Re: Announce: EchoLink Howto
My club the other day had a speaker who went on at some length,
pleading for more public recognition of the amateur radio hobby. In
the process he spent much time berating Echolink for the very reason
Hamish mentioned: "Do you call this amateur 'radio'?" I must admit
that I spent much of the time during his talk daydreaming, but also
wondered about the philosphical implications of the question.
If you are alergic to abstract speculation, read no further ;-)
Any hobby or personal committment that results in our development is
not just doing what we will, but represents action within certain
constraints imposed by circumstance. For example, education will not
take place in a classroom unless the teacher imposes constraints, some
discipline, assignments, rules of behavior.
So to understand the fascination of amateur radio, we need to keep in
mind the various constraints in terms of which we act. Early on I
suppose it was the difficulty communicating over a distance. It took
perseverance and cleverness to employ the new emerging technology to
communicate at all. Other constraints have been the challenge of
building useful equipment, contesting, DX, field days, etc.
However, technology has so advanced that it has become child's play to
communicate: using an HT with repeaters, for example. And because
communications has become so easy, in order to develop and enjoy the
hobby, we must impose constraints on ourselves, such as QRP or the
Altoid fetish. Without such constraints we are mere communicators, and
we could just as well use the telephone or e-mail, probably with less
expense and trouble.
Note, however, that the circumstance that imposes constraints upon us
must always change, and so the hobby itself always changes. It has no
hidden inner essence that sharply distinguishes it, no obvious
dividing line separating it from other activities such as electronic
design, homebrew, and computer operations. These spheres of activity
do not just interact, but flow into each other and represent only
vague regions in a continuum.
It might be objected that the essence must surely have something to do
with radio--with communicating information by means of RF
transmission. That would certainly be true, but this is merely a
verbal argument and circular, making an accidental form serve as an
absolute essence. The point should be that we enjoy ourselves by
developing within certain constraints of circumstance. It does not
reduce, on one hand, to just the passing nature of those constraints,
nor the resulting communication on the other, but is the combination
of the two.
I am surely biased, but I find the HT as alien to amateur radio as
Echolink. Both can be useful and interesting, but only as easy ways to
communicate. The constraints here are not substantially technical
(equipment, modes, conditions for RF transmission, etc.), but, I
suppose, social. People enjoy talking on the 'phone, not because it's
a technical challenge, but because it is socially meaningful or
useful.
In short, the HT and Echolink seem useful ways to communcate, but
their value does not arise from the technical constraints we associate
with the amateur radio hobby, but rather with the value and challenges
of social communications.
However, there is no reason for traditional hams to object to these
modes of communication. If (which I doubt, but the point can be
argued) the technical constraints nowdays are either no longer
challenging (the HT and relay) or are beyond the technical competence
of most (SMT consruction ;-), then maybe amateur radio will become a
thing of the past. That should not be regretted as long as people
still grow through technical challenges and still seek to communicate.
The small family farm is a thing of the past, and while much of value
may have been lost with its disappearance, we today face new
challenges and hold as true other values better suited to today's
circumstances. Many of us may not embrace Echolink, but we should not
denigrate it either.
Haines Brown KB1GRM
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