`Recently, on an Internet news group, someone posted an article contending that the Internet and online computer services such as Compuserve and Ameria On Line will soon kill off amateur radio. This came within a month of a newspaper wire-service story recounting the use of electronic mail in getting messages into the earthquake-ravaged city of Kobe, Japan. This newspaper story quoted someone who said, essentially, that e-mail was the modern means of disaster communications, replacing ham radio "of the old days."
No one making these claims is a ham. Anyone who contends that using a commercial online computer service rivals the excitement of amateur radio communications obviously has no experience with our hobby. Still, others similarly unfamiliar with the amateur radio service might give some credence to such claims. That makes it worthwhile to point out some of the reasons why they're wrong.
The Internet article said that the world-wide communications capability of the online services and their ability to retrieve vast amounts of information render amateur radio obsolete. This contention overlooks the principal difference between such services and amateur radio. When using an online service or the Internet, you are a consumer; when using amateur radio, you are a participant.
A couple of weeks ago, I worked stations in Europe, South America, Africa and Asia. I was using a 5-watt transmitter and a wire antenna. That was enjoyable, rewarding and satisfying. Now, I could have sent e-mail to most of those countries, looked at World Wide Web pages from many of them, or picked up the telephone and talked to someone in each of them. As any ham knows, that just wouldn't be the same thing. As long as people find it exciting to do such things with equipment in their own homes, without the benefit of untold thousands of technicians maintaining their network links, amateur radio will have a place as a rewarding pastime.
Any non-amateur who cannot understand the difference between amateur radio and use of commerical communication services should find a local ham and ask to sit in while the ham makes some contacts, perhaps on HF, VHF weak-signal, or via amateur satellites. I'm sure that few people will go away from such an experience without knowing the difference. If you know any non-amateurs who think ham radio is obsolete, offer to give them a demonstration....
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-- Dave Finley, N1IRZ
* Socorro (NM) Amateur Radio Association
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