This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archived talk. Post new Talk at the parent site: Talk:Amateur_radio
Why do they call it ham radio? Why ham? Someone should explain that. KirbyMeister 23:37, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
According to the Pejorative page, Ham was originally a perjorative term. But beyond that I know not. Anonymous 00:17, 17 Dec 2005 (AEDST)
Just for fun... According to CQ India, "HAM stands for The first letter of 3 pioneers in the field of Radio communication viz., Hertz Armstrong and Marconi". Maybe sometime we can write a whole article on the legends surrounding the term. Anonym1ty 17:43, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Please see Etymology_of_ham_radio Anonym1ty 18:17, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Most of the discussion that purely involved movies, etc, was moved to Talk:Amateur radio in popular culture
Quite noticeably the entire article is very POV, but is that a big deal on wikipedia because this is a hobby? Furthermore, something should be said about the telecommunication industry's and the ham's main problem: Broadband over Power Lines which creates massive interference in the ham bands. Theloniouszen 11:44, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Can LowFER be described as special form of amateur radio?
-- swirsky lowFERs are unlicenced, but they're almost always Hams....
Do people really think that this article is going to end up listing every regional, local, and specialty radio club in the world???
On that score, even a listing all the world's national associations really ought to be moved to a separate "List of..." page, if we need it at all. Think about how many countries there are in the world...
While we're at it, what happened to the Wikipedia policy of trying to internal-link, before jumping readers straight to external links? I know there's an RSGB stub because I created it for this purpose - whose idea was it to revert all national associations to external links and cut out all the (potential) Wiki pages?
And what are all those find a club near you links about?! This is an encyclopedia, not a "find-a-club" service.
Sorry to rant, but whoever's gone-to-town on this page is not following Wikipedia style or guidelines and it's going to be SO MUCH work to sort it all out. It might be better just to delete all the link-spam and undifferentiated listing that makes up most of this section, and then rebuild what's really needed, in an encyclopedic style, over the course of a few weeks or months. -- Nigelj 22:33, 7 September 2005 (UTC), MJ0AQJ
I don't really like the section name "What does one do with amateur radio?" I don't like it because it is a question and also because it is cumbersome and akward sounding. I brought it up here because I thought it might be better to have some others' suggestions rather than to just start chaning everything. My suggestion is it may be better as "Avocation, Pursuit & Practices" (or something).
I also feel the section is too big and too detailed. perhaps we should cut down the individual sub sections to a brief description of each with links to related article, much the was as was done with Amateur Radio in Popular Culture.
Your thoughts? Anonym1ty 23:41, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
I see that the International Operation has been greatly expanded. To me, it's far beyond what an encyclopedia ought to be and more of, well, a rule book extract. No matter. It's time (IMHO) to move this into it's own file as had been done with the band plans, pop culture references, etc. Any suggestion for an article name? -- N5UWY/9 - plaws 21:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
I've been working on the Amateur Radio Direction Finding article, and would really appreciate peer review and feedback from others with amateur radio expertise. -- Kharker 00:04, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
I have recently started a page on the subject of TVI ( Television interference), I am a HAM (licensed since 1992) but I would value the input of other hams on this page. I have already described the causes and cures for the most common forms of TV trouble.
I just zapped the whole list of modulation modes. None of those were particularly special, and the most frequently used modulations were not even listed. I made sure that all of them are now in Category:Radio modulation modes, which is already a subcat of Category:Amateur radio. -- ssd 15:02, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
My one criticism of the article is that it is a too US centric. Mind if I do a bit of editing? Gerry Lynch 13:01, 10 August 2005 (UTC) (G0RTN/GI0RTN)
Wow - great job Gerry Lynch! What's your call? -- N5UWY/9 Plaws 21:17, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
Hello to all. I today have added a section under "What can you do" entitled Vintage Radio. Included are two famous hams who directly contribute to the body of the text by virtue of their participation in this facet of the hobby. I envision a reader seeing the "celebrity" nature and imagining they could actually talk with these people, hence their inclusion. I also have uploaded an image of an AM Special Event Station, but am not yet sure I've formatted the page version (at 300px) and the thumbnail that is supposed to get you to the fullsizer. Editing help appreciated if that didn't turn out. If there is a revision that cuts down the size of this overall entry (as discussed here), I would be glad to re-write an introductory paragraph and link it to a more comprehensive version elsewhere. Drop me a line or post it. Tnx es 73 --Paul/WA3VJB 27 Dec 2005
I've been mostly contributing to ham radio-related articles other than this main one. As I'm reading through this atricle, there are a lot of things that should be fixed:
I'd start working on some of these myself, but it's such a daunting task... hi. -- Kharker 02:27, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I admit it: I whacked the advertising External Links section. Tired of looking at it. Tired of fixing it every few weeks.
User:Mirror Vax whacked most of the categories because, near as I can tell, he likes to do that. I'm going to put them back. --
N5UWY/9 - plaws
02:42, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
And ... I took a good whack at the See also section. Feels so good. -- N5UWY/9 - plaws 02:50, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Major Changes and reorganization. Article size cut. New section History Created. Hoping someone might add a few historical things from places other than the US to it.
The Article is smaller now, it can be made smaller. I tried to address some of the many criticisms and hope others will follow my lead.
I did do a lot of cutting, I tried to preserve the intent, however I do not believe I am the only authority and would appreciate a peer review and revisions as needed. Anonym1ty 16:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Do we still need the advertisement tag on the article? I did a lot of cleaning in hopes of fixing many of the problems with this article. DO we still need the ADVERTISMENT / NPOV tag or can we get rid of it? After all the editing I just did I don't think I am in a postition to stand back and look at the article and and make that decision. I would appreciate someone looking at it and either removing it, or discussing some more problems here. Yes I know I suggested two splits, but that type of clean-up isn't the same as the advertisement tag or the NPOV. Anonym1ty 21:55, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
NPOV The article looks good, except "A good way to get started in amateur radio is to find a club in your area to answer your questions and provide information on getting licensed and then getting on the air. If you are in the U.S., you can find a club near you by going to the American Radio Relay League's Affiliated Club Search page."
This is quite clearly a direct advertisement, because encyclopedias very rarely tell "you" how to contact an organization and join a hobby. Perhaps rewording like "most people enter the hobby by contacting a local amateur radio club" would be more appropriate. Personally, I would like to move this whole section to its own article. Andrewjuren 22:51, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
The article would read better if we picked a term and stuck to it. Example: ham radio or amateur radio? Given the articles title, I'd say the latter should be used. Example: "amateur radio operator", "ham radio operator", "amateur", "ham", or "radio amateur". I believe the last is most common outside the USA. So? What's the concensus? -- N5UWY/9 - plaws 21:30, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
This is a well written article, however, I do have one criticism. The introduction should be shortened. Generally the introduction/lead should give succint overview of the topic which is being discussed in the article. Specifics are usually relegated to the remainder of the article. However, the lead section is currently about seven paragraphs, while the Manual of Style recommends having three or fewer paragraphs. [ Guide to writing better articles - lead section] Just a thought. -- BMIComp (talk, HOWS MY DRIVING) 19:56, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
I think the opening section is much improved. Well done. -- Kth 03:24, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Hello,
I suggest a more succinct discussion of licensing structure worldwide. For example, perhaps there could be a comparative table built along the following concept.
Class US UK France China Japan etc.... 1 Technician ? ? ? ? 2 General ? ? ? ? 3 Extra ? ? ? ?
Then, on a separate page discuss the requirements for each class country (
Andrewjuren) worldwide. With this change/addition, the existing page could be shortened to a table with details on a linked page.
To me, this sounds like a cool project for someone who knows the topic.
I think this would be a great way to reduce the size of this article (many agree that it has become too long). Unfortunately, I'm a Canadian Amateur and don't really know the US licensing scheme all that well, but I could certainly write an article on the Canadian system. Comments? Andrewjuren 22:14, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Now we need to flesh out the new article. Ideally, it would look at ITU allocations by region, then representative national allocations, and finally national society bandplans. -- N5UWY/9 - plaws 21:27, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I would like to suggest mentioning that there exists several amateur radio satellites and that the ISS and Space Shuttle carry amateur radio tranceivers aboard. 146.6.205.149 21:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC) Roger Banks -- KE5AQD
In the US, FCC part 97 is the primary source for rules and regulations. ARRL has a nice html formated version here. While this primarily pertains to the US and region 2, it does include the authorized frequency bands for all three regions.
I think this document deserves a mention somewhere prominent in this article. I would have linked it in the governance section, but I didn't see an appropriate place. It would be nice if similar documents for other regions could be found and listed. -- ssd 13:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
"Most of the modes noted above [FM, SSB, CW, RTTY] rely on the simplex communication mode, that is direct, radio-to-radio communication."
This is not strictly true. The modes are direct and half-duplex. The term "simplex" Simplex_communication is often misused in the radio amateur community. I have reworded this as:
"The modes noted above are typically used in direct, radio-to-radio communication."
Sound reasonable? Andrewjuren 22:34, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
The term Simplex is a long accepted usage. Calling it half duplex is not consistent with amateur practice. I would still call it simplex for that reason. Those of us who use digital communications protocols are comfortable talking about half-duplex links and simplex communications in different contexts. Kd4ttc 20:06, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
There is a quote in the article that with the sinking of the Titanic it wa necessary to regulate radio. Why did a sinking ship beget radio regulation? I read the Titanic article. It seems that the disaster caused a change in radio regulations. Did amateur practice in particular change? Steve Kd4ttc 17:44, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I thought that Morse code was required to work frequencies below 50 MHz, but now I see references to bands below 30 MHz. I was looking through part 97 rules and couldn't find a definitive stament. Is there a difference between ITU and US rules on this? Kd4ttc 18:46, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
A lot of the content here is based on information that can be found in the books listed in the Publications section. Ok, I've looked at other articles... I've read the style guides about citations in Wikipedia, and now I wish I hadn't. If I didn't I would have just done it rather than second guessing what might be the best way to do it. Apparently there is no one agreed on way of doing it for wikipedia. And it depends on a number of things relating to the style of the type of article and the type of source you are citing. I don't have a clue which way is the most appropriate way to do it in this article. What is the best way to cite the sources for this article? Anonym1ty 22:34, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
How 'bout a section on Famous Hams, like Barry Goldwater, King Hussein, and Robert Swirsky?
Feargal Sharkey is a 1980s british pop star who is a HAM.
The bigger question is "so what?" So what if someone famous was a ham? How does that add value to the article? I can name plenty of "famous hams" and their callsigns (Former King Hussein of Jordan, JY1; former US Senator Barry Goldwater, K7UGA), but what of it? Aside from being able to say "see, important people are hams, too!" what of it? -- N5UWY/9 - plaws 16:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I think a list of famous hams is only useful for purposes of promoting amateur radio; while this is a noble goal, it is one that this article has already been criticized for. I don't think a list of famous hams is appropriate for this article. A list of contributions of famous hams would be very appropriate. King Hussein did contribute significantly (he at least sponsored several satellites), but I am not really aware of his contributions. Walter Cronkite has also contributed significantly, mostly as a ham activist, making several promotional and training videos. Actually, even stuff like this might be better in a separate article. -- ssd 19:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
A little promotion is not a bad thing. Seeing famous people participate is a great way to promote amateur radio. Wikipedia is helped if it is fun to read. A fun article on a hobby does contribute to the success of Wikipedia. I wouldn't want a glossed over piece of fluff, but there is a place to talk about amateur radio being fun. If a person comes away from this article thinking amateur radio would be a nice hobby to pick up and they got a realistic idea of the sort of fun one can have with amateur radio that is then good promotion. Wikepedia has become such a great source of often accurate information that it may be a place where people come to to find out how to become a ham. Kd4ttc 18:23, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archived talk. Post new Talk at the parent site: Talk:Amateur_radio
Why do they call it ham radio? Why ham? Someone should explain that. KirbyMeister 23:37, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)
According to the Pejorative page, Ham was originally a perjorative term. But beyond that I know not. Anonymous 00:17, 17 Dec 2005 (AEDST)
Just for fun... According to CQ India, "HAM stands for The first letter of 3 pioneers in the field of Radio communication viz., Hertz Armstrong and Marconi". Maybe sometime we can write a whole article on the legends surrounding the term. Anonym1ty 17:43, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
Please see Etymology_of_ham_radio Anonym1ty 18:17, 9 February 2006 (UTC)
Most of the discussion that purely involved movies, etc, was moved to Talk:Amateur radio in popular culture
Quite noticeably the entire article is very POV, but is that a big deal on wikipedia because this is a hobby? Furthermore, something should be said about the telecommunication industry's and the ham's main problem: Broadband over Power Lines which creates massive interference in the ham bands. Theloniouszen 11:44, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Can LowFER be described as special form of amateur radio?
-- swirsky lowFERs are unlicenced, but they're almost always Hams....
Do people really think that this article is going to end up listing every regional, local, and specialty radio club in the world???
On that score, even a listing all the world's national associations really ought to be moved to a separate "List of..." page, if we need it at all. Think about how many countries there are in the world...
While we're at it, what happened to the Wikipedia policy of trying to internal-link, before jumping readers straight to external links? I know there's an RSGB stub because I created it for this purpose - whose idea was it to revert all national associations to external links and cut out all the (potential) Wiki pages?
And what are all those find a club near you links about?! This is an encyclopedia, not a "find-a-club" service.
Sorry to rant, but whoever's gone-to-town on this page is not following Wikipedia style or guidelines and it's going to be SO MUCH work to sort it all out. It might be better just to delete all the link-spam and undifferentiated listing that makes up most of this section, and then rebuild what's really needed, in an encyclopedic style, over the course of a few weeks or months. -- Nigelj 22:33, 7 September 2005 (UTC), MJ0AQJ
I don't really like the section name "What does one do with amateur radio?" I don't like it because it is a question and also because it is cumbersome and akward sounding. I brought it up here because I thought it might be better to have some others' suggestions rather than to just start chaning everything. My suggestion is it may be better as "Avocation, Pursuit & Practices" (or something).
I also feel the section is too big and too detailed. perhaps we should cut down the individual sub sections to a brief description of each with links to related article, much the was as was done with Amateur Radio in Popular Culture.
Your thoughts? Anonym1ty 23:41, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
I see that the International Operation has been greatly expanded. To me, it's far beyond what an encyclopedia ought to be and more of, well, a rule book extract. No matter. It's time (IMHO) to move this into it's own file as had been done with the band plans, pop culture references, etc. Any suggestion for an article name? -- N5UWY/9 - plaws 21:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
I've been working on the Amateur Radio Direction Finding article, and would really appreciate peer review and feedback from others with amateur radio expertise. -- Kharker 00:04, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
I have recently started a page on the subject of TVI ( Television interference), I am a HAM (licensed since 1992) but I would value the input of other hams on this page. I have already described the causes and cures for the most common forms of TV trouble.
I just zapped the whole list of modulation modes. None of those were particularly special, and the most frequently used modulations were not even listed. I made sure that all of them are now in Category:Radio modulation modes, which is already a subcat of Category:Amateur radio. -- ssd 15:02, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
My one criticism of the article is that it is a too US centric. Mind if I do a bit of editing? Gerry Lynch 13:01, 10 August 2005 (UTC) (G0RTN/GI0RTN)
Wow - great job Gerry Lynch! What's your call? -- N5UWY/9 Plaws 21:17, September 9, 2005 (UTC)
Hello to all. I today have added a section under "What can you do" entitled Vintage Radio. Included are two famous hams who directly contribute to the body of the text by virtue of their participation in this facet of the hobby. I envision a reader seeing the "celebrity" nature and imagining they could actually talk with these people, hence their inclusion. I also have uploaded an image of an AM Special Event Station, but am not yet sure I've formatted the page version (at 300px) and the thumbnail that is supposed to get you to the fullsizer. Editing help appreciated if that didn't turn out. If there is a revision that cuts down the size of this overall entry (as discussed here), I would be glad to re-write an introductory paragraph and link it to a more comprehensive version elsewhere. Drop me a line or post it. Tnx es 73 --Paul/WA3VJB 27 Dec 2005
I've been mostly contributing to ham radio-related articles other than this main one. As I'm reading through this atricle, there are a lot of things that should be fixed:
I'd start working on some of these myself, but it's such a daunting task... hi. -- Kharker 02:27, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I admit it: I whacked the advertising External Links section. Tired of looking at it. Tired of fixing it every few weeks.
User:Mirror Vax whacked most of the categories because, near as I can tell, he likes to do that. I'm going to put them back. --
N5UWY/9 - plaws
02:42, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
And ... I took a good whack at the See also section. Feels so good. -- N5UWY/9 - plaws 02:50, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Major Changes and reorganization. Article size cut. New section History Created. Hoping someone might add a few historical things from places other than the US to it.
The Article is smaller now, it can be made smaller. I tried to address some of the many criticisms and hope others will follow my lead.
I did do a lot of cutting, I tried to preserve the intent, however I do not believe I am the only authority and would appreciate a peer review and revisions as needed. Anonym1ty 16:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Do we still need the advertisement tag on the article? I did a lot of cleaning in hopes of fixing many of the problems with this article. DO we still need the ADVERTISMENT / NPOV tag or can we get rid of it? After all the editing I just did I don't think I am in a postition to stand back and look at the article and and make that decision. I would appreciate someone looking at it and either removing it, or discussing some more problems here. Yes I know I suggested two splits, but that type of clean-up isn't the same as the advertisement tag or the NPOV. Anonym1ty 21:55, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
NPOV The article looks good, except "A good way to get started in amateur radio is to find a club in your area to answer your questions and provide information on getting licensed and then getting on the air. If you are in the U.S., you can find a club near you by going to the American Radio Relay League's Affiliated Club Search page."
This is quite clearly a direct advertisement, because encyclopedias very rarely tell "you" how to contact an organization and join a hobby. Perhaps rewording like "most people enter the hobby by contacting a local amateur radio club" would be more appropriate. Personally, I would like to move this whole section to its own article. Andrewjuren 22:51, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
The article would read better if we picked a term and stuck to it. Example: ham radio or amateur radio? Given the articles title, I'd say the latter should be used. Example: "amateur radio operator", "ham radio operator", "amateur", "ham", or "radio amateur". I believe the last is most common outside the USA. So? What's the concensus? -- N5UWY/9 - plaws 21:30, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
This is a well written article, however, I do have one criticism. The introduction should be shortened. Generally the introduction/lead should give succint overview of the topic which is being discussed in the article. Specifics are usually relegated to the remainder of the article. However, the lead section is currently about seven paragraphs, while the Manual of Style recommends having three or fewer paragraphs. [ Guide to writing better articles - lead section] Just a thought. -- BMIComp (talk, HOWS MY DRIVING) 19:56, 19 October 2005 (UTC)
I think the opening section is much improved. Well done. -- Kth 03:24, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
Hello,
I suggest a more succinct discussion of licensing structure worldwide. For example, perhaps there could be a comparative table built along the following concept.
Class US UK France China Japan etc.... 1 Technician ? ? ? ? 2 General ? ? ? ? 3 Extra ? ? ? ?
Then, on a separate page discuss the requirements for each class country (
Andrewjuren) worldwide. With this change/addition, the existing page could be shortened to a table with details on a linked page.
To me, this sounds like a cool project for someone who knows the topic.
I think this would be a great way to reduce the size of this article (many agree that it has become too long). Unfortunately, I'm a Canadian Amateur and don't really know the US licensing scheme all that well, but I could certainly write an article on the Canadian system. Comments? Andrewjuren 22:14, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Now we need to flesh out the new article. Ideally, it would look at ITU allocations by region, then representative national allocations, and finally national society bandplans. -- N5UWY/9 - plaws 21:27, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I would like to suggest mentioning that there exists several amateur radio satellites and that the ISS and Space Shuttle carry amateur radio tranceivers aboard. 146.6.205.149 21:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC) Roger Banks -- KE5AQD
In the US, FCC part 97 is the primary source for rules and regulations. ARRL has a nice html formated version here. While this primarily pertains to the US and region 2, it does include the authorized frequency bands for all three regions.
I think this document deserves a mention somewhere prominent in this article. I would have linked it in the governance section, but I didn't see an appropriate place. It would be nice if similar documents for other regions could be found and listed. -- ssd 13:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
"Most of the modes noted above [FM, SSB, CW, RTTY] rely on the simplex communication mode, that is direct, radio-to-radio communication."
This is not strictly true. The modes are direct and half-duplex. The term "simplex" Simplex_communication is often misused in the radio amateur community. I have reworded this as:
"The modes noted above are typically used in direct, radio-to-radio communication."
Sound reasonable? Andrewjuren 22:34, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
The term Simplex is a long accepted usage. Calling it half duplex is not consistent with amateur practice. I would still call it simplex for that reason. Those of us who use digital communications protocols are comfortable talking about half-duplex links and simplex communications in different contexts. Kd4ttc 20:06, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
There is a quote in the article that with the sinking of the Titanic it wa necessary to regulate radio. Why did a sinking ship beget radio regulation? I read the Titanic article. It seems that the disaster caused a change in radio regulations. Did amateur practice in particular change? Steve Kd4ttc 17:44, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
I thought that Morse code was required to work frequencies below 50 MHz, but now I see references to bands below 30 MHz. I was looking through part 97 rules and couldn't find a definitive stament. Is there a difference between ITU and US rules on this? Kd4ttc 18:46, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
A lot of the content here is based on information that can be found in the books listed in the Publications section. Ok, I've looked at other articles... I've read the style guides about citations in Wikipedia, and now I wish I hadn't. If I didn't I would have just done it rather than second guessing what might be the best way to do it. Apparently there is no one agreed on way of doing it for wikipedia. And it depends on a number of things relating to the style of the type of article and the type of source you are citing. I don't have a clue which way is the most appropriate way to do it in this article. What is the best way to cite the sources for this article? Anonym1ty 22:34, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
How 'bout a section on Famous Hams, like Barry Goldwater, King Hussein, and Robert Swirsky?
Feargal Sharkey is a 1980s british pop star who is a HAM.
The bigger question is "so what?" So what if someone famous was a ham? How does that add value to the article? I can name plenty of "famous hams" and their callsigns (Former King Hussein of Jordan, JY1; former US Senator Barry Goldwater, K7UGA), but what of it? Aside from being able to say "see, important people are hams, too!" what of it? -- N5UWY/9 - plaws 16:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I think a list of famous hams is only useful for purposes of promoting amateur radio; while this is a noble goal, it is one that this article has already been criticized for. I don't think a list of famous hams is appropriate for this article. A list of contributions of famous hams would be very appropriate. King Hussein did contribute significantly (he at least sponsored several satellites), but I am not really aware of his contributions. Walter Cronkite has also contributed significantly, mostly as a ham activist, making several promotional and training videos. Actually, even stuff like this might be better in a separate article. -- ssd 19:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
A little promotion is not a bad thing. Seeing famous people participate is a great way to promote amateur radio. Wikipedia is helped if it is fun to read. A fun article on a hobby does contribute to the success of Wikipedia. I wouldn't want a glossed over piece of fluff, but there is a place to talk about amateur radio being fun. If a person comes away from this article thinking amateur radio would be a nice hobby to pick up and they got a realistic idea of the sort of fun one can have with amateur radio that is then good promotion. Wikepedia has become such a great source of often accurate information that it may be a place where people come to to find out how to become a ham. Kd4ttc 18:23, 14 February 2006 (UTC)