Roger J. Buffington wrote: > Demetre SV1UY wrote: > > >> Well, >> >> Do we really need contests, ragchewing, voice qsos, voice nets, cw >> qsos, cw nets, on HF? Realy it all depends on what each individual >> wants to do! Your millage might vary! It's a hobby OM! Each guys >> pleasure might be someone else's discomfort, but when an emergency >> arises then I think that everyone else's hobby needs must back off >> for a while until the emergency is over. I think this is fair! When >> human lives are in danger then everything else should be of a lower >> priority. >> >> 73 de Demetre SV1UY > > > The contests, ragchewing, qsos, nets, etc. that you reference ARE ham > radio. Sending internet emails over the air to no purpose whatever, > without even listening to see if the channel is clear, is NOT ham > radio. It is abuse, which is what Winlink mostly is. > > de Roger W6VZV > > Sending Internet E-Mail over amateur radio frequencies has a place especially in emergency, disaster relief and training use or where normal communications are NOT available as long as its use (E-mail via amateur radio) does use circumvent the normal use of normal internet capabilities...I admit this paraphrased from the U.S. FCC Part 97 but is common sense.
Do do admit that sending long files and tieing up a frequency for a long period of time is bad...not very amateur radio like while probably not an FCC Part 97 violation but certainly a bad operating practice. And in emergency or disaster communications you really want to make you messages as simple and short as possible editing forwarded messages and not attaching large files unless absolutelly necessarly...i.e. convert MS Word files to HTML or better yet ASCII files where possible. 73, Walt/K5YFW
