A.M. Rutkowski wrote:
>
> I'm more than familiar with those struggles.
> This why you want to avoid the characterization
> of being a public resource - and why conversely
> the GAC has adopted an international agreement
> stating Internet Name and Number systems are
> public resources. Being a public resource
> means that governments will ultimately control
> it.
>
> The radio spectrum was progressively made a
> public resource and brought under increasingly
> more extensive regulatory regimes by the ITU
> beginning in 1903 and the US Dept of Commerce
> in 1912.
Yes, my father (W2AT) used to tell me all about that when I was a
kid. He was a member of the Brooklyn Amateur Radio Club, of which
David Sarnoff and other later radio industry notables were also
members. According to what my father told me, they were all aghast
when the USG started claiming authority over the air waves, since it
was the members of the private amateur radio clubs who developed
their use, and it was they who invented many of the technical
devices that permitted long-distance short-wave radio communications
(e.g. rf amplifiers, crystal-controlled transmitters, directional
quad antennas, etc.).
> (In fact, my call sign was the 18th
> issued by them in August 1912.)
You must be around 90 years old, then. :-)
> --tony
> W3AR (and President of the Detroit
> Amateur Radio Association. 1964-65)
Michael Sondow
formerly K2SAH, member of the Long Island Microwave Society
(1956-59).
