MySpace to throw out code

Thirty years ago right now, I and my family were stuck in the aftermath of the Great Blizzard of 1978. Lots of infrastructure had failed, including telephone lines.

As in any time of crisis, people came together and found ways to help one another get through. I know for a fact that Citizens' Band radio saved many lives, especially the very young and the elderly. With no telephones, CB's were the only way to find out who needed food or medicine, who had lost heat or electricity, and who was available to help those in need. Thanks to several someone's with CB's and a snowmobile, a man in the next county was taken to a railroad crossing, where a freight train picked him up and took him to a university hospital, and life-saving dialysis.

Now, thirty years later, many people 'round these parts keep mobile CB's for just such an occasion. Phones may fail, Internet conduits may get cut, but low-power radio can still get the job done, even if it means taking the battery out of your car and hot-wiring the radio to it.

Comparing MySpace to CB radio is an unfair comparison. MySpace doesn't make the world safer, and I strongly doubt that MySpace has helped with any search-and-rescue actions.

Signed, An aspiring ham operator

Me too, but I operate my ham in the privacy of my own home.... errr....

OK, really dismal attempt at humour aside... I agree with you. And "social networking" is just a buzzword, a rapidly passing fad. People have been doing what can be called "social networking" for the past 10000+ years, but hey, someone attached it to another buzzterm like "Web 2.0", and suddenly it's the Hottest New Thing TM.

What's stopping you gus3? The amateur test question pools are published and the test is easier than it was when I got my license when I was a teenager.

Do they still require you to know Morse code?

> Do they still require you to know Morse code?

Not for a technician's license. There are still code requirements for the higher level licenses.

> Do they still require you to know Morse code?

Yep. Vote Libertarian.

But seriously, it does end up that the higher power license holders are the ones with some sense of responsibility and dedication, which is a Good Thing(tm, reg us pat off) even if I disagree with how they are vetted.

Does it stop people from getting high-power equipment without the licenses? No, just the ones who aren't smart about it.

I, too, carry a CB in the car for "just such emergencies", I had to worry about lightning-grounding my big CB antenna back in the mid 70s too. But I got a computer in 1979 and CBs lost their Gee-Wiz factor real fast. That and having to have the squelch turned up so high that I could only hear people within 100 yards of me because of the level of noise.

Quoting:But I got a computer in 1979 and CBs lost their Gee-Wiz factor real fast.

The idea of talking to someone on the other side of the world, in real-time, hearing a real human voice, has returned once again to fascinate me.

A classmate's father had his ham license, and when he got his TRS-80 CoCo, it became just another piece of radio equipment. He built his own interface hardware and wrote his own program so he could watch teletype transmissions.

No Morse code is not required on any class license.

http://www.hello-radio.org/whatis.html#six

> No Morse code is not required on any class license.

OK, looks like I'm out of date. A quick Google search confirms that the Morse code requirements were dropped in February of last year.

Here's a link to an announcement of the change: http://www.eham.net/articles/15803

and here's a link to a PDF of the actual FCC ruling: http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800/edocke...

> OK, looks like I'm out of date.

Yep, ditto. Thanks for the updates. I got my "FCC Radio Operators License" back in 1986, so you might say I am out of date with good reason. Of course, that actually has nothing to do with operating radios, but far more to do with being able to fix them. :^)

So -- is the consensus CB good?

If so....

We got us a

  : C O N V O Y !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, sure - you got your convoy - but you got any RADAR LOVE?

> C O N V O Y

> RADAR LOVE

I though this was all about us saying we wanted a revolution?

And there goes another thread down the tubes. Where's Bob when he's needed? :)

...in the shuffling madness of locomotive breath runs the all time loser headlong to his death oh he feels the pistons scraping steam breaking on his brow old Charly stole the handle and the train it won't stop going no way to slow down...

I'm sorry, but this is a Bob Seger/Grand Funk Railroad thread.

No frikkin' flautist fluff allowed.

> ...this is a Bob Seger/Grand Funk Railroad thread.

Well, "It's A Mystery" why people choose Windows over Linux, and Linux appears to be somewhat of a "Stranger in Town", but we'll hope that it someday becomes a "Main Street" OS. However, I think we can definitely say that Linux is "Some Kind of Wonderful".

And hopefully this post is "The Famous Final Scene" of this thread....

Yikes, the thread was nearly OT to start with, and then it went... uh, that-a-way I think...

Chicken truck chicken truck Behind it I'm stuck And chicken truck chicken truck Was just my luck

Should that be a "tuxchicken truck" in your case?

Where else can we find so many high-quality pics of kids on spring break passed out drunk, lying in their own vomit and other fun body wastes? I mean come on, this is a national treasure!

Of blackmail material...

Time for a career change!

Walter Block wrote a book called "Defending The Undefendable" in which he puts forth an excellent logical argument that, because blackmail uses no force or fraud, it isn't actually a crime.

(Extortion, because it depends upon violence to back it up, is completely different.)

Hmm, I haven't read any of Block's work, but if he's saying that physical violence, or the threat of it, is a necessary basis for an act to be called a crime, then he's full of hooey.

"I know what you did last summer..."

If it was a crime ("...and I know where the body is"), then the blackmailer should be going to the police. Having material knowledge of a crime, without reporting it, is itself a crime.

OTOH, if it wasn't a crime, but something that simply humiliates the blackmailed ("...during that party in Texas")... ???

Any lawyers in the house?

> if he's saying that physical violence, or the threat of it, is a necessary basis for an act to be called a crime, then he's full of hooey.

Naa, he's just talking about non-statute law.

By statute, people can be arrested for what they do in their bedroom, in private, in complete consent. Such a law itself is the real crime.

But I have to ask, unless there is harm done, how can there be a crime? Sadly, now we're off topic and terms of service.

Oh Bob, I can't tell if you're trolling or trying to be funny. You speak of logic, then derail your own arguments. I toast marshmallows in the flames of your wreckage. Here, have one, there's plenty to share!

TC,

It's just like you to wander around with a big bag of marshmallows looking for a wreck.