]>
> ,to3 [log in to unmask]
> Date: Thursday, June 12, 2014 12:03 am
> Subject: Re: Ham Radio Ethics In Decline
> 
>> 
>> 
>> Phil, I definitely hear what you're saying.  I remember being appalled back 
>> in the late '80s by some of the folks handling emergency traffic out of 
>> Jamaica.  One guy was just rude to everyone who tried to take his traffic, 
>> and there were a lot of QRMers on the nets.  Another time I was calling CQ 
>> on 10 meters as I recall, and some guy from South America came to my 
>> frequency and rudely told me that he was going to meet some folks to handle 
>> emergency traffic, and that was more important than what I was doing.  It 
>> seems like a lot of the hams involved in emergency or public service work 
>> just think their defecation isn't odiferous if you get my meaning.  It seems 
>> to me though that things really got worse in the '80s.  I hadn't seen too 
>> much bad behavior before then, but the behavior took a dive in the '80s as I 
>> recall.
>> I must say though that I've had better experiences with small ham clubs as 
>> opposed to large ones.  That's probably because an individual is just a 
>> smaller part of the group.  It also has to do with blindness, and probably 
>> age too.  Back in the '60s, folks were willing to help out a kid, and maybe 
>> they still are to some extent, but I'm not a kid any more, so it's hard to 
>> say there.
>> 
>> Oh yeh, and I had a guy back in the late '80s or early '90s tell me that us 
>> blind guys should put up a repeater so we could be with our own kind.  I'm 
>> afraid though that we bring some of that on ourselves.  I know of too many 
>> cases of blind folks over-depending on sighted assistance.  Also, many blind 
>> folks will go to a gathering, and just sit in one place without trying to 
>> mix with the group, and then wonder why nobody talks to them.  I'm probably 
>> speaking to the choir here, and it's unfortunate, but we do have to put 
>> ourselves out there if we want recognition.
>> —
>> Jim, KE5AL
>> -----Original Message----- 
>> From: Phil Scovell
>> Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2014 10:30 PM
> @> ,to3 [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Ham Radio Ethics In Decline
>> 
>> It is time to speak out in my opinion.
>> 
>> This topic has come up recently and it put me of a mind when I saw the FCC
>> letting all the unlicensed, that is, expired licenses, rejoin the ham
>> community.  I wonder how that is going to change the complexion of what used
>> to be standard ham radio on the air ethics.
>> 
>> First, when I was 14 and got on the air with my brand new Drake TRBLED I got
>> for Christmas in 1966, the bands were red hot and propagation was wonderful
>> to all points of the planet.  You could work Europe with a 10 meter dipole
>> in your attic with 10 watts output.  I remember my very first night on 75
>> meters.  A non ham, sighted friend, helped me get the radio out of the box,
>> set things up, and he sat for probably four hours reading the manual to me
>> as we, together, tried to figure things out.  It was late that night when I
>> finally got fired up.  I tuned across 75 meters and the band was full of 20
>> over S9 signals.  Every round table I stopped and listened to made me
>> nervous because I thought they wouldn't want to talk to a kid.  Finally, I
>> picked out a group of W5 stations in a large group and broke in.  They
>> answered me right away and welcome the new kid on the block right in.  In
>> fact, over the years, as I operated on every band, I never once had a group
>> tell me to get lost.  I hear it all the time now.  Even in our teenage ham
>> group that met on 3997 at midnight each night during the summer, we never
>> turned anybody down that broke in.  We were rowdy, joked around, made light
>> of life in general, and just horsed around like teens do but we all were
>> polite to breakers regardless of their age.  We weren't rude, we didn't
>> deliberately try and leave anyone out, and we often told the breaker, "Look,
>> just talk when you feel like it.  This isn't a round table and we all run
>> vox so when you want to comment, just jump right in because it isn't that we
>> are leaving you out on purpose; we just have a lot of guys in the group and
>> we forget who all is on frequency."
>> 
>> 80 and 75  and 15 meters were always my favorite bands back in those days.
>> At night, I worked 80 meters often till 5 o'clock in the morning.  I often
>> broke into a group where I knew no one and found myself never rejected.  I
>> practiced
>> the same ethics on all bands and broke into hundreds of groups every band I
>> worked over many years.  As I already stated, that isn't the case any
>> longer.  Let me tell
>> you a personal story first and then I'll mention other events I've
>> recently copied on air to back up my own experiences.
>> 
>> 75 meters has loads of round tables day and night.  There is a group in
>> Colorado, for example, that started way back in the early seventies.  Most
>> of the guys were older than me by20, 30, and 40 years; some even more.  I
>> was 28
>> years old at the time.  I was living in western Colorado back then for a
>> couple of years and in
>> a small town of 800 people.  We had a total of two hams, by the way, for
>> such a small town.  I worked this Colorado group on 3898 every morning and
>> every evening and we were spread out all over the state.  Although many of
>> the guys have passed away, there is still a considerable group of these guys
>> left, or who have joined the group, since it's inception.  Several are in
>> their seventies now, a few in their sixties, like me, and some even younger.
>> I know
>> a few of the older guys, some locally from 6 meters, and a couple of others
>> who were hams back in the seventies when we started the group.  They operate
>> on a lower frequency now because our group got so large in the late
>> seventies and early eighties, another group was started down the band.
>> 
>> One of the regulars just turned 70 years of age.  A little over 5 years ago,
>> this guy, of course, would have been just about 65.  The very first thing he
>> said to me when running across me on 6 meters was this:  "Phil, if you ever
>> need any help with antennas or any other ham stuff, let me know.  I'll be
>> glad to come over and help out."  I explained I was blind and did need help
>> because I couldn't climb even my 38 foot tower any more due to my spinal
>> problems and that I had a 40 meter rotatable dipole I wanted to put
>> up, along with a 3 element 6 meter beam, as well as hanging a G5RV.  By the
>> way, he asked me what 6 meter antenna I was using now.  I said, "I really
>> don't want to tell you."  He laughed and said why?"  I said, "Well, I'm
>> using my R7 vertical at 20 feet on the roof and on a tripod but it isn't
>> made for 6 meters but I have a
>> 1.4 to 1 SWR anyway and 40 watts output."  This guy laughed again and said
>> he knew several guys doing the same thing with good results.  That season,
>> by the way, I worked 36 states and one guy in the Caribbean.  Anyhow, this
>> guy, quite nice and very friendly, said he had a 70 foot tower and he still
>> climbs it all the time so he'd be happy to help out.  A friend of his broke
>> in and we all rag chewed for about 30 minutes like we'd known each other for
>> years.  You know how real hams are; it's natural to chat about everything.
>> These two guys are regulars on the Colorado morning and evening group on
>> 3868 that used to be on 3898 in the late seventies I mentioned.
>> 
>> Well, when I talked to these guys on 6 meters just mentioned, it was about 6
>> months following my purchase of the Icom 7000 with the LDG 1000 Pro auto
>> tuner, and the AL600 solid state amp by Ameritrone.  I actually had the
>> equipment, still in their boxes from H R O here in Denver, for several weeks
>> because I got the Equipment November 7th, 2008 and less than 2 months later,
>> I came close to being paralyzed from the neck down.  My surgery was in
>> January of 2009.  I was home from the neck surgery for 2 weeks before I even
>> had enough strength to stumble out to my office/ham shack, to play around
>> with my new gear.  Prior to this, I was unable to unpack everything by
>> myself and lift it so my daughter, she was 30 years old at the time, helped
>> me arrange everything on a floor-to-ceiling wide bookshelves where I operate
>> from now.  The only thing which doesn't fit on the bookshelf due to its size
>> is the AL600 power supply which sits next to the bookshelves on a small
>> table.  I ran across multiple local hams both on HF and 6 meters and 2
>> meters running the Icom 7000 so I thought I'd get a lot of help from various
>> sources of whom I could ask questions.  That never seemed to happen but at
>> least I figured out enough from trying to read the manual, and my youngest
>> son, he was 25 at the time, read portions from the manual which I'd already
>> located in the text version and could tell him the pages I wanted him to
>> read.  In short, I made
>> a lot of progress but I'm thinking now of getting the software and using a
>> netbook to access the functions of the radio, if Jaws works with it, that
>> is.  Perhaps I can learn more.  I tried using Ham Radio Deluxe but it didn't
>> work well at all with Jaws.  At any rate, I was pretty much on my own and
>> still am all these years later.  Nobody can tell me ham radio hasn't
>> changed.  So,
>> now back to my story.
>> 
>> I broke in one day on the 3868 Colorado group when I heard a couple of the
>> guys I'd worked on 6 meters.  I had not yet learned how, on my own, to set
>> the width of the side band signal.  Before getting on the air, I was told my
>> audio was fine; don't change a thing, they said on 6 meters.  So I figured I
>> was safe.  Apparently it wasn't set to wide SSB 100 to 2900 KHz when I broke
>> in on the HF frequency band.  By the way, I ship the microphone off and had
>> it modified the first couple of weeks I had it because Icom had been getting
>> bad reports of narrow audio no matter where you set the width.  I talked
>> only for about 5 minutes because I
>> wasn't running much power
>> but when I signed out, one of the old timers, nearly 80 years of age, whom
>> I've known from the seventies, and who drinks like a fish, came on and
>> commented to the group that what he just heard was the worst audio he'd ever
>> heard.  When he was told I mostly worked CW and probably hadn't gotten used
>> to adjusting to the settings of a
>> new radio yet on side band, the guy asked what I was running.  One other
>> operator said,
>> "The same as you; an Icom 7000."  He said, "Well, he doesn't know what he is
>> doing then."  For background, this guy lost his ham call for a year because
>> he was, back in the late seventies, modifying big amplifiers for CB
>> operators to use on 11 meters.  He
>> can't get his old K0 3-letter call back and has a 2 by2 call now since
>> those days 40
>> years ago.  He's also a drunk or what most would call an alcoholic.  He
>> didn't know me because I had a different call back in the late seventies.
>> Well, in his state of mind, he probably wouldn't know me regardless of my
>> call, if you get my meaning.
>> 
>> The guy who offered to help with tower climbing wasn't there so I emailed
>> him, explained the situation, asking for his help as offered.  I
>> explained the situation with the drunk in the group down south of Denver.
>> The guy offered to help all over again and said he'd help get the side band
>> audio thing adjusted, too, so I could do it on my own.  He never did to this
>> day.  In the mean time, I figured most of it out myself except for putting
>> all the pieces of equipment together so I can run a complete station.  I
>> currently have had back surgery again, 4 times in 3 months, and have some
>> loss of feeling in my left foot and leg.  I am going tomorrow to be tested
>> for hearing aids due to the hearing loss that has been creeping up on me in
>> recent months.  Additionally, I have a vocal cord problem that doesn't let
>> me speak normally all the time so thank God I'm a CW op and not so much on
>> side band, haha.  After the big surgery in 09, it took 3 years for the
>> feeling to return to normal in my numb hands so even typing the code for
>> awhile was limited.
>> 
>> Now to a couple of more recent stories that show how ham ethics are going
>> down hill these days.
>> 
>> As I said, I love CW and work it way more than phone and always have.  One
>> nice thing about CW operating is that you don't hear this exclusionary
>> characteristic, unethical jamming, and rule and regulation violation going
>> on
>> as much in the CW bands.  80 and 20 meters have dozens of nets and round
>> table bull
>> sessions day and night.  I sort of get a kick out of listening to various
>> groups on different bands so let me tell you of a couple to prove my point.
>> 
>> Morning and Evening, there is a group on 14.208 that sound like a bunch of
>> nice guys.  Over the last couple of years, listening off and on, I've heard
>> guys trying to break in to join the conversation.  Once in a blue moon,
>> they are nice but normally the comment on how lousy the guys audio is and
>> sometimes they literally tell the guy they are busy talking to friends and
>> to leave them alone, is their normal response.  I've heard them do this many
>> times so it wasn't just a one time deal.  They go out of their way to ignore
>> all breakers 99 percent of the time and if one does get through, he is never
>> talked to again so the guy leaves, of course.  This same behavior is common
>> on 75 meters.  You will find it most commonly practiced between 3800 and
>> 3870 by big signal stations.  Yes, I've literally heard weaker station break
>> in and told by the group, this frequency is in use so go away and if you
>> come back, buy an amplifier first.
>> 
>> The one like this I heard just last night on June 10 on 14.200 which is a
>> commonly  use frequency by a group of guys around the country later in the
>> evening hours.  Most run big towers, big amplifiers, big antennas and enjoy
>> big DX.  So do I and that's why I enjoy listening to these guys.  They often
>> meet with 9K2GS from Kuwait and visit with other DX stations that come and
>> go.
>> 
>> Last night, as I started saying, I heard a guy with super bad audio.  I
>> mean, he sounded like he was talking through sand paper as he talked into
>> the microphone.  He wasn't as loud as most of the signals on frequency and
>> doubled a couple of times but I figured he tuned across the band, found a
>> loud bunch of guys, and wanted a signal report.  He certainly needed some
>> friendly advice about his modulation and side band quality; that's for sure.
>> After several tries, he finally got through during a low of transmissions.
>> N0UN here in the Denver area, answered him and immediately told him he had a
>> rotten signal and that he was busy trying to talk to his friends.  So, he
>> invited this poor guy to get a signal and clean it up and go away and leave
>> him to his conversation with his friends.  I thought, I knew it!  The FCC
>> must have started having licensed to hams to have their own frequencies and
>> you should not be bothering them when they are talking to their buddies.
>> Sad to see ham radio come to this.
>> 
>> One last parting story.  I have never owned a tower above 65 feet.  I've
>> never had an amp bigger than the SB220 and my two largest antennas were a 4
>> element 20 and a 2 element 40.  On 80 and 160 I have used wires and shunt
>> fed the tower.  I still have 316 countries and most of that came with wire
>> antennas or smaller beams made for low power.  I have 138 countries on 80
>> meters.
>> 
>> I was invited once to the Mile High DX Club get together.  We had a cook out
>> over at a guy's QTH who helped me with my first tower and my 40 meter beam
>> so I went out of respect to him for his friendship and all his radio help.
>> Sure, I knew some of Colorado's biggest DX contesters personally; some I
>> knew personally and talked to, not just on the air, but on the phone and
>> they had been in my home over the years.  People like W0UA, considered by
>> some to be the best DX contester on the planet, is a jerk but a talented
>> jerk and a super operator.  Every time I work him, say in WPX, he doubles
>> his speed because, you see, for years, the DX contesters in Denver knew me
>> as a high speed QRQ CW operator.  I knew going to the DX Club cook out would
>> be another lonely get together as far as I was concerned because, #1 I'm
>> blind, #2 I have a mediocre station, and #3, the guy who picked me up was a
>> Yellow Cab Driver who did so well, he own his own cab and hired a day
>> driver.  K0VVV had a big signal; as big as anyone in Denver with a TH6DXX at
>> 132 feet and a 2 element 40 above the tribander at 136 feet.  But, poor old
>> bob, passed away now apparently, wasn't well liked among the contesters
>> because he was a common working stiff.  As I said, we took his cab to the
>> club cook out.  I ended up, after an hour of standing around doing nothing,
>> sitting down with a couple of real hams, drunk, but real hams and we had a
>> blast telling ham stories and discussing antennas.  Absolutely no one else
>> but W0UA, George the contester, said hello to me and he had two because I
>> was standing with two other guys and George walked up, talked to them, not
>> me, to them for a few minutes, and then those two walked away.  George said
>> hello to me, nice meeting you, and disappeared.  The only DX contester I
>> have met in Denver who wasn't like I describe was W0ZS but he hadn't come to
>> the party that afternoon so I never met Bill in person but we talked often
>> on 2 FM we used for a DX notification frequency. K0CL and K0UK and a few
>> other contesters with big stations have been close friends for years since,
>> at one time, we all lived in western Colorado.
>> 
>> So, that's my story of how ham radio has changed.  I still enjoy CW and
>> bless my heart, I copied a 16 year old ham on 20 CW the other day using a
>> bug so the hobby ain't dead yet.  In another message, I'll tell you what I
>> am doing to change this form of degrading ham ethics.
>> 
>> Phil.
>> K0NX