Is there a correlation or consideration that reflects the recent monetary change in Europe to the "Euro" and the future technologic marketplace? Remember that in the past this was sometimes called the Euro Dollar! Remember why our Dollar came to be, and the strength this built for our nation ?

My thought is that now after nearly ten years since the "No Code" license was implemented, and the license exams were markedly compromised, we have a basic picture as to the culture that our new Ham Radio is engendering. I think that a fair way to characterize this is to say that we have these days a majority of Ham's who are definitely of the "store bought variety". What I mean, so as to clarify this assessment, is that many Ham's today don't read schematics, they don't appreciate the finer points of electronic or radio design, and when asked about this, they often say "why should I".

I of course have many ways to answer this question, such as, don't you want to know how radio works? Don't you want to know why one particular receiver design is better than another. Wouldn't you really like it if you could design or build your own equipment. Don't you want to understand the physics of radio propagation? Maybe I should just say, "why not"!

Well here is perhaps an even better reason! When Edmund Stoiber becomes Germany's new Chancellor, and by this time the Euro will be well established in the European economy, we had better keep an eye on the productivity and engineering expertise of Germany. We have already experienced a Ham marketplace that used to be dominated by company names like Collins, Hammarlund, Johnson, National, Halicrafters, Drake, and Swan and was next dominated by the company names Yaesu, Icom, and Kenwood. The names in the near future might just be Telefunken, Philips, and Siemens!