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Comment by wepple | Hacker News Reader

I'm actually also very intrigued as to how ARRL seem to wield so much influence. Don't get me wrong, I'm currently studying to get my technician license and think it's great, but the privileges and allowances given to hams seems to be fairly out of sync with the benefits in many ways.

Coming into it as a newbie, I noticed there was a bit of a reputation for it being predominantly old white guys having a bit of a chat and a fair bit of a whinge on the airwaves. I'd like to say I haven't seen that myself, but can't.

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The allowances made for hackers and amateurs in both radio and aviation are pretty incredible. If either of those things were invented today, there's no way the amateur radio or private pilot licensing programs would exist.

Food for thought. We have these programs because the hacker/maker/tinkerer community was at one point pretty good at lobbying. We'll lose them if we don't keep up.

Amateur radio has a role as kind of a communications militia that can be called up in times of emergency, and the ARRL happens to be the most influential voice in that community. Aside from the chit-chat and banter, hams regularly take part in emergency drills, trying to locate and contact faint signals, setting up infrastructure to extend the reach of communications, etc.

They don't really have that much influence, which is why so much government-owned bandwidth has been sold off to commercial interests, instead of being given to hams.

However, the government does recognize, to a certain extent, the importance of amateur radio -- particularly, these days, for emergency communication (which is the main reason for this bill that's mentioned in the article).

Some hams are disappointed that other aspects of the hobby are underappreciated and emergency communications are becoming the main reason for the existence of ham radio, but that's the way it is. And if it wasn't for the emergency services provided by hams, this law would probably not have passed.

a lot of the hams i've known in the past were/are former military, emergency services, police, or other kind of public safety servant. i imagine their collective voice in the arrl holds a lot of sway.

also, some of them are older and retired and can spend basically unlimited amounts of time on their hobby, including the lobbying.

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