One thing nobody has mentioned yet. Ham radio operators are viewed as a bunch of old farts, but who do you think DESIGNED and BUILT the electronics industry that supports the development of new toys like iPhones and XBoxes and this system of tubes we're all on? Most of them are Hams.

Absolutely! I think the code requirement was a huge stumbling block to entry into this hobby. I know it was for me! I tried and tried and just couldn't devote the head-space to learning it. I really want to, and I plan to, some day, hopefully soon! But now it's really easy to get your Technician license. Many Hamfests offer a one-day training, followed by the test itself, just to give you an idea of how hard it really is to get started.

For a variety of reasons, Hams are generally speaking not "joiners", and the old-timers that form the core of most Amateur Radio Clubs have been a tight-knit community of amateur engineers and friends for decades, supporting and sharing the tech knowledge, but there are WAY more Hams out there who do not even belong to a club. Many clubs struggle to get newly-licensed hams to join them! However, the number of new licenses issued by the FCC has been increasing every year for many years. Here is a quote from the ARRL web site: "In 2009, a total of 30,144 new licenses were granted, an increase of almost 7.5 percent from 2008. In 2005, 16,368 new hams joined Amateur Radio’s ranks -- just five years later, that number had increased by almost 14,000, a whopping 84 percent!" So, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the news of Amateur Radio's death has been greatly exaggerated! (From an article linked here.)

This really fries my clams! [rant]It's one more example of everyone just rolling over and accepting the use of taxation to try to achieve some perceived social benefit through using taxation to modify behavior. This is the reason that is put forth, and it's ridiculous!! Has tobacco taxation slowed the use of cigarettes? No! Has alcohol taxation slowed the use of alcohol consumption? No! And what business is it of the government's anyway? If I want to be a fat, cigarette puffing, drunken sot, is there a "cost to society"? Only if I hurt others or try to get government help for my problems. There are laws which punish and ultimately remove people from general circulation if they hurt other people, and I certainly don't expect the government to take care of me because I'm sick. Who ever said *that* was the government's job anyway? The more you expect someone to take care of you, the more vested interest they have in preventing you from doing things that might be expensive to them. Everyone, wake up!! This is not okay!! It's never been okay! Taxation is for paying for government services, not for trying to achieve some social aim through behavior modification!! THIS MAKES ME CRAZY!!![/rant] Okay. I feel better now. You all can go back to your government-approved lives now. I apologize for the outburst. It won't happen again. If it does, I'm sure there will be a 2:00 AM knock on my door.

I was a consultant at the Texaco refinery in Wilmington, California (near Long Beach) in the late 80's, and the Los Angeles "Air Quality Management District" folks mandated that they decrease the average number of cars going in and out of the main gate per month in an effort to improve the air quality in the LA basin. Not sure how that would have compared to, say, decreasing the smoke-stack emissions at the refinery, but I'll leave that for YASP. (Yet Another Slashdot Post) Anyway, their creative solution was to request everyone at the refinery, office staff as well as the operations guys, to work "nine nines" and they'd get every other friday off. This ended up working extremely well for everyone that did it, and it did not seem to have any negative impacts at the refinery, so... I'd say it was a success 20 years ago. I have no idea if they are still doing that. I guess if they had gotten everyone in LA to adopt this plan it would have reduced smog caused by car emissions by roughly 10%. I never heard of anybody else doing this, and we now know that smog caused by cars is a much smaller percentage than was once thought, so how much did this help the smog situation? I'd say it was bureaucrats wanting to look like they were doing something about a problem.