>"Your using Pactor to email family and friends. Unless your family and friends >are all amateurs, communicating with them was at one time not allowed.
Really? When? Since the beginning of time Amateur Radio has been used for third party traffic [in the US]. Ever hear of Heath & Welfare messages after a disaster? radiograms? Just _what_ was the Amateur Radio _Relay_ League was relaying back in the teens and twenties? Excerpt from from the book '200 Meters and Down' by Clinton B. De Soto, 1936: ~~~ In 1914, Hiram Percy Maxim of Hartford, Connecticut, was a prominent businessman, engineer, and inventor (notably of the Maxim Silencer). He was also an active radio amateur, with one of the best-equipped stations in the Hartford area. One night in April he attempted to send a message to another ham in Springfield, Massachusetts. He had a one-kilowatt station (call 1WH), and Springfield was only 30 miles away, well within his normal range. He was unable to make contact, and remembering that he knew another ham in Windsor Locks, about halfway, he contacted the Windsor Locks ham, and asked him to relay the message, which was successfully done. This was not the first time a message had been relayed, but it set Maxim to thinking. At that time, a great deal, perhaps most of amateur radio activity consisted of sending and receiving messages, not only between amateurs, but involving the general public as well. But at that time the maximum reliable range of a station was a few hundred miles or less, and so Maxim realized that a formally organized relay system would be of tremendous use to amateurs. ~~~~ Mark AD5SS On Sun, Apr 29, 2012 at 9:37 PM, Scott Manthe <[email protected]> wrote: > Well, some of the irritation is brought about something you mention > casually: Your using Pactor to email family and friends. Unless your > family and friends are all amateurs, communicating with them was at one > time not allowed. Amateurs were not allowed to communicate with > non-amateurs, no matter the mode, excepting for autopatches and phone > patches. None of these operations was automatic, and a licensed amateur > was always in control of the transmission. This is not the case with the > Pactor autobots. > > Secondly, and this just my opinion, there is a maritime radio service, > so why don't you sailors use that to email your family and friends and > transmit logs and get weather information? Since vessels have a > dedicated radio service to do everything needed, why pollute the amateur > bands with maritime communications? There is absolutely no need to use > the amateur bands for this, especially the autoforwarding stuff. No way > to justify this, except that sailors have a lot of money and influence > in both Newington and D.C. > > 73, > Scott, N9AA > ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
