Posted on 01/10/2008 11:30:21 AM PST by Rick.Donaldson
Romney "Disses" Amateur Radio In Televised Town Meeting Posted on Wednesday 16 November 2005 @ 15:48:10
Governor Mitt Romney dismissed the role of Amateur Radio operators in emergency communications during a televised "town meeting" program last night on WCVB's "When Disaster Strikes: Segment Two." The program featured public safety and volunteer organization officials from across Massachusetts among its audience.
Host and moderator Natalie Jacobson asked an increasingly-agitated Governor Romney questions about communications interoperability, and communication without commercial power. Romney was next asked by Jacobson, "...so does it come down to ham radio?..."
The Governor replied in a disgusted tone, "No, we don't need to deal with ham radio operators..."
Embarrassed public safety officials later tried to put in a good word for Amateur Radio. National Weather Service Warning Coordination Meteorologist Glenn Field was prepared to state the importance of Amateur Radio, when Salvation Army Colonel Fred Van Brunt was called upon. Van Brunt remarked about his organization's quest to improve its communications capabilities and how Amateur Radio has aided his organization. "The ham radio situation helps a great deal," he stated.
"I have already written and submitted a letter to the Governor's Office," wrote Eastern MA Section Emergency Coordinator Rob Macedo, KD1CY. "I have also written an email to Natalie Jacobson."
ARRL Section Manager Mike Neilsen, W1MPN sent a section-wide email today to all Eastern MA ARRL members describing the incident along with actions he and his staff were taking to mitigate the situation.
"[Romney's] attitude about us sets an unfortunate tone within the state's executive branch," wrote Neilsen. "As a former military officer, I see this as a failure in leadership. My immediate concern is our working relationship within the [Massachusetts Emergency Management Team] environment." Neilsen intends to address the Governor's comments as "an urgent matter" at a meeting on November 17 with Don Carlton from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
"I was very disturbed about what the Governor stated on the program," wrote Ron Wood, W1PLW, the section's Public Information Coordinator. "It does show that more work is needed by all hams in the section. It's a great idea to write letters explaining the good we do." Wood is attempting to schedule a meeting with the Governor's office tomorrow so that EMA ARRL staffers might discuss the matter further.
Tom Kinahan, N1CPE wrote that Governor Romney's comment has made "a PR problem" for Kinahan in his role as MA State RACES Officer.
"I've got a roster of over 150 Amateur Radio operators that support local communities, and those of us that directly support the state government. There are at least double that in terms of people that are actually out there that I don't have formal paperwork on that support Amateur Radio emergency communications in some organized manner... The Governor has said that he 'certainly doesn't need to rely on ham radio' -- where does that leave the RACES program now?"
"I am ashamed tonight that I am a Republican!" remarked one ham radio viewer. "[Romney] speaks in derogatory tones about hams. He certainly shows an ignorance as to what we do and are capable of. I suggest a grass roots campaign of local hams calling the State House and The Governor's Office to protest."
The television program can be viewed at http://www.thebostonchannel.com/video/5334306/detail.html.
Actually, I understood and appreciated exactly what this was about, but please allow me to explain something to you. When you attack each and every person who posts something that does not meet with your exacting approval, the thread quickly turns into another animal and the original point is lost in the noise.
You've certainly been around here long enough to know that some folks are going to disagree with you or miss your intended point, and you certainly can't control the thread once posted. FWIW.
While I am certainly no Romney supporter in the first place, this information was useful as another example of how inappropriate he is as a candidate for POTUS. Would I have totally rejected Romney based on this information alone? Probably not. Romney's ignorance of the importance of AHRO's is not going to bring down the system.
LOL!
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Which is actually kind of cool, except fot the chain-smoking part.
And the poorly-lit basement.
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LOL! I wish I'd thought of that one.
lol. sorry, petty but was funny at the time. /shrug
I’m just jealous. :)
I’m sure that if we ask Romney about how great ham radio operators are he will have a lot of nice things to say.
Yep -- Romney is a big government guy, through and through.
Thanks for the info!
I was in South America, on a train. We stopped at some village for some reason, and the train people rolled out a cart, with a radio, mike, and battery. Two people stretched out a wire dipole (maybe 5, 6 meters end to end) with wooden handles, and the guy with the headphones called out “a la derecha, a la izquierda”, and the Dipole Guys pointed the “antenna” until Headphone Guy was happy, then he chatted away for a couple minutes.
Someone I was with thought he was arranging for diesel oil for our next stop.
“Romney is running for president.
As chief executive officer of the Federal government, he has no interest in what your State of local community does in regard to communications.”
Yes, but he was Governor at the time he said this, and was not running for president officially.
As for caring about what state disaster planning is, if he’s to follow he Stafford Act, he or someone on his staff must have some idea.
Hope you’re reporting your mileage and expenses on your taxes.
As a ham myself, I agree that Mitt Romney’s comment was boneheaded and deserving of criticism, but I refuse to get so worked up about it. Our current president, Mr. Bush, has done some boneheaded things regarding ham radio as well, particularly his support of BPL (broadband over power line) technology, which has great potential to obliterate much of the useful radio spectrum of amateur radio and many other services. It is a good thing for us that BPL is a technical turkey which will probably never be competitive in the broadband internet marketplace, otherwise, ham radio would be sunk in a endless morass of digital noise.
Mr. Romney is certainly ignorant on this subject, and if he were to be elected, which I think is highly unlikely at this point, he would certainly need to be educated.
For my part, I am voting for Fred Thompson.
One final thought, has anyone here considered what the Hildabeast or Barack Obama know about ham radio or emergency communications? You can bet that it is far less than any of the other candidates!
Someone else said that. I didn’t.
Not sure... Might have been typing fast, it wasn’t something I did deliberately though.
You are right, it was Cold Heat, sorry.
always good to here form a brother conservative
Thanks!
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