It's not the callsign that denotes prestige, it's the operator

I was recently asked how I came by my 1*3 callsign. This came as a part of a discussion on one of the Ham radio forums, wherein an older gent complaining that there is little in the way of prestige  for callsigns anymore, since we're allowed vanity calls and not forced to change callsigns when we move to a different call zone, etc.  I'm not sure I buy either of those arguments.

But before getting into that, here's how I managed to come up with my chosen vanity call...

With the encouragement of some of the local "ham radio royalty" if you will in my neighborhood I applied for my 1x3 call sign when I had only been a technician for about a month.

(This gent, it should be noted,is a long time holder of an extra, and who retains the callsign he was originally assigned at random when he got his general back when Grok was hammering out licenses with a hammer and chisel in stone tablets. 😁😁😁)

I suppose there are those who would shake their head over that my getting the call so early in my Ham radio career, but my reasoning was that I wanted to print some QSL cards, and I didn't want to have to print a second batch when my call sign changed, which I was determined it was going to happen one way or the other, eventually. That thought was solidified by the oncoming policy changes which would have cost me $35, even assuming the call was available when I finally decided to pursue it.

As you've probably figured, the suffix on my call is my initials. I grabbed it when I did because I figured... with some convincing by the aforementioned local royalty, that the chances were pretty good that it wouldn't be available when I finally decided I was worthy of it. Thing is, I had that backwards.

After I attained this call, I actually did some research on the previous holder of the call, and best I can determine the holder of that call was an amateur from the Brooklyn New York area back in 1956.  I only found one rather vague reference to this call, and looking back as this is written, I can't find it, now, sadly.

Given that, it seems the safe assumption that the original holder of this call sign is SK by now. All I can do I suppose is to hope that I'm doing his call Justice. I say that because I figure the only prestige that my call sign indicates is the prestige that I bring to it with my operations.  

And that's going to be the thrust of my post, today.... I have found over the past few years,  I respectfully submit today, that the only thing that brings prestige to your operations, isn't your callsign, it's your operations themselves.   

Yes, it is true that often the holders of 1x2 calls, for example, often are very classy operators, but in my experience, there is no direct connection there. One call hold a 1x2 call (for example) and be a complete anus.  I've worked a few such people... something I suppose we've all run into at one time for another.  On the other hand, as an example of the opposite end of the band,  I consider the gent I mentioned earlier to be among the classiest  operators I know... and someone with whom I've enjoyed a wonderful friendship over the past few years.

I wanted the call I have because I thought it brought a personal touch.... and it was fairly easy to obtain.  But.... and I stress this, by repeating myself....the only prestige that my call sign indicates is the prestige that I bring to it with my operations. 

Think of it this way.... Your callsign, however derived, is your on-air name. It's how you identify yourself and your station. But... and I stress this....  what is at least equally... and probably more important is that your on air activities also identify you. They are what gives the reputation, and the prestige, not the call itself.  

Ham radio would be far better as a whole were we to keep that in mind when we activate that little red light. .

73,

de K2ENF

Artificial intelligence?

 There is a lot of idle chatter and speculation about the supposed AI and it's uses in Ham radio on the Ham Radio forums, just now. I've become involved in one such discussion this week on QRZ.

I am reminded of Donald Fagens "IGY"...


The money lines from the tune, in this context, are these:

"Just machines will make big decisions
Programmed by fellas with compassion and vision.

We'll be clean when their work is done... We'll be eternally free and eternally Young."

That was the vision back in 1958, the so-called " international geophysical year".


Overly optimistic, certainly. But there is always a certain reality detachment attached to such optimism, if for no other reason than we don't fully understand what the reality ahead of us IS. but consider the context of the time: After the horrors and sacrifices of WWII, there hardly seemed to be anything we couldn't accomplish.  

And there's a subtle point nestled in those lyrics, written in 1981, with the added understanding that hindsight brings:  For the machine to be effective toward the stated goal, it needs to know know what's going on, what's good, what's bad, what's fact, what's fiction, etc, someone has to teach the machine.

Indeed, I hold that AI simply doesn't exist... not as such; That AI only knows what we tell it.  The very reason we usually don't put functional legs on computers is that they'll march off a cliff if we tell it to.... they know nothing at all beyond what we tell them. 


So the question then becomes this: Since computers especially large ones can make human mistakes with much greater speed and efficiency, the question must be raised, who do we trust to teach the machines, and who do we trust to monitor their output?

For example, do we trust the Chinese communists? Do we trust the Russians? A pertinent question, since both are heavily invested in software creation, and would certainly bend the facts there software is allowed to divulge to reflect their own worldview and will.

For that matter do we trust the American government? Any of those seems to me destined for immediate failure.. in the form of fact-checking on steroids. You want to talk about mind control, ultimately? That's what we're looking at here under those circumstances.

And look by no means am I playing the Luddite here. I'm not suggesting at all that we should shove the technology up on the shelf someplace and ignore it. It's here. We're not going to be able to put the genie back in the bottle.That forces us to consider the large number of philosophical and moral questions to address as this thing grows.
 

That said, there's a major difference between using AI to aid you in the shack, and using AI to run the world. So we don't have to worry about A HAL or a WOPPER launching all missiles just yet. 

Indeed, a lot of you are already using some form of AI in your chack if you have any degree of computer in your rack.  Those of you who are using grid tracker are already using AI of a sort when it predicts what the MUF is going to be for a given area of the world. You're already using AI of a sort when it spell checks you as you're (mis)-typing.

In the end, just about any computer operation, regardless what you call it,  is some level of AI which in turn is little more than a series of if/then statements.

I suppose we can argue about how much in the way of if /then constitutes what we now call AI.... at what point does the machine "wake up"... But in my view, AI has been coming for some time and growing.

Some of you will remember that I have already mentioned that I run a heavily computerized shack. I find it a very effective way to operate.

That said caution is advised. There's a limit to how far I plan on taking this.