Submarines

Those of you who know me are aware that I write extensively about submarines, and especially World War II submarines. In fact, I just spent most of the weekend working on my next book, the story of an amazing incident aboard USS Billfish...a 15-hour depth charge attack that brought out the best and worst in her crew...and a story that was not told outside the hull of Billfish for 60 years!

At any rate, there is a very good story in today's Cleveland News Herald that anyone with an interest in WWII history and/or submarines may enjoy. It is about the USS Cod, one of the museum ships that have been restored and opened to the public. I wrote about it and her 16 WWII sisters in my book Final Patrol. Thanks to my ham radio buddy, Fritz, K8WLF, for sending me the link.

The link is http://www.news-herald.com/articles/2009/05/10/life/nh849308.txt if you are interested.

Don N4KC

Of gall bladders and spaceships

So I was comparing gall bladder surgery notes with a fellow employee at Education Corporation of America today. He had his taken out a couple of weeks ago and has a couple of tiny scars and is at work. I had mine removed in 1974 and have a foot-long scar to show for it. I was off work for five weeks. They use laproscopy nowadays. In 1974, it was a saber and a butcher knife.

Well, maybe not that drastic, but things have changed. In my description of this blog, I mention the statement I once read that claimed that scientific knowledge doubles every five years, but medical knowledge doubles every three years. Some have looked at me askance...whatever "askance" is...and said, "Well, bright boy, if that were the case, wouldn't they have cured all diseases already? And wouldn't the swine flu have been shot down the first week? Oh, and wouldn't we have regular spaceships to the moon if we doubled our scientific knowledge even every five years?"

What we have to keep in mind is just how ignorant we are. Not so long ago, we were bleeding sick people to clean out the bad blood. And those Wright boys were just managing to skim the ground out there on Kitty Hawk.

Knowledge could double a whole bunch of times before we make a dent in our ignorance.

Don N4KC
http://www.donkeith.com/

People Gotta Be Free

A Romanian amateur radio operator named Francisc Grunberg (YO4PX) posted a fascinating article on the eHam.net website about how dictatorships around the world have prevented any amateur activity in their countries. Even if you have no interest in ham radio, I would highly recommend you read Francisc's words. They come from a man who was once denied not only the freedom to mess up TV sets with his radio set, but denied most other basic freedom we take for granted.

I hope everyone is aware that we are in the midst of a global revolution, fueled by technology and the ready availability of information. It will become more and more difficult for dictators to keep the people of their countries ignorant, in the dark, exposed to only their way of thinking, numbed by a constant barrage of propaganda.

China will be an interesting one to watch. Now, with the Internet, cellular technology, international travel and trade, and more...yes, including amateur radio...it will be impossible for that country's government to continue to deny its people knowledge and exposure to free, diverse opinion. And a knowledgeable populace will not remain oppressed for long. Even the people of North Korea and other Dark Ages countries will soon be informed to the point that they will no longer accept totalitarian rule.

Can there be too much information available? Is much of the information today biased or incorrect? Is there a danger when anyone can anonymously post complete blather and instantly have a worldwide audience? Certainly, but the freer the flow of opinion and knowledge, the more accurate and diverse it will become. Even wrong-headed opinions serve a good purpose if they encourage open and reasoned debate. The real danger is when only the government is allowed to have an opinion or decide what is and what isn't "accurate" news.

Though we fuss about the opinions posted in various forums like this forum, we should salute their willingness and ability to express them, just as we enjoy the freedom to try to convince them otherwise.

Thank you, Francisc, for the wonderful article. We are thrilled that you now have freedom to write it and post it...and talk about it on the airwaves...just the way every free man and woman should be able to.

And every man and woman should be free.

Don Keith N4KC

http://www.donkeith.com/

http://www.n4kc.com/

n4kc.blogspot.com

Nine major media trends...scary stuff if you own stock in "broadcasting" companies!

People who regularly follow this exercise in egotism must think I have an unhealthy man-crush on media consultant and researcher Mark Ramsey. I don't, but I do have a powerful crush on his ideas. He has posted a video on his website of a presentation he recently gave to the Gospel Music Association that is as clear and concise look at the state of "broadcasting" these days, and some pithy comments from Mark and some other very smart people about where things are going. Just the demo of a forthcoming app for the iPhone should be enough to scare the bejesus out of anybody whose future is tied to over-the-air media...a business we once called "broadcasting." (I will henceforth and forevermore put that word in quotes because there is no longer such a thing as "broadcasting," regardless of what Arbitron, Nielsen and media outlets try to tell you. Listeners/viewers are now "tribes." Advertisers want "tribes" who seek their product or service, not a mass of disconnected and dissimilar eyes/ears. Doubt it? Ask magazine publishers, major daily newspapers, and network TV!)

If the video is no longer on Mark's main website page, just look in the archives for a post titled 9 SECRETS TO RADIO'S DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION. The video is toward the end of the post and takes about 45 minutes to view. But if you care about where media is going, if you don't understand that "broadcasting" is now "tribal management," if you have the keys to a "broadcasting" facility, then you simply must hit "Play" and sit back and watch.

Not since Todd Storz had a revelation--watching people in a diner spending money to play their favorite songs over and over on a jukebox--and invented Top 40 radio has "broadcasting" been so much in need of re-invention. If we continue to allow cost accountants and Wall Street analysts to dictate what it takes to run media outlets, then those who are so heavily invested in them are about to take a long, hard fall.

Frankly, it is difficult to feel sorry for them.

Don

http://www.donkeith.com/

http://www.n4kc.com/

AM vs. SSB -- retro battle or much ado about nothing?

For those who don't know, the amateur radio world is abuzz over a recent positive change. International treaties recently required that shortwave broadcasters who have filled up a good portion of the 40-meter amateur radio band to move to a new allocation...above the ham band and out of our passbands! The newly vacated bit of spectrum is wonderful. Propagation--especially at night--is interesting and promising. Many hams in foreign countries are now being allowed to operate above 7.125, so we can talk to each without having to use split frequencies. But the really great thing is we don't have to listen to all those squealing, squalling AM signals and their tinkly splatter

All is right with the world! Almost.

Some amateurs who enjoy operating AM instead of SSB have chosen the vicinity of 7.160 in the pristine newly quiet band to talk to each other. You would have thought somebody dropped a cow patty into the punch bowl! The amateur discussion forums teem with people who want to lynch anybody who dares to insert carrier and un-suppress that other sideband and sully up that nice, new bunch of frequencies.

Never mind that many of the guys who decry the spectrum taken up by AMers are dyed-in-the-wool DXers. And DXers still work a ton of split-frequency, thus taking twice the bandwidth a simplex QSO requires. That's roughly the same slab of spectrum the AM guys use. Others seem unable to make a simple adjustment to their receive bandwidth or move up or down a few kilohertz, only to be completely outraged by even the hint of a heterodyne way up or down the band. And all of them forget that SSB ops are typically causing the AM guys far more QRM than the AM folks could ever cause them.

It reminds me so much of the SSB vs. AM wars way back in the late-50s/early-60s, except this squabble is 180 degrees out of phase with that one. I was there for the end of that, when guys who clung to AM cussed the "Slop Bucket Boys" and tuned up on top of them for hours to demonstrate their disdain. It got ugly, but for the very reason cited above--who gets the worst of the QRM--it eventually was won by SSB (Yes, there were other reasons...SSB is simply a better mode, more efficient).

I maintain that hearing an occasional heterodyne is a small price to pay for the freedom of being able to operate using whatever legal mode that interests you and that you want to. If we say, "No dang AM on my band!" then how long is it before somebody else says, "Yeah, and no SSTV, either?" Or "Get rid of those digital modes so I can work CW there!"

It is that old "if you don't like what I like then what you like is wrong!" mentality.

Most every radio has a VFO. Use it. There is plenty of spectrum for everybody to be able to enjoy their favorite activity or mode.

What do you say?

73,

Don N4KC
http://www.n4kc.com/
http://www.donkeith.com/

The Customer Rules!

I apologize. I've been harping (or harpooning) the media lately in these ramblings to the exclusion of other types of rapid technological change or amateur radio. But there has been a deluge of good info the past few weeks on the subject of how media usage--by both types of customers: viewers/listeners/readers as well as advertisers--is evolving so rapidly. Take yesterday's Radio Business Report, which carried a surprisingly candid article about how customers now control media, a portion of which reads:

By customer-controlled, we simply mean the traditional era of dominant media systems — one in which media organizations accumulated audiences based on content development and availability, and then sold advertisers time or space to access those audiences — is no longer the principal marketplace format. Instead, consumers now access and accept (or ignore) a multitude of media forms and formats, based on their own needs, desires, wishes and capabilities. Thus, the control of the media marketplace has clearly shifted. Consumers, as they always have, control the media forms they choose to use. The primary difference is that the alternatives available to them have increased exponentially.

The traditional methods of media planning, allocation and measurement are essentially obsolete, particularly in the United States and perhaps around the world. There is little question that the historical approaches developed and used over the past 40 or so years were effective in their time, namely, when mass media was the primary communication tool of the marketing organization and consumers aggregated to consume those media forms in large numbers. Major changes have occurred over the past four years, which make those tools and techniques questionable and perhaps even irrelevant.

Well said. Well said.

Don Keith N4KC

http://www.donkeith.com/

http://www.n4kc.com/

www.twitter.com/don_keith

Whew! All is well with radio broadcasting!

Man, this is a relief! Just when we had all these naysayers proclaiming the death of radio broadcasting, here comes the good news in one of the daily trade pubs:

More than half (55%) of those surveyed by American Media Services listen to about the same amount of radio than in the past. Nearly one in five (18%) have increased their listening. When commercials come on -- a majority (56%) say they keep listening to the station.

Never mind the grammatical error in the first sentence ("same amount...than in the past"), this should cue the hosannas. I'm sure the survey was a representative sample, that there were no artifacts in how the question was worded or presented, and that the results were properly gathered and interpreted.

And that there is no bias, considering American Media Services bills itself on its web site as "a leading radio brokerage and developmental engineering firm with clients nationwide." A "radio brokerage" firm would have no vested interest in radio listening being protrayed as "stable," would it?

Am I wearing my incredulity on my sleeve?

Don Keith
www.donkeith.com
www.n4kc.com