Miles, inches and beauty spots

I know where I stand in the metric vs imperial debate.   We should have fully metricated decades ago instead of being stuck with the jumble we have now

It makes me wince when I hear UK stations talking to Europeans and indicating their distance from a know city in miles.   "I'm 50 miles from London" or "I'm using a 102 inch whip antenna".   This means NOTHING to Europeans who use international standard units!   It is US who should be doing the conversions.   Unfortunately this country hadn't had the sense to convert our traffic signs, so noone has learnt distances in KM.

Here are my friendly suggestions to anyone who doesn't know (or care about) their proximities in KM:

If you are mobile and you know your approximate distance from a city in miles, looking at your speedo will give you the metric conversion.  Anywhere else, just multiply by 1.6 on a calculator.

Know the height of your mast / antenna in metres.   Either memorise from the manufacturers spec or divide feet by 3.  

It intrigues me that folk in the UK seem quite happy to convert their call sign to a US style one when the skip is working that way,   eg. "this is 81 Oxford calling", yet  they'll use imperial units when working Euro stations!   The British seem to be the only country which does this, Euro stations all use their normal call signs.

Inches, yards, feet, furlongs, hands or whatever have no meaning to Europeans!


Also, naming beauty spots also means nothing to foreign stations, unless they happen to have visited Britain a lot or lived here.   There is ZERO point in me saying to a station in the Bavarian Alps, "I'm 26UK81 on White Horse Hill";  unless they have spent a lot of time in Oxfordshire, I might as well be on the moon!   I'd sooner say "25km South West of Oxford University".   I'm fortunate to be near a world famous city, I can nearly always avoid spelling it out if I say "Oxford University city".

In case anyone thinks I am a remoaner Europhile, I actually voted leave!     This country commited to Standard International units long before the EC or EU existed.

This post isn't intended as an attack on anyone, more as a light hearted mini rant.  Not intended to be any kind of real metric vs imperial debate either, but hopefully some of you see where I'm coming from.

My daughters are around your age Chris yet specify their heights in feet & inches, weight in stones & pounds, their babies weights in pounds & ounces, driven distances in miles.......yet weirdly cooking recipes are alien unless in grams?!?

I'm still using modern electronic components specified in 0.1 inches and even surface mount components come in imperial flavours.....

What a weird topsy-turvy world.

Victor wrote:

My daughters are around your age Chris yet specify their heights in feet & inches, weight in stones & pounds, their babies weights in pounds & ounces, driven distances in miles.......yet weirdly cooking recipes are alien unless in grams?!?

I'm still using modern electronic components specified in 0.1 inches and even surface mount components come in imperial flavours.....

What a weird topsy-turvy world.

It really is a strange world.   My cousins who are in their early twenties both think I'm weird and old fashioned for using a "raido", even though most of their modern gadgets are radios.  Yet, they also give their height in feet / inches and weights in "stones".   A lot of this comes from the fact that kids are usually measured and weighed at home by their parents, which then gets passed on to the next generation and so it continues.   If I am around when my ten year old nephew is weighed or measured, I am quick to make sure he knows what he weighs in KG and his height in CM.    TO me, a "stone" is what you pick up on a beach.   I'd like to see all these imperial measurments phased out.  I wish parents would not persist in contradicting what their kids are taught in school!

I'm not against using imperial units casually, like a "pint of beer", or "it's about two inches long" as long as it's not a lady saying it .    But I truly believe that the future is metric.

It's nice to have 'theories' Chris. 

As parents to daughters we decided very early on never to obsess with their weights and had no 'bathroom scales' or other such in the house. None of us suffered negative side effects from that decision suddenly becoming 'obese' or even anorexic. Despite our best intentions they still grew up in a world where women obsess about their weight and there was unfortunately very little we could do to dissuade such attitudes.

Whenever one of my daughters are on the latest fad diet and happily exclaim, "I lost two pounds this week!", they groan as I smile and say, " You must have a hole in your purse, I'll get you a new one". 

Lord only knows why they know their children's birth weight in pounds & ounces.

The marks on the door frames recording their childhood heights were always measured with a tape indicating centimetres just as they were taught at school. They do the same with the grandchildren, so it makes no sense that they know their own height in feet and inches.

So yeah, I believe we weren't one of those 'contradicting' parents you speak of. 



The future is definitely metric.....they said as much when Britain embraced metric measurements in 1965!!

But as you point out, it seems rather weird going into the local pub and asking for 568ml of beer. 



Anyway, as interesting as this is I have to do my admin duty and ensure the forum doesn't stray too far from it's radio path.

Speaking of which, I may peruse the radio bands today....perhaps I'll check out "80 metres"..... or maybe "10 metres" for some activity? I might even have a chat on "2 metres" later on, especially if I finish the halo antenna I'm building.....carefully constructed from 10mm diameter copper pipe, measured and cut in millimetre lengths.

Well blow me down, it seems we've been metric all along!



It's been enjoyable Chris.  

All the best to you,
Victor

Victor i will be on the 65.6168ft band.
About time you got up and running so you could join in on it or even on the 262.467ft band.
  Regards to all.
                    Alan.

I'm happy as long as I can still hunt within 1 chains
 of a river bank

Hello all,

I must admit my knowledge of imperial measurements is limited to miles and mph, but I can easily understand distance and speed in km and kph. At school I was taught in metric measurements and all the weights at work are done in metric as we export a lot.

I always use metric when speaking to foreign stations, including two div. Lol.

I must admit the sat nav drives me scatty when it says turn whatever in so many yards. I have no clue as to how far that is and have frequently missed the turn.