[amsat-bb] Inclusion (satcoms?)

[Phil Karn]

On 07/22/2014 11:05 AM, Robert Bruninga wrote:

> The value of ham radio is providing communications where other systems
> cannot.  And of course, playing with toys just for fun.

I'd flip that around. With the Internet, mobile phones and other
ubiquitous communications, about the sole reason left for ham radio to
exist is **education**. And playing with toys just for fun is often
quite educational as well.

Ham radio provides a hands-on opportunity to teach and learn radio (and
electronics) technology, and you still can't find anything like it
anywhere else.

Emergency communications is still in there somewhere, but in all honesty
I now see it as a distant second.

And if one is to teach oneself communications and electronics technology
through ham radio, then ham radio really ought to use something like the
communications and electronics technologies that the outside world is
using today, not just those the world was using 40 years ago.

--Phil