Re: [amsat-bb] member guide

[Bruce Bostwick <lihan161051@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Have IQ's suddenly dropped???  I looked up some of the calls on QRZ of 
> the
> people whining the loudest about "you must protect my privacy!!!" and
> couldn't grasp what I saw...
>
> Listen folks.... your a ham radio operator... once you put out your 
> call
> anyone can look you up and get all sorts of information on QRZ... and 
> some of
> you people have gone into QRZ and added your Email address's  then you 
> sit
> here and cry a river about how you will stamp your little feet and 
> leave if
> your name and call get listed with AMSAT.

That's QRZ's decision, and it's beyond AMSAT's control.  It's also the 
FCC's responsibility, because, yes, our license info is considered to 
be a public record, just as it is for your neighborhood TV station.  If 
someone CHOOSES to go into QRZ and add the remaining information that 
ISN'T in the public record because they'd like people to be able to 
find them after a good QSO, knowing this will probably bring some spam 
along with it, that's their business.  That's OK.  The point you're 
missing is that doing that WITHOUT allowing that choice, or getting it 
backwards and using some sort of opt-out scheme, is unethical.  (IMHO 
it should be illegal, but I don't have much of a say in writing laws 
these days.)

Personally, you don't need to protect MY privacy .. I have nothing to 
hide.  I have all my info on qrz.com and buck.com and most of the other 
ham call sites because I'd like people to talk to me.  A few of them 
may want to email me along with a few million others to try and sell me 
products to enlarge a certain part of my anatomy, but those go into a 
spam folder and are forgotten until I need to research someone to track 
them down and get them TOS'ed from their ISP .. that's OK.  I can deal 
with that.  All I ask is that you pay attention to what's actually 
being discussed and realize that I made the choice to do all that, and 
none of those sites would have had the right to publish information 
about me that wasn't public record without me making that choice.  I 
can't see how it would be any sort of risk to reveal that someone 
happened to be a member of AMSAT, but still, I'd have to say that it 
would be unethical to post that information without an opt-in because 
it's just not right.  Since the subject is being discussed, now is the 
chance for a ham organization to stand up and show the world how it 
SHOULD be done.  Not everyone's doing it that way, true, but sometimes 
you have to lead when you know what's right.

>  If you want to be a paranoid Floyd... fine give up your call and go 
> hide
> under a rock in the woods...
>
> Otherwise get some consistency.... Or are the whinners just Trolls 
> feeding the
> flames?

all I will say to this is, let's keep it civil, OK?
           --... ...-- -.. . -. ..... ...- -...
                   Bruce Bostwick N5VB

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