In your final year, apply for a position during the "milk rounds" when the large firms visit campus. A better option would be to apply directly to the "local" firms eg. if you’re in York Uni, apply to a York practice, if you’re at Cambridge, you’ll be welcome anywhere 
. Then you’ll have to face more exams..good luck. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – i am considering doing accounting next year at college, if i was to do this i would then go on and do the degree, but after i finsh the degree i was wondering what the next steps would be to go on a become a chartered accountant?
Does your college have career counselling services? Contact the Institute of Chartered Accountants. They have a web site, telephone, and offices. Information you get here may be out of date or incomplete; presumably you can get complete, accurate and current information from the Institute.
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – i am considering doing accounting next year at college, if i was to do this i would then go on and do the degree, but after i finsh the degree i was wondering what the next steps would be to go on a become a chartered accountant?
i am considering doing accounting next year at college, if i was to do this i would then go on and do the degree, but after i finsh the degree i was wondering what the next steps would be to go on a become a chartered accountant?
The Myth of Longer Life But what about medical science? Haven’t the breath-taking discoveries of the past century cured many of the worst diseases that beset mankind? Do we not stand a much better chance of surviving illness today thanks to science? And aren’t we living longer as a result? The answer is profoundly shocking to anyone who takes it for granted that the billions we have spent on medical research have made a big difference to the incidence of disease and death. First, life expectancy at age 45 has barely changed since the beginning of this century. The statistical increase in life expectancy overall during that period has come about because there used to be a high incidence of disease and death in babies and children which has been eliminated by measures such as smaller families, better hygiene, birth in hospital instead of home, antibiotics, and health education. Most of these preventive factors were in place and fully effective 30 or 40 years ago. Their effect has been such that life expectancy at any age has not changed significantly in the past 20 years. Yet, in that 20 year period, Britain has spent around
It’s a cliche that tax accountants and their clients are fond of grumbling about the taxes they pay which is completely understandable. However, in light of recent events that have placed our soldiers in harms way at a large cost in both human and fiscal terms, is there a little more cheerfulness lately about paying tax or at least less grumbling? As accountants, are we less likely to accomodate very aggressive and probably legal positions amid renewed patriotic fervor or is it pretty much business as usual?
It’s a cliche that tax accountants and their clients are fond of grumbling about the taxes they pay which is completely understandable. However, in light of recent events that have placed our soldiers in harms way at a large cost in both human and fiscal terms, is there a little more cheerfulness lately about paying tax or at least less grumbling? As accountants, are we less likely to accomodate very aggressive and probably legal positions amid renewed patriotic fervor or is it pretty much business as usual?
Pretty much ‘business as usual’. I’m not going to tell my clients to pay more taxes because "the boys are at war". — Paul A. Thomas, CPA, PC Athens, Georgia
It’s a matter for the courts; however, I have no doubt that the founding fathers chose the general term "arms" to allow for changes in technology. I would analyze it from this perspective: at the time of the founders, the most powerful arms were cannons. Thus it stands to reason that citizens have the right to arms capable of reducing a small building or or ship to rubble (i.e., something analogous to a cannon), but not one that has the power to destroy a city, nation, or civilization. Pretty simple, really. But then you weren’t trying to exercise honest reason, were you?
I am certain that if give the opportunity to look into the future that our founding fathers would never try to give the general citizenry the right to possess chemical, nuclear, or biological weapons. As for cannon, machine guns, and other forms of artillery and explosives, I suspect that they would not have tried to deny such weapons to their citizens. You have to see the world in the context of their era and from the perspective that they had suffered under the abusive rule of oppressive governments for all of their lives. They trusted the citizen, they very much distrusted government – even one of their making. Do we need firearms because George Bush might enslave us all? I don’t think so. Do we need firearms because at some future date, circumstances beyond anything that we could imagine could bring to power an oppressive government? You bet I do! What do you think would have happened if those four airliners on 9/11 had instead been thirty airliner, each one with a 1 megaton nuclear device on board. What if two of them went off in DC and the rest at major American cities? Do you think that life would just go on as it has in the past? Do you think that there might be some reason to be armed? No to the first question and definitely yes to the second. Pete Remove the "X" to send e-mail.
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The right to own and bear arms is indeed protected by the second amendment to the United States Constitution. I know that the liberals have had a hard time understanding it in as much as it is expressly written. They only seem to understand constitutional protections for rights that are not even mentioned in the constitution, such as abortion. The first amendment deals with 4 rights, and the last of which is to peacefully assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances. The third amendment says that the government can’t quarter soldiers in a house in peacetime without the consent of the owner. Now right in between assembling, petitioning, and keeping soldiers out of your house in peacetime, we find the second amendment. Obviously, the second amendment is there to protect duck hunting. But we must be careful. It protects the right of the government to duck hunt. Any rumors to the contrary are just lies from the vast right wing conspiracy(TM).
Evidently you did not read the amendment where PETA only lets you shoot at wooden ducks, and only then if the wood did not come from a rain forest or any tree that had ever supported the nest of any endangered bird, rate, roach, or tree-sitter. Pete Remove the "X" to send e-mail.
you weren’t trying to exercise honest reason, were you? No. Just reading the constitution and taking the authors at their word. I leave the "interpreting" to liberals in conservative clothing like Bucy who say "arms" doesn’t really mean arms, but _some_ arms and not others. I am exercising honest reason though when I admit there are practical issues of weight and cost for backpacking and even home defense against bears and our government with some of the more potent weapons.
"A liberal in conservative clothing?" That has to be the worst analysis of this century. I will stand by my position that the second amendment does not protect any right to own nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. Pete Remove the "X" to send e-mail.
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – … I do not believe that the second amendment sought to limit the types of weapons that the citizens could own. If they were to go to war with their government ~again~ they would need offensive weapons. Yet even I would not suggest that any citizen should have in his or her possession any weapons of mass destruction. This would include: chemical, nuclear, or biological devices. I agree that the primary intent of the 2ndA is to provide the citizenry with a last resort in case the government gets too dictatorial, as you said; it has nothing to do with some kind of ‘right’ to hunt. But, if we were to have to fight the federal government then to be reasonably effective we’d have to be similarly armed & equipped. Now I might think it would be lots of fun to have access to some of the same material as the military (and if it ever came down to that I’m reasonably sure I would have in one way or another) I’m not so sure that the people really want the hardware store to start selling grenades & Stingers. Besides, it would be hell on the roads if everyone started driving tanks & APCs. 2ndA or not, the people probably wouldn’t put up with it for long. So where do we draw the line? Mines, HE artillery, napalm, cluster munitions, Vulcan cannons? I guess I draw the line at ‘destructive devices’: devices where the sole purpose is to destroy enemy material & manpower. — JLG
When I think of a modern revolt by a people I cannot help but think of the Vietnam war. The Vietnamese were mostly equipped with AK-47’s, some machine guns and a host of home-made explosive devices. Yet they prevailed against the most modern and well equipped military that the world had ever seen. I think that if the citizenry is armed with military-style rifles that they could make a pretty good accounting of themselves against most military forces. In a popular revolution where the patriots used hit and run tactics, main battle tanks and high technology weapons are not as effective as you might think. Can you imagine a revolution that swept across the entire USA? How could the military be everywhere at the same time? They couldn’t. In time the patriots would capture and fabricate more lethal weapons. But without the basic firepower of a good rifle, they would be totally defenseless. Can you image the outcome if every Jew had met ever Nazi with a firearm and the will to use it? In talking of the Holocaust, we might be referring to the millions of German soldiers who lost their lives attempting to subdue a well-armed Jewish population. An AK-47 in the hands of a responsible law-abiding citizen is a whole lot safer than a sports car in the hand of a drunk driver. I don’t see anyone trying to ban high-powered cars or reinstate prohibition. Pete Remove the "X" to send e-mail.
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -An armed society is a polite society. I think the most insidious notion being promulgated by liberals today is that even if there is a universal and unregulatable citizens’ right to bear arms, that this right is somehow limited to guns. … I think there is -for practical reasons- a dividing line between weapons & destructive devices: small-arms are used against specific targets while explosives (and other devices) act indiscriminately on everything within a certain area. One can be used as a defensive weapon, while the other is intended primarily as an offensive one. I’m not trying to redefine ‘arms’, but I do feel that there should be restrictions on weapons that kill/injure/destroy indiscriminately. In truth, I would feel very uncomfortable if VX was available commercially. — JLG
Jerry, the founding fathers had just finished a bloody and at times uncertain war against an oppressive government the eventually ended in victory for America. This war was fought and won by citizen soldiers who used their arms to defeat a better equipped and better trained enemy. They had just defeated their government on the field of battle and they had done it with firearms. The second amendment was created to protect the right of American citizens to own and bear arms. This was not done so that you and I could go rabbit hunting. The intent of the second amendment was so that the citizenry would be so well armed that their government would not have the ability to subjugate them. These men, our founding fathers, were afraid of government. They had lived all of their lives under the heel of oppressive governments. I’m pretty certain that they fully expected that the would come when citizen patriots would again have to defend liberty from the government. I do not believe that the second amendment sought to limit the types of weapons that the citizens could own. If they were to go to war with their government ~again~ they would need offensive weapons. Yet even I would not suggest that any citizen should have in his or her possession any weapons of mass destruction. This would include: chemical, nuclear, or biological devices. Pete Remove the "X" to send e-mail.
I agree that the primary intent of the 2ndA is to provide the citizenry with a last resort in case the government gets too dictatorial, as you said; it has nothing to do with some kind of ‘right’ to hunt. But, if we were to have to fight the federal government then to be reasonably effective we’d have to be similarly armed & equipped. Now I might think it would be lots of fun to have access to some of the same material as the military Ruger9
Just drop twenty-two million dollars at the gate and fly away with your plane. Pete Remove the "X" to send e-mail.
The right to own and bear arms is indeed protected by the second amendment to the United States Constitution. I know that the liberals have had a hard time understanding it in as much as it is expressly written. They only seem to understand constitutional protections for rights that are not even mentioned in the constitution, such as abortion.
The first amendment deals with 4 rights, and the last of which is to peacefully assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances. The third amendment says that the government can’t quarter soldiers in a house in peacetime without the consent of the owner. Now right in between assembling, petitioning, and keeping soldiers out of your house in peacetime, we find the second amendment. Obviously, the second amendment is there to protect duck hunting. But we must be careful. It protects the right of the government to duck hunt. Any rumors to the contrary are just lies from the vast right wing conspiracy(TM).
I agree that the primary intent of the 2ndA is to provide the citizenry with a last resort in case the government gets too dictatorial, as you said; it has nothing to do with some kind of ‘right’ to hunt. But, if we were to have to fight the federal government then to be reasonably effective we’d have to be similarly armed & equipped. Now I might think it would be lots of fun to have access to some of the same material as the military
Ruger9
you weren’t trying to exercise honest reason, were you?
No. Just reading the constitution and taking the authors at their word. I leave the "interpreting" to liberals in conservative clothing like Bucy who say "arms" doesn’t really mean arms, but _some_ arms and not others. I am exercising honest reason though when I admit there are practical issues of weight and cost for backpacking and even home defense against bears and our government with some of the more potent weapons.
… I do not believe that the second amendment sought to limit the types of weapons that the citizens could own. If they were to go to war with their government ~again~ they would need offensive weapons. Yet even I would not suggest that any citizen should have in his or her possession any weapons of mass destruction. This would include: chemical, nuclear, or biological devices.
I agree that the primary intent of the 2ndA is to provide the citizenry with a last resort in case the government gets too dictatorial, as you said; it has nothing to do with some kind of ‘right’ to hunt. But, if we were to have to fight the federal government then to be reasonably effective we’d have to be similarly armed & equipped. Now I might think it would be lots of fun to have access to some of the same material as the military (and if it ever came down to that I’m reasonably sure I would have in one way or another) I’m not so sure that the people really want the hardware store to start selling grenades & Stingers. Besides, it would be hell on the roads if everyone started driving tanks & APCs. 2ndA or not, the people probably wouldn’t put up with it for long. So where do we draw the line? Mines, HE artillery, napalm, cluster munitions, Vulcan cannons? I guess I draw the line at ‘destructive devices’: devices where the sole purpose is to destroy enemy material & manpower. — JLG
Yet even I would not suggest that any citizen should have in his or her possession any weapons of mass destruction. This would include: chemical, nuclear, or biological devices.
Fairly stated, with reason, and with judgment. I applaud you! MM^^<–doesn’t clap much.
Besides, most of the places that I backpack, it is a federal offense to be carrying a firearm, loaded or not. —Bob Gross—
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I advocate that everyone start carrying .357 magnum revolvers at all times. I think the most insidious notion being promulgated by liberals today is that even if there is a universal and unregulatable citizens’ right to bear arms, that this right is somehow limited to guns. Today "arms" means nuclear weapons. The constitution doesn’t say "flintlocks", it says "arms" meaning contemporary weapons, whatever they may happen to be at any point in time. Today that’s nukes, and all citizens have a right to them which the government cannot infringe. Ole TJ had a cannon at Monticello. Guess he didn’t think the 2nd applied only to flintlocks. Doubt that he thought of it as a weapon for personal defense, either. Illiterate? Write for free help
>I think the most insidious notion being promulgated by liberals today is >that even if there is a universal and unregulatable citizens’ right to >bear arms, that this right is somehow limited to guns. Today "arms" >means nuclear weapons. The constitution doesn’t say "flintlocks", it >says "arms" meaning contemporary weapons, whatever they may happen to be >at any point in time. Today that’s nukes, and all citizens have a right >to them which the government cannot infringe. It’s a matter for the courts; however, I have no doubt that the founding fathers chose the general term "arms" to allow for changes in technology. I would analyze it from this perspective: at the time of the founders, the most powerful arms were cannons. Thus it stands to reason that citizens have the right to arms capable of reducing a small building or or ship to rubble (i.e., something analogous to a cannon), but not one that has the power to destroy a city, nation, or civilization. Pretty simple, really. But then you weren’t trying to exercise honest reason, were you? oooo0 (””’) (””’) 0oooo ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) (….) oooo0 0oooo (….)
I advocate that everyone start carrying .357 magnum revolvers at all times. I think the most insidious notion being promulgated by liberals today is that even if there is a universal and unregulatable citizens’ right to bear arms, that this right is somehow limited to guns. Today "arms" means nuclear weapons. The constitution doesn’t say "flintlocks", it says "arms" meaning contemporary weapons, whatever they may happen to be at any point in time. Today that’s nukes, and all citizens have a right to them which the government cannot infringe.
The right to own and bear arms is indeed protected by the second amendment to the United States Constitution. I know that the liberals have had a hard time understanding it in as much as it is expressly written. They only seem to understand constitutional protections for rights that are not even mentioned in the constitution, such as abortion. No one, not the NRA, not the Republicans, not George W. Bush, have suggested that the second amendment protects your right to own weapons of mass destruction. That would include chemical, nuclear, or biological weapons. Yet the right to bear arms, even assault rifles, is protected. The second amendment is not there to protect our rights to hunt, but rather to defend against an oppressive government. Now, relevant to this newsgroup, I think tactical battlefield nuclear weapons would be extremely effective against bears, much more so than the puny handguns being toted by some backpackers today. Obviously there are some weight and cost issues to be worked out, but this is clearly the future of U.S. citizen self-protection.
Only a liberal would think that a nuclear weapon would be a good defense against a bear. A good rifle or handgun would do the job at a much lower cost. Liberals being in favor of bigger and fatter government would not mind spending a few million dollars to defeat a bear that could be taken down with less than a dollars worth of conventional ammunition. By the way, we all noticed how you post totally ignored the fact that a human was attacked by a bear at her home. Pete Remove the "X" to send e-mail.
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – On Wednesday, Sept 18th at approx 10 pm [mountain time] a woman was attacked and mauled by bear when she stepped out on the porch to investigate a noise. This was at her home on Panther Creek Road outside of Shoup, Idaho. She’s recovering after being clawed and bitten. For all you bear huggers who think bears are warm, fuzzy and harmless this information can be verified by calling the Shoup, Idaho postmaster [208/ 394-2125]. How frightening! What a dangerous world we live in. I advocate that everyone start carrying .357 magnum revolvers at all times. Load it up with 180 grain soft point bullets. Be ready to draw down and blow away all these dangerous wild animals if they show any signs of attacking. For real wilderness situations, maybe a fully automatic .308 Nato combat rifle with 20 round clips would provide better security.
Actually, a .357 magnum is a good gun for self-defense against humans and against large predators. For bears, a total metal jacket would be a better choice than a hollow-point. With large muscular animals you need penetration much more than expansion when using a handgun round. The .308 is a good hunting round, but you don’t need a fully-automatic weapon to deliver it. A single shot rifle would do the job. By the way, they are called magazines, not "clips." You have been watching too much TV. I think that it is interesting that you capriciously discount this attack by a bear on a human. I guess that the neo-animists don’t hold human life in very high regard. Pete Remove the "X" to send e-mail.
At this time of year bears eat 20 hours a day for winter fat. When I was in Yellowstone last week, the ranger warned that there was a bad crop of acorns/pine cone this year, so the bears were going all into more human places.
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – For all you bear huggers who think bears are warm, fuzzy and harmless And we will find these straw men of yours where? What people like Sanders don’t understand is that some of us don’t want nature to be warm, fuzzy and harmless. We need more than the world as delineated by TV and Shopping Malls. G.C. "Without enough wilderness America will change. Democracy, with its myriad personalities and increasing sophistication, must be fibered and vitalized by regular contact with outdoor growths–animals, trees, sun warmth and free skies–or it will dwindle and pale." —- Walt Whitman
Hey, I don’t want nature to be harmless either. But nature should not expect me to be harmless in return. If confronted by a large predator I will have no second thoughts about making it into a rug or trophy. Pete Remove the "X" to send e-mail.
I advocate that everyone start carrying .357 magnum revolvers at all times. I think the most insidious notion being promulgated by liberals today is that even if there is a universal and unregulatable citizens’ right to bear arms, that this right is somehow limited to guns. Today "arms" means nuclear weapons. The constitution doesn’t say "flintlocks", it says "arms" meaning contemporary weapons, whatever they may happen to be at any point in time. Today that’s nukes, and all citizens have a right to them which the government cannot infringe.
Ole TJ had a cannon at Monticello. Guess he didn’t think the 2nd applied only to flintlocks. Doubt that he thought of it as a weapon for personal defense, either. Illiterate? Write for free help
I advocate that everyone start carrying .357 magnum revolvers at all times.
An armed society is a polite society. I think the most insidious notion being promulgated by liberals today is that even if there is a universal and unregulatable citizens’ right to bear arms, that this right is somehow limited to guns. …
I think there is -for practical reasons- a dividing line between weapons & destructive devices: small-arms are used against specific targets while explosives (and other devices) act indiscriminately on everything within a certain area. One can be used as a defensive weapon, while the other is intended primarily as an offensive one. I’m not trying to redefine ‘arms’, but I do feel that there should be restrictions on weapons that kill/injure/destroy indiscriminately. In truth, I would feel very uncomfortable if VX was available commercially. — JLG
I took your advice and went out and bought my 5 and 6 year old a 357 this morning, its a lil too heavy for the 5 year old, I am hoping the kids will be safer walking to and from school. Hopefully the teacher will not make my lil boy jr too mad.
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – On Wednesday, Sept 18th at approx 10 pm [mountain time] a woman was attacked and mauled by bear when she stepped out on the porch to investigate a noise. This was at her home on Panther Creek Road outside of Shoup, Idaho. She’s recovering after being clawed and bitten. For all you bear huggers who think bears are warm, fuzzy and harmless this information can be verified by calling the Shoup, Idaho postmaster [208/ 394-2125]. How frightening! What a dangerous world we live in. I advocate that everyone start carrying .357 magnum revolvers at all times. Load it up with 180 grain soft point bullets. Be ready to draw down and blow away all these dangerous wild animals if they show any signs of attacking. For real wilderness situations, maybe a fully automatic .308 Nato combat rifle with 20 round clips would provide better security.
On Wednesday, Sept 18th at approx 10 pm [mountain time] a woman was attacked and mauled by bear when she stepped out on the porch to investigate a noise. This was at her home on Panther Creek Road outside of Shoup, Idaho. She’s recovering after being clawed and bitten. For all you bear huggers who think bears are warm, fuzzy and harmless this information can be verified by calling the Shoup, Idaho postmaster [208/ 394-2125].
How frightening! What a dangerous world we live in. I advocate that everyone start carrying .357 magnum revolvers at all times. Load it up with 180 grain soft point bullets. Be ready to draw down and blow away all these dangerous wild animals if they show any signs of attacking. For real wilderness situations, maybe a fully automatic .308 Nato combat rifle with 20 round clips would provide better security.
I advocate that everyone start carrying .357 magnum revolvers at all times.
I think the most insidious notion being promulgated by liberals today is that even if there is a universal and unregulatable citizens’ right to bear arms, that this right is somehow limited to guns. Today "arms" means nuclear weapons. The constitution doesn’t say "flintlocks", it says "arms" meaning contemporary weapons, whatever they may happen to be at any point in time. Today that’s nukes, and all citizens have a right to them which the government cannot infringe. Now, relevant to this newsgroup, I think tactical battlefield nuclear weapons would be extremely effective against bears, much more so than the puny handguns being toted by some backpackers today. Obviously there are some weight and cost issues to be worked out, but this is clearly the future of U.S. citizen self-protection.
On Wednesday, Sept 18th at approx 10 pm [mountain time] a woman was attacked and mauled by bear when she stepped out on the porch to investigate a noise. This was at her home on Panther Creek Road outside of Shoup, Idaho. She’s recovering after being clawed and bitten. For all you bear huggers who think bears are warm, fuzzy and harmless this information can be verified by calling the Shoup, Idaho postmaster [208/ 394-2125].
For all you bear huggers who think bears are warm, fuzzy and harmless
And we will find these straw men of yours where?
For all you bear huggers who think bears are warm, fuzzy and harmless And we will find these straw men of yours where?
What people like Sanders don’t understand is that some of us don’t want nature to be warm, fuzzy and harmless. We need more than the world as delineated by TV and Shopping Malls. G.C. "Without enough wilderness America will change. Democracy, with its myriad personalities and increasing sophistication, must be fibered and vitalized by regular contact with outdoor growths–animals, trees, sun warmth and free skies–or it will dwindle and pale." —- Walt Whitman
On tonight’s news it was reported that a high percentage of technicians who administer dialysis are untrained. Would you want somebody who was flipping burgers yesterday to remove all of your blood today? Just one more reason to try and control this disease IMHO. — John Inzer pianoguy return email disabled
My best friend Walter was trained to clean & service dialysis machines. He went through a few months training is all, and now is working overtime to keep up with the heavy workload he is faced with, they are so understaffed. Prior to this he was a cable repairman and a computer technician. Not flipping burgers, but still… — Mike/Moon type 1 Dx’d 1978 — It is such a secret place, the land of tears " —Antoine de Saint Exup
Does anyone else have this problem ? I bought a ME Version 98 and use Simply Accounting 7.0C . I was always able to backup on Win 95 but not anymore . I have to use a Zip Drive. I have to transfer from my Zip to another computer. How should I do this? Thanks
You were always able to backup to WHAT? with WIN/95? "If you continue to buy imported goods . . . . . . where will your children work?"
Time for a New Peace Movement Peace Movement Prospects By Michael Albert September 11 went well beyond tragic. Worse is possible. Much better is also possible. And to achieve better is why activists need to not only mourn, but also to educate and organize. But many people I encounter doubt peace movement prospects. I find this wrong for two reasons. One, doubting prospects wastes time. Even when prospects of change are dim, to work for better outcomes is always better then to bemoan difficulties. Two, contrary to despondency, current circumstances auger hope. "Are you crazy?" some people will ask. It is one thing to urge action, but it is another thing to surrender reason to desire. However, it is not desire that gives me hope, but evidence. Last night there was a two hour marathon Hollywood extravaganza broadcast by all major networks and watched by millions. Elites are urging lock-step obedience. Johnny and Jill are supposed to be donning marching boots. Yet this was no pep rally for war. There was nearly courage of those who worked to save lives, often giving their own. The evening’s songs sought restraint and understanding and explicitly rejected cycles of retribution and hate. Don’t get me wrong. The evening wasn’t ZNet set to music. But nor did it support piling terror on top of terror. If the right-wing were actually as ascendant as so many fear, we would have had the Bob Hope and Charlton Heston Hour. We didn’t. More, in the last few days there have been scores of small and also some quite large demonstrations and gatherings. Reports indicate there are 105 scheduled today, Saturday. There is no war yet. But there is resistance, and it is growing rapidly. Just two days ago I was asked to be on a national radio call-in show with a listenership of roughly two million from all over the country. The host, a Republican, thought there would be division emerging about any war plans and he wanted to offer diverse voices (which is itself a good sign). He told me I’d be on for fifteen minutes. The time came, they called, I was asked how I differed from Bush. I answered, and the discussion continued for two hours. The host eventually left hostility behind, becoming more and more curious. Many callers were hostile, sure, but they were also open to cogent commentary. The simple formulation that attacking civilians is terrorism, that terrorism is horrible, and that therefore we should not attack civilians, was irrefutable. More interesting, no one even tried to rebut contextual argument and evidence. They made clear they knew my claims about U.S. policies in Iraq and elsewhere were true and they would with a few exceptions even grudgingly assent to them, so the remaining issue was whether the U.S. should be bound by the same morals that we hope others will be bound by, a dispute that is easy to win with anyone but a fanatic. I won’t proceed with details. The point is, even in a right-wing forum, many people will hear our views, understand them, and even change their minds. U.S. elites like war. War sends the message that laws do not bind U.S. elites, that morality does not bind U.S. elites, that nothing binds U.S. elites but their estimates of their own interests. It trumpets that everybody else better ratify our plans, or at least get out of the way. Likewise, for U.S. elites, war preparedness is good economics. Military spending primes the capitalist pump and spurs its engines, but crucially military spending doesn’t give those in the middle and at the bottom better conditions or better housing or more education or better health care or anything else that will make people less afraid, more knowledgeable, more secure, and particularly more able to develop and pursue their own agendas regarding economic distribution. War empowers the rich and powerful, but its real virtue is that it disempowers working people and the disenfranchised poor. War annihilates deliberation. It elevates mainstream media to dominate communication even more than in peacetime. War abets repression by demanding obedience. It labels dissent treason, or in this case, incipient terrorism. Elites like all this, not surprisingly. So while elites gravitate toward a war on terrorism for these reasons, what, if anything, might obstruct their plans? When Bush says that attacking civilians for political purposes is wrong and urges that we must find ways to eliminate such terrorism – he is very compelling to almost everyone. But when in the very next breath Bush urges as the method of doing so diverse military attacks on civilians (or starving them), his hypocrisy begs critique. As a solution to the danger of terrorism, committing more terrorism that in turn breeds still more, will not sustain support. Likewise, to fight fundamentalism with assertions that God is on our side, will also prove uninspiring. Five-year-olds can and will dissent. And so will adults. So what obstructs war? People do. It’s that simple. People who first doubt the efficacy and morality of piling terror on top of terror. People who slowly move from quiet dissent to active opposition. People who move from opposing the violence of war and barbarity of starvation to challenging the basic institutions that breed war and starvation. If elites choose war as a national program they will do so in hopes that it can defend and even enlarge their advantages. If we act so that war instead spurs public understanding, and opposition not only to war, but in time even to elite rule – then elites will reconsider their agenda. Indeed, I bet many are already having grave doubts. So how hard is our task? What do most people think about this situation, before activism has countered media madness? Well, it certainly isn’t definitive, but Gallup polls give us more reason for hope. First question: "Once the identity of the terrorists known, should the American government launch a military attack on the country or countries where the terrorists are based or should the American government seek to extradite the terrorists to stand trial?" In Austria 10% said we should attack. In Denmark 20%, Finland 14%, France 29%, Germany 17%, Greece 6%, Italy 21%, Bosnia 14%, Bulgaria 19%, Czechoslavakia 22%, Croatia 8%, Estonia 10%, Latvia 21%, Lithuania 15% Romania 18%, Argentina 8%, Colombia 11%, Ecuador 10%, Mexico 2%, Panama 16%, Peru 8%, Venezuela 11%, and even in the U.S. only 54% favor attacking. Gallup didn’t get numbers for China, for the mideast countries, etc. Gallup next asks: "If the United States decides to launch an attack, should the U.S. attack military targets only, or both military and civilian targets?" In Austria 82% said only military targets. In Denmark 84%, Finland 76%, France 84%, Germany 84%, Greece 82%, Italy 86%, Bosnia 72%, Bulgaria 71%, Czechoslavakia 75%, Estonia 88%, Latvia 82%, Lithuania 73% Romania 85%, Argentina 70%, Colombia 71%, Ecuador 74%, Mexico 73%, Panama 62%, Peru 66%, Venezuela 81%, and even in the U.S. 56% favor attacking only military targets, 28% attacking both military and civilian, and 16% gave no answer. It seems clear that we do not inhabit a world lined up for protracted war. We live, instead, in a world that is prepared for arguments against war, for opposition to war, and even, in time, for addressing the basic structural causes that produce war. Humanity does not lack scruples or logic, but only information and knowledge. If people have information and if they can escape media manipulation and conformity, they will draw worthy conclusions. Our task is to provide information and help break conformity. Finally, regarding the issues at hand, how hard is it to understand the obvious? The U.S. postal system is not run by exemplary humanitarians or geniuses, much less by radicals. Yet in response to workers killing others on the job–which is called "going postal"–the postal service did not decide to determine where the offending parties lived and attack those neighborhoods for harboring terrorists. They also did not say that the stress of postal work justifies serial homicide in the workplace, of course. They instead legally prosecuted, on the one hand, and also realized that stress was a powerful contributing factor and so worked to reduce stress to in turn diminish the likelihood of people going postal. Anyone can extend this analogy. It isn’t complicated. For that matter, the U.S. government, which is certainly not a repository of wisdom or moral leadership, doesn’t generally decide about terrorism to hold whole populations accountable. When Timothy McVeigh bombed innocents, the Federal government called it horrific, accurately, but did not declare war on Idaho and Montana for harboring cells of the groups McVeigh was associated with — much less on all people sharing McVeigh’s race or religion. The government opted to prove McVeigh’s culpability and to employ legal means to restrain him and try the case. What makes September 11 different regarding our government’s agenda is not so much the larger scale of the horror, but instead its utility to the government’s reactionary programs. In the case of McVeigh, bombing Montana wouldn’t benefit elites. In the case of September 11, elites think bombing diverse targets will benefit their capitalist profit-making and geopolitical interests. That’s harsh. That’s about the harshest thing one could say, I guess, in some sense, in this situation. It is devilish opportunism. Yet, I honestly think that at some level everyone knows it’s true. It has gotten to that point in this country. They play with our lives like we are their little toys, and we know it, and we have to put a stop to it, a step at a time. Published on Saturday, September 22, 2001 Time for a College Anti-War Movement? by Chris Toensing As the apparent US military intervention in … read more »
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – | | | | What a bunch of left wing bullshit. Shapiro in USA Today was dead on. The | moral superority of the left makes me want to vomit. I guess we just let the | bastards who did this get away with it. | | Bullshit yes! left wing NO. A number of us are in favor of overthrowing the | Taliban. The living conditions are unbearable and the government is equivalent | to the Nazi. | Speaking from the perspective of a left wing liberal who was active in anti-Vietnam war activities in the late sixties, I say blast the terrorists and the Taliban thugs. I view this as the liberation of Afghanistan.
I’m not taking issue with that, we just have to do it in a way that innocents aren’t killed the way innocents in N.Y.C. and D.C. were. — BU$H $UCK$ The remainder of this post is reserved for Hugh Jardonne to rant and rave about his latent homosexual compulsions, His musings about the more interesting events in my life; (which he is infatuated with, and insanely jealous over).
All good points, but the trick is to take them out, without creating more like them, in the process.
That’s going to take lots of money in a continued effort. In the past the world has dealt with terrorism in an unorganized way. Now with the removal of restrictions on the enforcement of counter-terrorism the world should unite and work together to take out the financial officers, engineers, and soldiers of terror all together. Getting serious and going after the terrorists is fine.
Getting serious and getting competent. -Leaders shooting off their mouths, before they know how what they say will be interpreted.
Bush can’t even read the cards right. That’s asking too much. -People giving away their own freedom in moments of panic.
That is right. People need to fight back when someone like Ashcroft asks for something unreasonable. If it ain’t violent we should be able to say it and do it. We are also entitled to our privacy if we are not engaged in making violent plans. -Declaring World War, when a serious and long term police action is more of what it is.
That is true. But we need large forces to protect the special forces while they do their thing. It needs to be done right and only with the support of an army do they have the safety to do what they are going to do. -Infighting between the military and the State Dept.
right. We need solidarity in the world as well. Everyone seems to be agreeing that terrorism is bad and must be investigated and countered as a collective United Nations. -Declaring victory before the first offensive has been taken.
There are secret victories being achieved as I post this message. You may never ever read about it. But I believe that counter terrorists have already saved thousands of innocent lives by foiling the plans of a few groups who were about to act. France for example. -Forcing long term allies to change the way they do business, when that business is their main business.
We also need accounting for world currency. Where does the save the children money really go? -Treating dictators, tyrants, and other fundamentalists like great allies.
That is something the U.S. is guilty of because supporting the alternative governments was worse. What is needed is the presentation of a better way. No dictators, tyrants, and extreemists. -Granting even more power to an inbred and incompetent intelligence community, that is already out of control.
We should grant only the power to save our lives and stop violence in the world. We should fight for against the abuse of such spying. -Setting unrealistic goals like "ridding the world of evil".
We can never rid the world of evil. For where there is good there will always be evil to define what good is. Will never eliminate the problems in the long run.
The problem of terrorism will never be eliminated because that is how nature works. The problem of terrorism can only be continually worked. What we need is a world peace keeping force that not only combats terrorism but the atrocities such as what is taking place in Afganistan.
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – You are trying to make war on an idea, something intangible, and resistant to anti-personnel mines. A homeopathic remedy on a self-inflicted wound. I wonder how many body bags it will take to bandage. Scrofula And WWII was not for an Idea?
It was a war between the Allies and Axis forces. Something totally concrete. Scrofula
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – What a bunch of left wing bullshit. Shapiro in USA Today was dead on. The moral superority of the left makes me want to vomit. I guess we just let the bastards who did this get away with it. Bullshit yes! left wing NO. A number of us are in favor of overthrowing the Taliban. The living conditions are unbearable and the government is equivalent to the Nazi. What many people forget is The Bin Laden Bunch don’t want peace. They don’t want to negotiate. They don’t want to get along with us. They want all westerners, specifically Americans and Jews, DEAD. Men, women, children, everyone. Or as The Bin Laden Bunch’s fax said today, "Wherever there are Americans and Jews, they will be targeted." Chanting "Give Peace A Chance" in your local Unitarian Church doesn’t work with these psychos. Being "progressive" and thinking happy thoughts during your "peace in" doesn’t phase them. We need to take them out one way or another before they kill more of ours.
All good points, but the trick is to take them out, without creating more like them, in the process. Getting serious and going after the terrorists is fine. -Leaders shooting off their mouths, before they know how what they say will be interpreted. -People giving away their own freedom in moments of panic. -Declaring World War, when a serious and long term police action is more of what it is. -Infighting between the military and the State Dept. -Declaring victory before the first offensive has been taken. -Forcing long term allies to change the way they do business, when that business is their main business. -Treating dictators, tyrants, and other fundamentalists like great allies. -Granting even more power to an inbred and incompetent intelligence community, that is already out of control. -Setting unrealistic goals like "ridding the world of evil". Will never eliminate the problems in the long run. — BU$H $UCK$ The remainder of this post is reserved for Hugh Jardonne to rant and rave about his latent homosexual compulsions, His musings about the more interesting events in my life; (which he is infatuated with, and insanely jealous over).
Right on Lou! Just more proof that Chive is living in a dream world.
"Lou MinattiT" < What many people forget is The Bin Laden Bunch don’t want peace. They don’t want to negotiate. They don’t want to get along with us. They want all westerners, specifically Americans and Jews, DEAD. Men, women, children, everyone. Or as The Bin Laden Bunch’s fax said today, "Wherever there are Americans and Jews, they will be targeted."
What he said! Chanting "Give Peace A Chance" in your local Unitarian Church doesn’t work with these psychos. Being "progressive" and thinking happy thoughts during your "peace in" doesn’t phase them. We need to take them out one way or another before they kill more of ours.
You can’t trust those Unitarians. Half-assed Jesus is worse than no Jesus at all.
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – | | | | What a bunch of left wing bullshit. Shapiro in USA Today was dead on. The | moral superority of the left makes me want to vomit. I guess we just let the | bastards who did this get away with it. | | Bullshit yes! left wing NO. A number of us are in favor of overthrowing the | Taliban. The living conditions are unbearable and the government is equivalent | to the Nazi. | Speaking from the perspective of a left wing liberal who was active in anti-Vietnam war activities in the late sixties, I say blast the terrorists and the Taliban thugs. I view this as the liberation of Afghanistan.
Agree, did I miss post?
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – What a bunch of left wing bullshit. Shapiro in USA Today was dead on. The moral superority of the left makes me want to vomit. I guess we just let the bastards who did this get away with it. Bullshit yes! left wing NO. A number of us are in favor of overthrowing the Taliban. The living conditions are unbearable and the government is equivalent to the Nazi. You are trying to make war on an idea, something intangible, and resistant to anti-personnel mines. A homeopathic remedy on a self-inflicted wound. I wonder how many body bags it will take to bandage. Scrofula
And WWII was not for an Idea?
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – What a bunch of left wing bullshit. Shapiro in USA Today was dead on. The moral superority of the left makes me want to vomit. I guess we just let the bastards who did this get away with it. Bullshit yes! left wing NO. A number of us are in favor of overthrowing the Taliban. The living conditions are unbearable and the government is equivalent to the Nazi.
You are trying to make war on an idea, something intangible, and resistant to anti-personnel mines. A homeopathic remedy on a self-inflicted wound. I wonder how many body bags it will take to bandage. Scrofula
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – What a bunch of left wing bullshit. Shapiro in USA Today was dead on. The moral superority of the left makes me want to vomit. I guess we just let the bastards who did this get away with it. Bullshit yes! left wing NO. A number of us are in favor of overthrowing the Taliban. The living conditions are unbearable and the government is equivalent to the Nazi. What many people forget is The Bin Laden Bunch don’t want peace. They don’t want to negotiate. They don’t want to get along with us. They want all westerners, specifically Americans and Jews, DEAD. Men, women, children, everyone. Or as The Bin Laden Bunch’s fax said today, "Wherever there are Americans and Jews, they will be targeted." Chanting "Give Peace A Chance" in your local Unitarian Church doesn’t work with these psychos. Being "progressive" and thinking happy thoughts during your "peace in" doesn’t phase them. We need to take them out one way or another before they kill more of ours.
Lou, I am a little confused. Maybe you were addressing the original poster. Nevertheless, I agree with you with the exception that I put the Taliban on the top of the hit list. The other added point would rebuild Afghanistan and make life better for the common Afghan. Just like we did Germany and Japan after WWII to make it stable. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – — Lou’s Bullshit Detector! http://www.watchingyou.com/bullsht.html
| |
| | What a bunch of left wing bullshit. Shapiro in USA Today was dead on. The | moral superority of the left makes me want to vomit. I guess we just let the | bastards who did this get away with it. | | Bullshit yes! left wing NO. A number of us are in favor of overthrowing the | Taliban. The living conditions are unbearable and the government is equivalent | to the Nazi. | Speaking from the perspective of a left wing liberal who was active in anti-Vietnam war activities in the late sixties, I say blast the terrorists and the Taliban thugs. I view this as the liberation of Afghanistan.
Chive, Just curious, do you live in the USA? Proud to be an American, Harvest Dancer
What a bunch of left wing bullshit. Shapiro in USA Today was dead on. The moral superority of the left makes me want to vomit. I guess we just let the bastards who did this get away with it.
What a bunch of left wing bullshit. Shapiro in USA Today was dead on. The moral superority of the left makes me want to vomit. I guess we just let the bastards who did this get away with it.
Bullshit yes! left wing NO. A number of us are in favor of overthrowing the Taliban. The living conditions are unbearable and the government is equivalent to the Nazi.
What a bunch of left wing bullshit. Shapiro in USA Today was dead on. The moral superority of the left makes me want to vomit. I guess we just let the bastards who did this get away with it. Bullshit yes! left wing NO. A number of us are in favor of overthrowing the Taliban. The living conditions are unbearable and the government is equivalent to the Nazi.
What many people forget is The Bin Laden Bunch don’t want peace. They don’t want to negotiate. They don’t want to get along with us. They want all westerners, specifically Americans and Jews, DEAD. Men, women, children, everyone. Or as The Bin Laden Bunch’s fax said today, "Wherever there are Americans and Jews, they will be targeted." Chanting "Give Peace A Chance" in your local Unitarian Church doesn’t work with these psychos. Being "progressive" and thinking happy thoughts during your "peace in" doesn’t phase them. We need to take them out one way or another before they kill more of ours. — Lou’s Bullshit Detector! http://www.watchingyou.com/bullsht.html
You are probably correct. I meant that I would pick up the ticket to allow working legally on type accepted radios. I don’t know the current details but I am sure Larry does. Jim
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Jim – And I don’t have a first class ticket but I will pick up one sometime soon without doing a lot of work to get it. I got mine in the late ’70’s. I thought they did away with them shortly after that. Something about deregulation of commercial broadcast industry etc. Is a 1st class license still legally required to maintain/adjust/repair commercial broadcast equipment? -rick-
Jim – And I don’t have a first class ticket but I will pick up one sometime soon without doing a lot of work to get it. I got mine in the late ’70’s. I thought they did away with them shortly after that. Something about deregulation of commercial broadcast industry etc. Is a 1st class license still legally required to maintain/adjust/repair commercial broadcast equipment?
Depends on what you mean by "commercial broadcast equipment"? There is no requirement for a license to work on transmitters at your local AM, FM, or TV station, nor is one required to work on private land mobile radios, CBs, etc. You still have to be licensed if you are working in international fixed public radio (I think that’s the name of the service…) The 1st and 2nd class radiotelephone op tickets were replaced by the general radiotelephone operator license (GROL). The 1st and 2nd radio*telegraph* op tickets are still used for guys that need to work on CW stations. The GROL (or T1,T2) is required to make internal adjustments or repairs to transmitters used in the aviation or marine radio services (including VHF). Before you buy.
Jim – And I don’t have a first class ticket but I will pick up one sometime soon without doing a lot of work to get it.
I got mine in the late ’70’s. I thought they did away with them shortly after that. Something about deregulation of commercial broadcast industry etc. Is a 1st class license still legally required to maintain/adjust/repair commercial broadcast equipment? -rick-
Harry – Length does the job – It needs about 1/4 wavelength of the frequency of interest. Some width does help – what it actually does is broaden the frequency over which it will tune well. Area does help in increasing the coupling to the sea water ground. What I was pointing out was that a couple of one or two inch strips along the hull is much better than a 5 ft by 5 ft mat. The sintered bronze plates appear to offer no advantage over a regular metal plate. There are reports that they blow up in a lightning strike do to explosive boiling of the water within the plate. The latest thinking with respect to ground is to take care of lightning first. This is done by a long strip run from bow to stern beneath the water. The object is to leave the edges of the strip sharp and unpainted. The lightning has a propensity to discharge along this long edge. The strip along the hull is backed up by a similar strip interior to the hull through bolted at a couple of points along the strip. This provides a convenient lightning ground for a mast or other major metallic objects. It can also be tied to the DC ground and can be couple to the RF ground though this is properly done with a couple of capacitors rather than a DC connection. I am by the way an amateur radio operator and an electrical engineer. And I will agree with Ray – as a class we do have a very high dork quotient. Jim – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – The question is not whether the semi-porous nature of sintered bronze increases surface area; it’s whether they really do better than produce a simple electrical ground. An RF ground needs at least length, better to have area. Has anyone produced trials that show the bronze plates actually work over a simple metal plate? Ray Interesting, because when I suggested that a lot of metal components were linked with copper to form a large area for the ground, Jim Donohue indicated length of ground was more important than area, or something like that. Now you are saying area is better. I don’t know which is better, but I was told "area" was important, as in square footage. What "simple metal plate" material would *you* prefer to bronze for underwater use in the ocean? — Harry Krause Pregnant: Parasitically opressed
The question is not whether the semi-porous nature of sintered bronze increases surface area; it’s whether they really do better than produce a simple electrical ground. An RF ground needs at least length, better to have area. Has anyone produced trials that show the bronze plates actually work over a simple metal plate? Ray
Interesting, because when I suggested that a lot of metal components were linked with copper to form a large area for the ground, Jim Donohue indicated length of ground was more important than area, or something like that. Now you are saying area is better. I don’t know which is better, but I was told "area" was important, as in square footage. What "simple metal plate" material would *you* prefer to bronze for underwater use in the ocean? — Harry Krause Pregnant: Parasitically opressed
Well, metallurgy ain’t my field, but I would guess that sintered bronze is used because the process of sintering turns the bronze into a semi-porous body that increases its surface area.
You are exactly right regarding sintered bronze, which BTW was used commonly as fuel filters in the Rochester Carbs prior to the accountants coup in the design dept. As a side note, ever notice how "hams" get defensive about what can and can’t occur during radio operations and installations? And what’s up with the "junior policeman" garb some of them decorate their cars with? Hey, if you want to warn everyone about storms, and send messages during armageddon, fine- but FYI, there isn’t a law that says you have to look like dorks while doing it! Mike D.
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Well, metallurgy ain’t my field, but I would guess that sintered bronze is used because the process of sintering turns the bronze into a semi-porous body that increases its surface area. You are exactly right regarding sintered bronze, which BTW was used commonly as fuel filters in the Rochester Carbs prior to the accountants coup in the design dept. As a side note, ever notice how "hams" get defensive about what can and can’t occur during radio operations and installations? And what’s up with the "junior policeman" garb some of them decorate their cars with? Hey, if you want to warn everyone about storms, and send messages during armageddon, fine- but FYI, there isn’t a law that says you have to look like dorks while doing it! Mike D.
I’ve seen a little of the latter, but rarely. Don’t come into contact with too many amateur radio operators. The most prolific one here is Larry, a lot of whose signals seem to emanate within his own head. — Harry Krause A bird in the hand doesn’t count in poker
The question is not whether the semi-porous nature of sintered bronze increases surface area; it’s whether they really do better than produce a simple electrical ground. An RF ground needs at least length, better to have area. Has anyone produced trials that show the bronze plates actually work over a simple metal plate? Ray – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Well, metallurgy ain’t my field, but I would guess that sintered bronze is used because the process of sintering turns the bronze into a semi-porous body that increases its surface area. You are exactly right regarding sintered bronze, which BTW was used commonly as fuel filters in the Rochester Carbs prior to the accountants coup in the design dept. As a side note, ever notice how "hams" get defensive about what can and can’t occur during radio operations and installations? And what’s up with the "junior policeman" garb some of them decorate their cars with? Hey, if you want to warn everyone about storms, and send messages during armageddon, fine- but FYI, there isn’t a law that says you have to look like dorks while doing it! Mike D.
At the risk of getting in the field of fire between H*** and L*** — Harrt – you are somewhat off in the ground requirements for SSB. It is not true for instance that contact with the water or any kind of external plate is required. A boater may want an external plate (generally a long skinny band now a days) for lightning protection but not for an rf ground.
Note that I did not say an external plate was required. I said an external plate was "typical." Many of the commercial fishing boats I’ve been looking at lately have a copper or sintered bronze plate below the waterline. It is also untrue that their is any particular area requirement. If anything length is more important. It is sometimes convenient to do things like putting a layer of copper in the laminate but that is more conveniece than neccessity. It does tend to be an arty thing though and the advice to use a tech is probably right on.
Well, notice that I also said 100 square feet of metal ground was "typical." — Harry Krause Teddy Bear Usage Instructions (4): Do not plug teddy into electrical socket
Having been in amateur radio for over 30 years, I still fail to see how those small sintered copper plates can do anything useful except provide a simple electrical ground. That’s NOT the required – but advertised – RF "ground". Cheers, Ray
Well, metallurgy ain’t my field, but I would guess that sintered bronze is used because the process of sintering turns the bronze into a semi-porous body that increases its surface area. That’s what I recall from my years of visits to refractories. Perhaps the coarseness that results from the sintering process puts more of the product being in contact with the seawater. But, then, I could be completely and totally wrong about why the exterior plate typically is sintered bronze. Harry Krause I wouldn’t be caught dead with a necrophiliac!
Having been in amateur radio for over 30 years, I still fail to see how those small sintered copper plates can do anything useful except provide a simple electrical ground. That’s NOT the required – but advertised – RF "ground". Cheers, Ray – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – At the risk of getting in the field of fire between H*** and L*** — Harrt – you are somewhat off in the ground requirements for SSB. It is not true for instance that contact with the water or any kind of external plate is required. A boater may want an external plate (generally a long skinny band now a days) for lightning protection but not for an rf ground. Note that I did not say an external plate was required. I said an external plate was "typical." Many of the commercial fishing boats I’ve been looking at lately have a copper or sintered bronze plate below the waterline. It is also untrue that their is any particular area requirement. If anything length is more important. It is sometimes convenient to do things like putting a layer of copper in the laminate but that is more conveniece than neccessity. It does tend to be an arty thing though and the advice to use a tech is probably right on. Well, notice that I also said 100 square feet of metal ground was "typical." — Harry Krause Teddy Bear Usage Instructions (4): Do not plug teddy into electrical socket
Larry, off topic from this thread but wanted to say thanks for the inside scoop on Charleston. Actually, our intentions were to trailer (21 footers) to MB then to HH, on to Savannah, up the river to home in Augusta. A few have backed out so we may just bring the boat to CHS to play around some and take in some sights that are not seen from a horse and carriage!! Are there any Dockside Hotels near the battery or downtown area?? Thanks again and we’ll be sure to let you know what date we are coming, probably late August. Craig Stripling
MOVIE fishing boats or any MOVIE boats, for that matter, can communicate over vast distances, in terrible conditions with only milliwatts of power and can operate on any frequency above 60 Hz with the clarity and fidelity only wideband fiber optics can provide. Hell, in the movie FREQUENCY, not only could they communicate long distances but over HUGE periods back in TIME, too! Larry W4CSC Reality would sound TERRIBLE in a movie theatre stereo system….(c; – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Just saw the movie Perfect Storm. How is it that the fishing boats could comunicate at great distances? What kind of power do these big fishing boats use, and what freq’s Before you buy.
Why didn’t I think about SSB!!! The movies sound track indicated it was AM. Or FM. and not the sound of SSB. I see they use frequencies below the amateur 15 meter band. Again thanks, and if you get the chance go see one hell of a good movie. WA9FWT Phil Before you buy.
WOW….I didn’t know Krausebot was a Broadcast Engineer, too! You learn something every day on r.b……. Harry, what’s the license number on your FCC 1st Phone? I can’t find it in the FCC database, anywhere! Larry W4CSC Real 1st Phone w/RADAR endorsement……not some GROL giveaway license.
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Why didn’t I think about SSB!!! The movies sound track indicated it was AM. Or FM. and not the sound of SSB. I see they use frequencies below the amateur 15 meter band. Again thanks, and if you get the chance go see one hell of a good movie. WA9FWT Phil Before you buy. WOW….I didn’t know Krausebot was a Broadcast Engineer, too! You learn something every day on r.b……. Harry, what’s the license number on your FCC 1st Phone? I can’t find it in the FCC database, anywhere! Larry W4CSC Real 1st Phone w/RADAR endorsement……not some GROL giveaway license.
With which part of my post do you disagree, Larry? On the fact the radio was an SSB, that there is a need for a proper and large ground system for the SSB antennna or on the recommendation that an FCC-licensed tech do the install? — Harry Krause Hard work has a future payoff Laziness pays off now
One thing that I saw in the movie that would never happen is that the Coast Guard ship let the rescued people stay outside and watch as they attempted to get the helicopter pilots. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Just saw the movie Perfect Storm. How is it that the fishing boats could comunicate at great distances? What kind of power do these big fishing boats use, and what freq’s Before you buy. Single sideband radio. Here’s a URL of a popular line: http://www.furuno.com/comm/fs1503.html SSB, unlike the "usual" marine radio VHF, is NOT line of sight. But atmospheric conditions play in… Also, an SSB installation is more complex than a VHF. You have to have a proper ground system for the antenna, typically 100 square feet. Some of it has to be in contact with the ocean. Typically, this part is a small copper or bronze plate affixed to the outside of the hull. Inside the hull, the square footage is brought up to the minimum by using copper foil to tie in metallic surfaces, such as the engine block, keel, prop shafts, et cetera. Maybe there are more elegant ways to do this. Since your life depends on how well the SSB works, you’d probably want to hire an FCC-licensed tech to handle the install. — Harry Krause It’s not bragging if you’re telling the truth Tnx Harry Why didn’t I think about SSB!!! The movies sound track indicated it was AM. Or FM. and not the sound of SSB. I see they use frequencies below the amateur 15 meter band. Again thanks, and if you get the chance go see one hell of a good movie. WA9FWT Phil Before you buy. Saw it…thought it was a very good movie that accurately depicted the lives and dangers of the brave folks who go waaaaaaay out to sea in pretty small fishing boats to earn a few bucks. — Harry Krause Old hackers never die, they just}~&*#h NO CARRIER
At the risk of getting in the field of fire between H*** and L*** — Harrt – you are somewhat off in the ground requirements for SSB. It is not true for instance that contact with the water or any kind of external plate is required. A boater may want an external plate (generally a long skinny band now a days) for lightning protection but not for an rf ground. It is also untrue that their is any particular area requirement. If anything length is more important. It is sometimes convenient to do things like putting a layer of copper in the laminate but that is more conveniece than neccessity. It does tend to be an arty thing though and the advice to use a tech is probably right on. I would also however go sailing for a couple of days and use the equipment heavily before I signed off that the installation was satisfactory. I have seen a couple of installations where the tech did the conventional things and it did not work out well. One was by the guy who is the leading expert on the west coast. I am not finding fault by the way – more observing that these are cut and try systems and you want the second, third…. cut done on the techs dollars not yours. There is a reasonably good PS article on the subject which includes a systematic treatment of bonding, lightning ground and rf ground which really all need to be worked together. Jim – And I don’t have a first class ticket but I will pick up one sometime soon without doing a lot of work to get it. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Why didn’t I think about SSB!!! The movies sound track indicated it was AM. Or FM. and not the sound of SSB. I see they use frequencies below the amateur 15 meter band. Again thanks, and if you get the chance go see one hell of a good movie. WA9FWT Phil Before you buy. WOW….I didn’t know Krausebot was a Broadcast Engineer, too! You learn something every day on r.b……. Harry, what’s the license number on your FCC 1st Phone? I can’t find it in the FCC database, anywhere! Larry W4CSC Real 1st Phone w/RADAR endorsement……not some GROL giveaway license. With which part of my post do you disagree, Larry? On the fact the radio was an SSB, that there is a need for a proper and large ground system for the SSB antennna or on the recommendation that an FCC-licensed tech do the install? — Harry Krause Hard work has a future payoff Laziness pays off now
Just saw the movie Perfect Storm. How is it that the fishing boats could comunicate at great distances? What kind of power do these big fishing boats use, and what freq’s Before you buy.
Just saw the movie Perfect Storm. How is it that the fishing boats could comunicate at great distances? What kind of power do these big fishing boats use, and what freq’s Before you buy.
Single sideband radio. Here’s a URL of a popular line: http://www.furuno.com/comm/fs1503.html SSB, unlike the "usual" marine radio VHF, is NOT line of sight. But atmospheric conditions play in… — Harry Krause It’s Spaceball One! They’ve gone to plaid!
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Just saw the movie Perfect Storm. How is it that the fishing boats could comunicate at great distances? What kind of power do these big fishing boats use, and what freq’s Before you buy. Single sideband radio. Here’s a URL of a popular line: http://www.furuno.com/comm/fs1503.html SSB, unlike the "usual" marine radio VHF, is NOT line of sight. But atmospheric conditions play in…
Also, an SSB installation is more complex than a VHF. You have to have a proper ground system for the antenna, typically 100 square feet. Some of it has to be in contact with the ocean. Typically, this part is a small copper or bronze plate affixed to the outside of the hull. Inside the hull, the square footage is brought up to the minimum by using copper foil to tie in metallic surfaces, such as the engine block, keel, prop shafts, et cetera. Maybe there are more elegant ways to do this. Since your life depends on how well the SSB works, you’d probably want to hire an FCC-licensed tech to handle the install. — Harry Krause It’s not bragging if you’re telling the truth
– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Just saw the movie Perfect Storm. How is it that the fishing boats could comunicate at great distances? What kind of power do these big fishing boats use, and what freq’s Before you buy. Single sideband radio. Here’s a URL of a popular line: http://www.furuno.com/comm/fs1503.html SSB, unlike the "usual" marine radio VHF, is NOT line of sight. But atmospheric conditions play in… Also, an SSB installation is more complex than a VHF. You have to have a proper ground system for the antenna, typically 100 square feet. Some of it has to be in contact with the ocean. Typically, this part is a small copper or bronze plate affixed to the outside of the hull. Inside the hull, the square footage is brought up to the minimum by using copper foil to tie in metallic surfaces, such as the engine block, keel, prop shafts, et cetera. Maybe there are more elegant ways to do this. Since your life depends on how well the SSB works, you’d probably want to hire an FCC-licensed tech to handle the install. — Harry Krause It’s not bragging if you’re telling the truth Tnx Harry
Why didn’t I think about SSB!!! The movies sound track indicated it was AM. Or FM. and not the sound of SSB. I see they use frequencies below the amateur 15 meter band. Again thanks, and if you get the chance go see one hell of a good movie. WA9FWT Phil Before you buy.
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Just saw the movie Perfect Storm. How is it that the fishing boats could comunicate at great distances? What kind of power do these big fishing boats use, and what freq’s Before you buy. Single sideband radio. Here’s a URL of a popular line: http://www.furuno.com/comm/fs1503.html SSB, unlike the "usual" marine radio VHF, is NOT line of sight. But atmospheric conditions play in… Also, an SSB installation is more complex than a VHF. You have to have a proper ground system for the antenna, typically 100 square feet. Some of it has to be in contact with the ocean. Typically, this part is a small copper or bronze plate affixed to the outside of the hull. Inside the hull, the square footage is brought up to the minimum by using copper foil to tie in metallic surfaces, such as the engine block, keel, prop shafts, et cetera. Maybe there are more elegant ways to do this. Since your life depends on how well the SSB works, you’d probably want to hire an FCC-licensed tech to handle the install. — Harry Krause It’s not bragging if you’re telling the truth Tnx Harry Why didn’t I think about SSB!!! The movies sound track indicated it was AM. Or FM. and not the sound of SSB. I see they use frequencies below the amateur 15 meter band. Again thanks, and if you get the chance go see one hell of a good movie. WA9FWT Phil Before you buy.
Saw it…thought it was a very good movie that accurately depicted the lives and dangers of the brave folks who go waaaaaaay out to sea in pretty small fishing boats to earn a few bucks. — Harry Krause Old hackers never die, they just}~&*#h NO CARRIER
Congratulations, YoYo. You’re the first one to have noticed and made the connection. I thought it was very Haite-Ashbury.
I was most impressed with the fact that somebody appeared to have taken the effort in designing the shirt that the tie-dye colors and the logo colors blended/matched well. Cheers, Mike — Mike Marler Information Technology, Georgia Tech
Well, we had our moments and no one got hurt!
snip But YoYo told us at the end of the day that he timed his "sucking" to occur on Saturday. As Rick pointed out, when it comes to "sucking," timing is everything.
Yo, Randy, and Dr. D: As my favorite golf philosophers The Three Stooges put it, "if at first you don’t succeed, keep on sucking ’til you do succeed!" <g Steve – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Something tells me this won’t be the last time the Atlanta RSG’ers get together. Randy
Y’know, I feel like I ought to take offense at that, but I’m not sure why. I’m **so** sorry if you took offense. They were your words, and I thought it was funny when you said it. Truth is, as I told the group, it was a good day for you, and my intent was to point that out.
I’m not really offended. I am, however, a little disappointed that my attempt at humor failed. 
— "Par-TAY!" -Fox Mulder
Today, Labor Day, we held the first group golf outing of Atlanta-area RSG’ers at Browns Mill GC in south Atlanta.
Hi, Randy. I’m one of the Atlanta RSG’ers (lurker mostly) and play 9 holes after work with Brian & Yo Yo most Tuesdays. Brian was trying to talk me into e-mailing you to join up, but I wasn’t sure how many you were going to have (my wife probably would have come too). If I had known you only had five, I would have made it out there. I haven’t played Brown’s Mill in probably 10 years. Anyways, I got out around 2pm Monday (MAN it was hot) at College park and shot my best round in years! Something tells me this won’t be the last time the Atlanta RSG’ers get together.
Let me know next outing and It’ll be a "definite maybe" for me to attend Robert Shaw
Gang! Had a ball!!! I would concur with Mr. R&B we have quite the group here in Atlanta. I would encourage all RSG’ers to get together with like folk in their local area and do the same. I would be willing to bet y’all have a blast as well. And yes Mike * can * crush the ball (and not a bad cart driver ether). A few of those shots needed passports. I do believe that Mike was the unofficial winner of the news group geeks regional sectional open invitational (for those who are keeping score) As for my score the accounting firm of Dewy, Cheetem, and Howe is still working on it. As for those who couldn’t make it, fear not. Getting any group of people together at the same place and time would take a cosmic alignment of planets! There was a famous author who was once quoted as saying, "more then three people can’t decide where to have dinner. And so it is. Let’s do it again real soon. I know we all have different schedules but I’m up for a round almost any weekend so drop a line if you need a forth (or a second or third). Hey Yo yo, you have inspired me to get one of those pull cart-a-ma-bobs, makes walking look a whole lot more enjoyable!. And you should have seen Randy’s Tie-Dye, is was the bee’s knees!!! Kind of camoflage at a gratful dead concert. Till next time! — "The DeMented Golfer" "Forget about World Peace…Visualize using your turn signal." Rick DeMent "Time to pull a quick Hank Snow." : Well, we had our moments and no one got hurt! : : Today, Labor Day, we held the first group golf outing of Atlanta-area : RSG’ers at Browns Mill GC in south Atlanta. : :
Hey Yo yo, you have inspired me to get one of those pull cart-a-ma-bobs, makes walking look a whole lot more enjoyable!.
Muahahahaha… <monty burns voiceExcellent….</mbv And you should have seen Randy’s Tie-Dye, is was the bee’s knees!!! Kind of camoflage at a gratful dead concert.
Indeed. Highly appropriate for a San Francisco club. — "Par-TAY!" -Fox Mulder
Well, we had our moments and no one got hurt! Today, Labor Day, we held the first group golf outing of Atlanta-area RSG’ers at Browns Mill GC in south Atlanta. Unfortunately, some of our ATL brethren had an assortment of work-related activities or "honey-do’s" that prevented them from joining us, but the five of us who played found good (if somewhat hot) weather for a day of golf and making new acquaintences.
Next time you guys get together on a long weekend let me know. I’d like to try and make it. David Golf Instruction Homepage http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/3628/
And you should have seen Randy’s Tie-Dye, is was the bee’s knees!!! Kind of camoflage at a gratful dead concert. Indeed. Highly appropriate for a San Francisco club.
Congratulations, YoYo. You’re the first one to have noticed and made the connection. I thought it was very Haite-Ashbury. Randy
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Congratulations to YoYo, who, after posting a career-best round yesterday, came back with another good showing today. Not a record-setter, but a solid round just six strokes off the record pace he set for himself yesterday. As so many of us have found time and again, it’s hard to follow up a great round with another solid one. But YoYo told us at the end of the day that he timed his "sucking" to occur on Saturday. As Rick pointed out, when it comes to "sucking," timing is everything. Y’know, I feel like I ought to take offense at that, but I’m not sure why. —
YoYo, I’m **so** sorry if you took offense. They were your words, and I thought it was funny when you said it. Truth is, as I told the group, it was a good day for you, and my intent was to point that out. Randy
Congratulations to YoYo, who, after posting a career-best round yesterday, came back with another good showing today. Not a record-setter, but a solid round just six strokes off the record pace he set for himself yesterday. As so many of us have found time and again, it’s hard to follow up a great round with another solid one. But YoYo told us at the end of the day that he timed his "sucking" to occur on Saturday. As Rick pointed out, when it comes to "sucking," timing is everything.
Y’know, I feel like I ought to take offense at that, but I’m not sure why. — "Par-TAY!" -Fox Mulder
Well, we had our moments and no one got hurt! Today, Labor Day, we held the first group golf outing of Atlanta-area RSG’ers at Browns Mill GC in south Atlanta. Unfortunately, some of our ATL brethren had an assortment of work-related activities or "honey-do’s" that prevented them from joining us, but the five of us who played found good (if somewhat hot) weather for a day of golf and making new acquaintences. Since the golf course won’t send out fivesomes, we had to break up into two groups, with YoYo and Brian Jones out early. I joined up with Rick "The Demented Golfer" DeMent and Mike Marler in the group right behind. Never let it be said that walking leads to slow play, as Brian and YoYo were out of sight lickety-split. Once they left the first green, we hardly saw hide nor hair of them. In fact, when we turned, there were two groups between us and them (where the heck they came from, nobody knows–we weren’t playing slowly). Congratulations to YoYo, who, after posting a career-best round yesterday, came back with another good showing today. Not a record-setter, but a solid round just six strokes off the record pace he set for himself yesterday. As so many of us have found time and again, it’s hard to follow up a great round with another solid one. But YoYo told us at the end of the day that he timed his "sucking" to occur on Saturday. As Rick pointed out, when it comes to "sucking," timing is everything. Brian, we’re told, got off to a good start, but hit a few bumps along the way. We’ll just say he’s had better days. Rick, "The Demented Golfer," hit some awfully good golf shots, and carded more pars in one round than he’d done before. Congratulations, Mr. DeMent! You had us in stitches. (He’s quite the funny lad.) Mike Marler can whomp that golf ball! He reached the par five 10th in two, and made a nice attempt at eagle. It just ran by, but his tap-in birdie was one of two tweeters he carded on the back nine (he was the only one to make a birdie all day). Mr. Marler can play a little golf, folks. If not for a couple of bad breaks in the final few holes, he’d have been threatening the 80 mark. I had a rather typical outing, scratching it around for 9 holes, hitting the ball into some impossible spots and making my usual allotment of bogeys and doubles. But I pulled it together on the back nine. A 3-putt on 10, and a failure to get up and down from the bunker on 11 led to two bogeys, but I closed out with 7 pars to save the round. The impression I came away with from this experience was that we’ve got some awfully nice folks in RSG, and I highly recommend to each of you to find out who the RSG’ers are in your neck of the woods and get out and meet them. You’re liable to find out that they’re alot of fun. Something tells me this won’t be the last time the Atlanta RSG’ers get together. Randy
The sun is all you need.
I think you should replace "you" with "I" in that sentence. There are as many different ways to enjoy hiking as there are people. If someone enjoys the "day runner lifestyle," why judge him? Who are you to tell anyone what "belongs" in the wilds, as long as there’s no deleterious impact? Relax. Live and let live.
I never carry a watch when in the backcountry. I dont want to keep time or be on a schedule. The sun is all you need. Its either up or down. Its either light or its dark. Pretty basic. What else do you need to know. When was the last time you had an appointment you had be at in the wilds at a specific time.
Knowing time is pretty essential to me. NO, I don’t have any appointments to keep, but a watch does let me judge distance on bushwhacks. Knowing when to give up trying for a summit is another thing a watch is useful for. IE, if I don’t make it on the summit by xx:00H, quit and go back. My last 5 days hiking/camping, it was cloudy and snowy each day. I didn’t see the sun, moon or start the whole time. I constantly monitored my watch and compass each time I climbed a peak. Yep, for me a watch is a pretty inmportant tool. Hey, know what? On a cloudy day, with a watch and a compass, you can figure out where the sun is. — Fight Spam! Join CAUCE (Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email) at http://www.cauce.org/ It is there as an experiment to see if email spammers scan content — Pete Hickey | | VEIWIT University of Ottawa | | mirrors for Ottawa,Ont. Canada K1N 6N5| (613) 562-5800×1008 | dyslexics.
I am not trying to be judgemental or tell anyone what to do. Like I said it is just my 2 cents.
Sorry I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying that no one needs a watch in the wild and that they don’t belong there.
e. If someone enjoys the "day runner lifestyle," why judge him? Who are you to tell anyone what "belongs" in the wilds, as long as there’s no deleterious impact?
I am not trying to be judgemental or tell anyone what to do. Like I said it is just my 2 cents. Relax. Live and let live.<
Mark, I think you (not telling you) should take your own advice. Chill a little. I am not going to sneak up behind you on the trail and steal your watch….. :)
<snip The sun is all you need. Its either up or down. Its either light or its dark. Pretty basic. What else do you need to know. When was the last time you had an appointment you had be at in the wilds at a specific time.
<snip Generally speaking, I agree that I don’t need a watch. I usually don’t wear them Out There. But there was ONE time when I was in the Maroon Bells wilderness, out of food, and I wanted to make sure I made one of those shuttle buses back out to my car in Aspen. Yes, occasionally there IS an appointment you have to keep. — soilguyATcyberstateDOTinfiDOTnet
I never carry a watch when in the backcountry. I dont want to keep time or be on a schedule.
Fine if you don’t have constraints. The sun is all you need. Its either up or down. Its either light or its dark. Pretty basic. What else do you need to know. When was the last time you had an appointment you had be at in the wilds at a specific time.
Well for instance, since you bring the issue of the sun up. If you are a peak bagging hiker like say Gross, the sun drives weather like thunderstorms. Many basic problems/incidents stem from people not getting an early enough start, not knowing when to turn back. It’s a compounding error factor. Light is your irrevesible resource. More than one person has died from failing to budget time properly. Hiking watchs are just a marketing gimmic, that bring our "day runner" lifestyles into the wilds where they dont belong.
Somewhat.
Personally, I regard a watch as pretty close to essential in the backcountry. Although we don’t have a lot of mountains in this neck of the words, I still find it important to set a "turn-back" time to minimize the chance of having to spend the night away from my base camp or having to fumble in the dark looking for it. It is easy to get caught up in "wonder where this trail leads" and underestimate how long it takes to get back to camp. Even when day-hiking in state forests I try to set a mental "around this time make sure you’re on the trail back to the car" time. Sure you can tell from the sinking position of the sun, but I figure that a watch doesn’t weigh that much. 8-)
I just bought a Swiss Army watch, and really like it. Here are some reasons why I think a watch is extremely useful in the backcountry: If you’re travelling to/in backcountry Alaska you ABSOLUTELY need a watch so that you can make your ride. Pilots and charter boat captains are generally very time-is-money oriented. You don’t want to be late for your appointment with them. Could cost you big bucks (or even a trip). And if you’re travelling on foot in mountainous country (especially during short day season), you want to know how much daylight is left. And if you’re kayakking <sp? or canoeing or rafting on a dammed river you want to be able to deal with scheduled releases of water. And if you’re travelling in tidewater you want to be able to decide when to go in which direction, and when the channel will open up (or close), and what will happen to the ice pack or the sand bars. And if you’re travelling at night you may want to know when the moon is up. And if you’re dooing something that requires precise timing (cooking, for example) a rotating bevel is good. And if you want to know how long you’ve been hiking so that you can decide whether you can make it back in time… — gene levine http://world.std.com/~elevine/
Does anyone know of a watch that is: Indestructable has an UNBREAKABLE band glows in the dark (or has a light) waterproof I have broken 4 watches in the last 1 1/2years. The band usually breaks, or the face cracks. I just bought a Armitron Durasteel watch (heavy-duty stainless case, glowing numerials/hands, and a stainless-steel-link band), but I have no idea how it will hold up. It seems to be really sturdy. I have already tried the G-shock, Ironman, and Triatholon watches, but they can’t handle my hiking/packing activities.
Does anyone know of a watch that is: Indestructable has an UNBREAKABLE band glows in the dark (or has a light) waterproof
Probably not, but I have a Swiss Army watch that took it on the face once when I wiped out badly on Roller Blades. When I’m hiking I usually don’t wear a watch. <snip — yer favorite State Soil Scientist of South Carolina e-mail: soilguyATcyberstateDOTinfiDOTnet
Does anyone know of a watch that is: Indestructable has an UNBREAKABLE band glows in the dark (or has a light) waterproof
You don’t suppose he wants something endorsed by John Cameron Swasey, do you?
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Does anyone know of a watch that is: Indestructable has an UNBREAKABLE band glows in the dark (or has a light) waterproof I have broken 4 watches in the last 1 1/2years. The band usually breaks, or the face cracks. I just bought a Armitron Durasteel watch (heavy-duty stainless case, glowing numerials/hands, and a stainless-steel-link band), but I have no idea how it will hold up. It seems to be really sturdy. I have already tried the G-shock, Ironman, and Triatholon watches, but they can’t handle my hiking/packing activities.
I know where you are coming from. It was driving me nuts that I was going through watches like crazy. I walked into a watch store one day, and literally stated my requirements: – a watch that doesn’t run on batteries (self winding) – a watch that glows in the dark – a watch that will survive a ground zero nuclear strike – a watch so sturdy that I will pass this onto the next generation The salesman walked me over to the Omega Seamaster Chronometer. In addition to the above requirements and although I do not do any diving, the watch is waterproof to a depth of 300 meters. The crystal is a true rock hard, mineral crystal. For over 4 years it has been my steady companion where ever I go. It’s been beat up a against rock faces, dipped in water pools, mud pools and to this day it shines up nice even for those dressy occassions. It’s pricey (~$2500), but my watch hunting, neurotic days are at least over, as well as for my unborn grandson. So with the longview, the watch’s price is justified when you look at the performance period and the durability requirements. Just my opinion. -walt
: I have broken 4 watches in the last 1 1/2years. The band usually breaks, or : the face cracks. I just bought a Armitron Durasteel watch (heavy-duty : stainless case, glowing numerials/hands, and a stainless-steel-link band), : but I have no idea how it will hold up. It seems to be really sturdy. : I have already tried the G-shock, Ironman, and Triatholon watches, but they : can’t handle my hiking/packing activities. I used to have this problem. I solved this problem many, many years ago by buying a Rolex Explorer II watch which is their most rugged standard model watch. They have some special diving models that are more rugged. Back then, they were only $600. I think they are $2600 nowadays. OTOH the watch is still ticking although I have had to have the crystal polished twice to get out the scratches so I could see the face. The case and band show obvious signs of use but everything is still original equipment. Rolex may be a yuppie status symbol today but they did and still make the most rugged watches around if you get the right models. Danny Low "Question Authority and the Authorities will question You" Valley of Hearts Delight, Silicon Valley
I walked into a watch store one day, and literally stated my requirements: – a watch that doesn’t run on batteries (self winding) – a watch that glows in the dark – a watch that will survive a ground zero nuclear strike – a watch so sturdy that I will pass this onto the next generation [ ... SNIP ... ] It’s pricey (~$2500), but my watch hunting, neurotic days are at least over, as well as for my unborn grandson.
ACK! My *entire* top-quality winter backcountry gear inventory comes to less than $1600! I’m glad you’re happy with the watch, but MAN! And here I was getting all worried about spending $150 on a watch with built-in altimeter…. Cheers, "It’s hard to be unhappy when you have warm feet." – Dave Rose, Fellow Snow Camper —
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Does anyone know of a watch that is: Indestructable has an UNBREAKABLE band glows in the dark (or has a light) waterproof Probably not, but I have a Swiss Army watch that took it on the face once when I wiped out badly on Roller Blades. When I’m hiking I usually don’t wear a watch. <snip — yer favorite State Soil Scientist of South Carolina e-mail: soilguyATcyberstateDOTinfiDOTnet
I just retired a $29 casio digital water resistant with a lithium battery after 7-8 years of constant wear hiking yard work car repair etc. The only time i ever took it off was to shower. The battery finaly gave out. from previous experience, changing the battery destroys the water resistance and they don’t last long after that. I went through 3 or 4 expansion bands during that 7 years. a woven nylon band would be as close to indestructable as you can get. Unfortunately All watches attach the bands with those little spring pins and those will break periodicly regardless of how good the band is. Don’t know why nobody ever built a watch with a better band attachment. — Dick _ _ / / / | | / | /
Does anyone know of a watch that is: Indestructable, has an UNBREAKABLE band, glows in the dark, waterproof You don’t suppose he wants something endorsed by John Cameron Swasey, do you?
BTW, I thought he was really good in Ghost and Dirty Dancing! — Randy Rohrer | "If you’re not living on the edge, The George Washington University | you’re taking up too much space." Department of EE&CS |
It’s pricey (~$2500), but my watch hunting, neurotic days are at least over, as well as for my unborn grandson. So with the longview, the watch’s price is justified when you look at the performance period and the durability requirements. Just my opinion. -walt
Ouch! I’d be afraid to wear it. OTH, I could take the money, and buy 64 G-shocks. They’d probably last just as long, and there’d probably be a few left over for my unborn grandson, too!
: It’s pricey (~$2500), but my watch hunting, neurotic days are at least : over, as well as for my unborn grandson. : ACK! My *entire* top-quality winter backcountry gear : inventory comes to less than $1600! I’m glad you’re : happy with the watch, but MAN! And here I was getting : all worried about spending $150 on a watch with built-in : altimeter…. The original poster wrote he broke 4 watches in 1.5 years. At $150 per watch, that’s $600 of new watches every 1.5 years. At that rate a $2500 watch that keeps on ticking pays for itself in about 6.25 years. For that 6.25 years he does not suffer any of the inconvenience of being without a watch when it breaks. Murphy’s Law says that when a watch breaks is when you most need it. There are times when the best way to save money is to spend some more money. Danny Low "Question Authority and the Authorities will question You" Valley of Hearts Delight, Silicon Valley
The original poster wrote he broke 4 watches in 1.5 years. At $150 per watch, that’s $600 of new watches every 1.5 years. At that rate a $2500 watch that keeps on ticking pays for itself in about 6.25 years. For that 6.25 years he does not suffer any of the inconvenience of being without a watch when it breaks. Murphy’s Law says that when a watch breaks is when you most need it.
Call me cheap (everyone else does ), but I’d buy two $10 watches. Keep one in my pack, one on my wrist. If I broke 4 in 1.5 years, I’d be spending a mere $27/year, and I’d never have to worry being without a watch. Then I’d have well over $2000 to spend on a complete set of top-quality backpacking gear. And maybe a backup sundial. There are times when the best way to save money is to spend some more money.
Or to spend far, far less. Cheers, "It’s hard to be unhappy when you have warm feet." – Dave Rose, Fellow Snow Camper —
<snip There are times when the best way to save money is to spend some more money.
Either that or be more f’n careful.
Does anyone know of a watch that is: Indestructable has an UNBREAKABLE band glows in the dark (or has a light) waterproof
There are watch _bands_ available from military style outfitters, such as Brigade Quartermasters, etc. These bands are nylon web and Velcro, and have an extra flap that can go over the watch crystal to protect it from many hazards. Put on whatever moderate watch you like, and the combo may fit all of your specs. BTW, I recently got a watch with the "Indiglow" type light, much better than most other lighted watches, or glowing types. Gary — Anything that works is good technique. Gary Schwartz headers modified, please reply to: schwartz at XXXXX ignore com edu gov XXXXX datablast.net
I never carry a watch when in the backcountry. I dont want to keep time or be on a schedule. The sun is all you need. Its either up or down. Its either light or its dark. Pretty basic. What else do you need to know. When was the last time you had an appointment you had be at in the wilds at a specific time. Hiking watchs are just a marketing gimmic, that bring our "day runner" lifestyles into the wilds where they dont belong. My 2 cents Dave
Does any one here have any experience or opinion regarding the new hiking watch by Avocet? It is sleek, yet has a barometer, atimeter, and thermometer built in. It will track feet ascended or descended for a given time and track the barometric pressure to give you a heads up on the weather. I’m interested in getting one. They’re only 129.99.
i have a friend that has the skiing version of the avocet watch, and he loves it! the only thing that doesn’t seem to work that great on it is the thermometer. we figure that the body heat he gives off probably affects the reading. whenever we hike in really cold weather, the thermometer reading is obviously wrong. all the other functions seem to be fairly accurate. -ron "what we gain too easily, we esteem too lightly." -dick bass – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Does any one here have any experience or opinion regarding the new hiking watch by Avocet? It is sleek, yet has a barometer, atimeter, and thermometer built in. It will track feet ascended or descended for a given time and track the barometric pressure to give you a heads up on the weather. I’m interested in getting one. They’re only 129.99.
Does any one here have any experience or opinion regarding the new hiking watch by Avocet? It is sleek, yet has a barometer, atimeter, and thermometer built in. It will track feet ascended or descended for a given time and track the barometric pressure to give you a heads up on the weather. I’m interested in getting one. They’re only 129.99.
I got one of these watches for Christmas, and I love it. Not only will it track feet ascended or descended, but in ski mode it also counts runs. It also records your rate of ascent or descent, average rate of ascet or descent and maximum rate of ascent or descent. Its barometer is very good at predicting weather, too (it says it’s temperature-compensated.) It also has a fancy stopwatch which will do split and lap times, a countdown timer, it records the maximum elevation and it has an alarm. I sometimes think it’s smarter than I am! About the only drawback is that it’s not waterproof and that the temperature reading is affected by body heat (to get an accurate reading you have to take it off your wrist for about five minutes.) I highly recommend it.
I have an Avocet altimeter watch and I’m very happy with it – I concur with the other people who replied to your posting, that the thermometer doesn’t work too well when it’s on your wrist – also, you have to return the watch to Avocet by mail when the battery runs out, for replacement and re-setting. However, I did see a website somewhere a few weeks ago where a guy did an in-depth comparison between the Avocet and the latest Casio altimeter watch and he preferred the Casio – I think you can find it through GORP. Happy trails.
Does any one here have any experience or opinion regarding the new hiking watch by Avocet? It is sleek, yet has a barometer, atimeter, and thermometer built in. It will track feet ascended or descended for a given time and track the barometric pressure to give you a heads up on the weather. I’m interested in getting one. They’re only 129.99.
I have a Casio ALT 6000 watch, has an altimetre, pressure sensor and thermometer. I find it excellent, accurate to within 20-30 metres, just fine for hiking, but as it reads only every 2 minutes it is no good for skydiving, quote the manual!. The barometer requires a bit of interpretation as it is affected by temparature. The thermometer is affected by your body heat, of course, but if you need to know temparature you just take it off. — Peter LO McKellar Information Systems Officer Rotorua District Council Private Bag RO 3029 Rotorua New Zealand Phone (Work) 64-7-3484199 Ext 8018 Phone (Home) 64-7-3471154 Fax 64-7-3498323
Indeed, the thermometer is only accurate if you take it off your wrist for at least five minutes and this is spelled out in the instructions that come along with the watch. The thermometer is there for more accurate altitude readings since it is temperature compensated. The altimeter seems to be more accurate if you calibrate it after it has heated up from you body temperature rather than if you set it and then put it on. This is purely anecdotal, however, and I’ve not done any real empirical tests on this. -Kelly
Does any one here have any experience or opinion regarding the new hiking watch by Avocet? It is sleek, yet has a barometer, atimeter, and thermometer built in. It will track feet ascended or descended for a given time and track the barometric pressure to give you a heads up on the weather. I’m interested in getting one. They’re only 129.99.
I and others hike most weekends in the San Francisco Bay Area racking up from 3 to 5+ thousand feet of elevation gain each day. Several of us own and regularly wear our Avocet watches and use them to track cumulative daily elevation gain. We’re pretty much convinced that the watches are reliable and the information useful to those who are interested in such subjects. However, expect to see as much as a 5 to 10% difference in the figures registered by the different units. We attribute such differences in whether the owner wears his under a coat or shirt sleeve or in the open exposed to air and sunlight, etc. After all, these are barometric units extremely sensitive to air pressure and temperature changes so don’t expect absolute 100% accuracy at all times. Like weather reports, they represent good evidence but not solid conclusions. The thermometer also works well provided you remove the watch from your arm for at least 5 minutes so it isn’t affected by body temperature. At $130 or so, I think the product is a bargain and well worth the price for hike leaders and regular hikers. (I’ve also tried some of the Casio models, but believe that Avocet represents state-of-the-art at the present time). bond My opinion is neither copyrighted nor trademarked, and it’s price competitive. If you like, I’ll trade for one of yours.
I have an Avocet altimeter watch and I’m very happy with it – I concur with the other people who replied to your posting, that the thermometer doesn’t work too well when it’s on your wrist – also, you have to return the watch to Avocet by mail when the battery runs out, for replacement and re-setting. However, I did see a website somewhere a few weeks ago where a guy did an in-depth comparison between the Avocet and the latest Casio altimeter watch and he preferred the Casio – I think you can find it through GORP. Happy trails.
A friend who thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail last summer had THREE Avocet altimeter-watches die on him. Avocet refused to honor the warranty but REI replaced them immediately. He concludes that they are suitable mainly for "yuppie doctors, lawyers and accountants to wear around ski lodges." —
A friend who thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail last summer had THREE Avocet altimeter-watches die on him. Avocet refused to honor the warranty but REI replaced them immediately. He concludes that they are suitable mainly for "yuppie doctors, lawyers and accountants to wear around ski lodges."
I like my Timex Atlantis 200 w/ THE BAND for everyday wear, hiking, and fieldwork. It doesn’t tell you the temperature, or altitude, but it keeps accurate time/date information, water resistant down to 100 meters, and costs around $30. Can’t hardly beat the deal. * Charles T. Faulkner * Get your facts first and then you * Univ of Tennessee, Knoxville * can distort them as much as you please.
loves it! the only thing that doesn’t seem to work that great on it is the thermometer. whenever we hike in really cold weather, the thermometer reading is obviously wrong.
the specs say: "Body heat will affect thermometer accuracy when the Vertech is worn directly against the wrist. Teh most accurate readings are displayed when the unit is worn over a jacket or when it is off the wrist. In the temperature range 32-122 degF the thermometer is accurate to +-4 deg. It reads 4 deg high for each 10 deg below 32 deg." Why they didn’t program in a compensation, I have no idea. Kinda goofy, actually. kbq
the specs say: "Body heat will affect thermometer accuracy when the Vertech is worn directly against the wrist. Teh most accurate readings are displayed when the unit is worn over a jacket or when it is off the wrist. In the temperature range 32-122 degF the thermometer is accurate to +-4 deg. It reads 4 deg high for each 10 deg below 32 deg." Why they didn’t program in a compensation, I have no idea. Kinda goofy, actually.
Should they compensate for your wrist temp or mine? How about the average cold-blooded woman (NOI)? Is that at rest or during activity and, if the latter, how much activity? It’s just a cheap watch afterall, with a fairly good altimeter, and the technology is still pretty antiquated.
The Avocet Vertech is an awesome instrument. The altimeter function allows you to navigate on and off trail when used with 1:25,000 scale topo maps. It is temperature compensated, so temperature changes don’t affect its accuracy much. It is important, however, to adjust the altitude reading at known elevations frequently to achieve the best accuracy. This is true with all altimeters. For navigating in the backcountry, I usually check it 2 to 3 times daily and adjust if necessary. This keeps it pretty much dead on. I find the Vertech FAR more useful for backcountry navigation than a compass. The Vertech also automatically accumulates your feet (or meters) climbed or descended. This is fun for hiking/backpacking, but is especially useful for quantifying vertical sports like cycling and skiing/snowboarding (it also automatically counts runs skied, as long as they are at least 150 vertical feet). It also displays rates of climb and descent. For slow vertical activities like hiking and cycling, set it up to measure rates in feet-per-hour. This gives you an idea of your vertical speed and helps you calculate when you will reach your destination. For fast sports like skiing, set it to measure rates in feet-per-minute. You can’t watch the rate while you are skiing, but you can check your maximum rate at the end of a run. On a smooth intermediate run where you can tuck, a good skier can achieve rates around 1400 feet-per-minute. The barometer functions are great, but most people don’t know how to use or interpret them. Once you learn how to adjust the sea-level setting (must be done at a known elevation), the barometer can really help you forecast/anticipate weather changes. The Vertech also includes time-of-day, date, alarm, countdown timer, max altitude memory, and stopwatch with 20 split/lap memory. The thermometer is innacurate when worn on the wrist, and fairly accurate off the wrist. The Vertech does not yet have a light, but new versions in a year or so may have one. Avocet is also introducing a compass that can be mounted on the band. Vertechs come with 2 bands, one elastic (wear over jacket or glove) and the other polyurethane (typical sportswatch band). Let me know if you have any other questions on the Vertech. I have all the answers! Eric Addicott
The compass and barometer features are good, though. The barometer has a bar graph that gives you a quick read on changing weather conditions.
The compass is the only one I know of that works reliable enough inside a car. The barometer should only be used to indicate relative figures. Try read the bargraph and – remembering this mornings weathermap – bet when it will start raining. Anyway, it’s a very robust lightweight watch, but I’m already yearning for the backlit and radio-controlled successor. Regards, Georg
I forgot to mention that the Casio also has a handy Compass WITH several memory settings to keep track of your direction. How much does it cost? Where can you buy it cheap? john
I just received my Casio Outdoorsman, and it’s great! I’m still learning all the functions, but it has them all. I ordered it from Survival Outfitters. Of the few places I had seen it advertised, they had the best price. Their URL is: http://www.intrepid.net/~klynch/catalog.html#casio
I just received my Casio Outdoorsman, and it’s great! I’m still learning all the functions, but it has them all. I ordered it from Survival Outfitters. Of the few places I had seen it advertised, they had the best price. Their URL is: http://www.intrepid.net/~klynch/catalog.html#casio
I have owned this watch for close to a year, and have been quite disappointed, for a couple of reasons. The thermometer takes the temperature of your wrist (mine is 85 degrees). If you want air temperature, you have to take it off, place it in a position out of the sun and leave it for a full 20 minutes. It reacts very slowly. In addition to the inconvenience of doing this, it’s very easy to forget that you’ve taken it off. You might remember only several hours later, much farther down the trail. Although I don’t use the altimeter much, it seems to be influenced heavily by temperature and changes in barometric pressure, so it’s only good for relative changes over a short period of time. The compass and barometer features are good, though. The barometer has a bar graph that gives you a quick read on changing weather conditions. — Regards, Gary
Just picked up the Casio version of the watch you mentioned. Has all of the same features, plus a digital compass. I also thought the graphic display of change in baro. pressure and altitude made it worth the extra investment. I haven’t tried it out on the trail yet, but local test seem reasonably good. BTW: you won’t be able to wear any of these watches and get a reasonable temp. reading. My manual says that it has to be off your wrist for about 1/2 hour before it will settle to the correct temp. Under these conditions, it has been dead on. Good luck.
I forgot to mention that the Casio also has a handy Compass WITH several memory settings to keep track of your direction. Later, Robb
I used to own a Veritech and HATED it with a passion. It’s design absolutely is horrible compared to the Casio Triple Sensor. Why?: 1) The faceplate on the Veritech is not protected and plastic and scratches easily (I scratched mine on the first day I had it). 2) There is no light for viewing at night or in the dark when using the timer etc… 3) The stopwatch portion ROUNDS OFF to the nearest 1/10th second making it worthless for sporting events like swimming, kayaking, running etc… While the Casio is accurate to 1/100th seconds (no rounding). 4) The trend function on the barometer is the only indication on the Veritech as to what is going on. Once set to a barometric pressure It never lets you read what the pressure IS CURRENTLY. The Casio not only gives you a readout, it shows a graph of the last 26 hours of readings every 2 hours. I personally found this MUCH more useful than the trend function on the Veritech (God only knows how it calculates this "trend". 5) The countdown timer only allows timing in hours and minutes. NOT SECONDS Which is what I needed for photography work (This was really dumb). 6) I much prefer the data given from my Casio as far as recorded info on ascending and descending (with temperature recorded). 7) I also can calculate to compensate for the temperature difference on my Casio if needed, and found the temperature readings on the Veritech to be mostly inaccurate while on my wrist anyway. Also, the Casio reaches temp. quicker and is good below zero which the Veritech is not compensated to do (you have to subtract 6 degrees for every degree below zero to be accurate). 
The Veritech is NOT waterproof below 10 FEET! While the Casio is good to 100 METERS! 9) There are 5+ alarms on the Casio including an altitude alarm. The ONLY good thing I have to say for the Veritech is that the altimeter is good to a higher altitude. Both watches seemed to have very similar accuracy in the field.
The Casio is a cool unit, and the Outdoorsman model has a digital compass which seems to work pretty well. The Avocet Vertech beats the Casio in these areas: 1. Vertech temperature compensation is better, so altitude readings are more accurate. 2. Vertech gives sea level barometer (you must be at a known elevation). Since Casio only gives absolute pressure, it is only good for weather forecasting IF you stay at a fixed elevation. The Casio barometer falls when you climb and rises when you descen, and does not give you sea level pressure like weather reports. When you are in the mountains and the Casio tells you pressure is 24.98, you have no idea whether this is high or low pressure. If you stop and watch it for a few hours, at least you will know if the pressure is rising or falling (assuming the temperature stays constant!) 3. Vertech sampling rate is quicker (10 seconds in "sleeping" mode, every second when "awake". 4. Vertech automatically records feet climbed or descended, so you can use it to quantify your climb when hiking, cycling, climbing, in-line skating, etc. Set it to measure descent for skiing, snowboarding, whitewater sports. 5. Vertech gives rates of climb/descent, either in feet-per-minute or feet-per-hour. -Eric
: : A friend who thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail last summer had THREE Avocet : altimeter-watches die on him. Avocet refused to honor the warranty but : REI replaced them immediately. He concludes that they are suitable mainly : for "yuppie doctors, lawyers and accountants to wear around ski lodges." I’ve had one for three years without a problem. I’ve used it backpacking, climbing, cross-country and downhill skiing, during SAR missions, and caving. Not exactly "ski lodge" use. My original battery died after 2+ years, and they sent me a whole new watch instead of just replacing the battery. Outstanding service, IMO. — Scott Linn
Clyde is right about the thermometer. You can’t compensate for wrist temp. Since the temp reading is sort of a blend of your body temp and the outdoor temp, you could not use the same offset in different temperature conditions. On a really hot day, the offset would be negative, and on a freezing day, the offset would be a huge positive. As far as the technology being antiquated, I don’t agree. Just compare the Vertech to other altimeters, and it blows them away. Check out the altimeter review in Rock + Ice magazine (it was March ‘93 or ‘94). 6 altimeter products were reviewed, and all but one were more expensive than the Vertech. The editors gave the Vertech "Editor’s Choice" and said, "…this is the instrument that is setting the new standard." Software enhancements are due late this year, and future versions are sure to have more improvements, but it seems the current version is very good and is the best available option unless you want to spend several hundred and accept a bulkier instrument with less functionality. -Eric
Under the circumstances, Intel might occur to you <g.
No, but maybe Motorola….???
Leo UCD – Engineering (303) 556-2356 "I’m only responsible for what’s not working right now." DoD# 0874
I like the Casio too (have used it), but the Vertech is more accurate and has more functionality. If it matters, the Vertech is also made in USA, not Japan. One of the few cases (that I know of) where US electronic technology blows away Japan (there may be lots more examples, sorry if I’m ignorant).
Under the circumstances, Intel might occur to you <g.
I have seen a lot of Avocets die on fellow hikers (and a few that worked OK). When working they are as good as my Casio, which is uncannily accurate under the proper conditions. The Casio may be ugly, but it looks like Sharon Stone compared to the Avocet, which is butt ugly. Also, the Avocet is complex, almost impossible to figure out how to get some of the simpler functions to work. The Casio is cheaper, too. Get a Casio.
I have no reason to knock the Casio, which I’ve never used. I also have no reason to knock the Avocet which I’ve had one of for 2 1/2 years. It’s never failed. It seems fairly accurate. I certainly wouldn’t describe this watch as complicated. It’s easy to operate. I lost it winter backpacking in the snow in Rocky Mountain National Park in October 94. A ranger found it and mailed it to me in June 95. It was still tickin’.
I’ve heard a lot of stuff about the Advocet, a lot of it NOT true. First off, I do own the Advocet Vertech. I did quite a bit of research before I bought it. Casio makes 2 (I think) watches with altimeters in them . One is a triple sensor, which adds a compass to the watch. The dual does not have a compass. The major differences are the Casio have multiple alarms. The Advocet only has one time alarm and one altitude based alarm. The Casio is accurate to within 20 foot increments. The Advocet is accurate to within 10 foot increments. The casio has a light in it. The Advocet does not have a light. There was some talk about the Casio and its temperature compensation. The Advocet does not have a temperature compensation. I called Advocet and asked them about this. Advocet says temperature does not effect the barometer readings and compensation is not necessary. Their temperature is provided for information purposes only. It does not effect the altimeter. I can attest to the temperature reading. It does work as Advocet states and is accurate within the tolerances mentioned. Lastly I checked the places that sell the watches. REI, for instance used to sell the Casio Altimeter watches, but stopped because they had so many complaints about them and had a LOT of failures. The Advocet is the only altimeter watch they carry any more because of these failures. Campmor also carries both watches. They have a higher return on the Casio watches than the Advocet’s. It appears the weakness with the Advocets is that they are only water resistant to 10 feet and the batteries give out right at warranty expiration time. I hope this helps this complicated thread…
I have seen a lot of Avocets die on fellow hikers (and a few that worked OK). When working they are as good as my Casio, which is uncannily accurate under the proper conditions. The Casio may be ugly, but it looks like Sharon Stone compared to the Avocet, which is butt ugly. Also, the Avocet is complex, almost impossible to figure out how to get some of the simpler functions to work. The Casio is cheaper, too. Get a Casio.
No way dude! Yes, Casio probably has a lower failure rate since Avocet has only been making watches for 3 years, but Avocet reliability has improved dramatically and gets better with each run. The Avocet is superior: 1. Temperature compensated so there is less effect of temperature on the altitude readings. Put a Vertech and Casio side-by-side, then put them in the freezer. Check the altitude readings. Now put them in the sun on a hot day and let them cook. Now check the altitude readings. Case closed! 2. The Casio barometer has a cool graph, but it won’t give you sea-level barometric pressure unless you are at sea level. With the Casio’s absolute pressure readings, you won’t know if pressure is low, average, or high. It is only useful if you stay at one elevation for awhile. With the Vertech, you can get sea level pressure (just like weather reports). Also, since Casio’s barometer is affected by temperature, expect the readings to be plus or minus around .15 or more. 3. If you like to quantify vertical sports like hiking, skiing/snowboarding, cycling, climbing, etc., get the Vertech which has accumulation functions. I like the Casio too (have used it), but the Vertech is more accurate and has more functionality. If it matters, the Vertech is also made in USA, not Japan. One of the few cases (that I know of) where US electronic technology blows away Japan (there may be lots more examples, sorry if I’m ignorant). -Eric
I have seen a lot of Avocets die on fellow hikers (and a few that worked OK). When working they are as good as my Casio, which is uncannily accurate under the proper conditions. The Casio may be ugly, but it looks like Sharon Stone compared to the Avocet, which is butt ugly. Also, the Avocet is complex, almost impossible to figure out how to get some of the simpler functions to work. The Casio is cheaper, too. Get a Casio.
I have seen a lot of Avocets die on fellow hikers (and a few that worked OK). When working they are as good as my Casio, which is uncannily accurate under the proper conditions. The Casio may be ugly, but it looks like Sharon Stone compared to the Avocet, which is butt ugly. Also, the Avocet is complex, almost impossible to figure out how to get some of the simpler functions to work. The Casio is cheaper, too. Get a Casio.
I have used Casio for many years. It’s always been reliable to a fault, with the exception of the band wearing out and breaking occasionally. The altimeters aren’t very accurate, but accurate enough for my needs. I just ordered their Outdoorsman model. I hope it’s as good as the others I have worn.
A friend who thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail last summer had THREE Avocet altimeter-watches die on him. Avocet refused to honor the warranty but REI replaced them immediately. He concludes that they are suitable mainly for "yuppie doctors, lawyers and accountants to wear around ski
lodges." I have two friends who hike and climb alot also have the Avocets go out after 1 year. I’ll check out the Casio when my present old Casio (4 years old) altimeter watch gets ripped up to much on the rocks.