@richpowers My email is with Yahoo and has been since the early 2000s. The email thing is the most nonsensical thing about that forum.
Now that I think about it I've had the same email since before that, maybe from the late 90s.
Radio Discussions does the same thing. I strongly disagree with both those Forums in doing it. I think that they mistakenly think that they will eliminate the spammers and bad mannered people if they do it. Not that I can see.
I had my original Gmail address since the late 1990s (the same one linked directly to part15lab.blogspot -which I can no longer get into after somehow getting locked out of my Google account about 5 years ago.. Never could back in because had a new phone number and my backup email rich®tybee hadn't existed for years, and without one of them it is completely to restore a Gmail account -- So I had to create a new Gmail account.
My point is I had originally registered at HB using our own Tybee Island server email address (rich©tybeeislamd) -WHICH WAS AN EXTREAMLY UNSECURE SERVER, we were getting hacked on a regular basis and spam mail was a very big and irritating problem, nether of us were very good at handling a server (didn't really know what we were doing), so eventually we just quit using the email server altogether and used Gmail instead - which solved all the problems we had with our own email server. It was such a relief switching to Gmail because it is so much more secure, it solved all our problems.
Back then I had to register with HB with our very problematic personal tybee email address because HB would not accept my Gmail address which was problem free.
If I wanted to join HB today, there would be no way for me to do it.. though Im pretty sure I have a unused Microsoft email somewhere, but haven't accessed that in at least 20 years and not even sure what it is.
Almost everyone I know exclusively uses gmail as their primary email, for good reason too, it's the most problem free email server to use.
I'm not sure if I ever mentioned this in the forums or not but here's an excerpt from an email correspondence between Carl Blare and I from back in Oct of 2022. Around that time period I hadn't been posting in any forums at all for a year or so, but had maintained correspondence with Carl throughout that time.
I was telling him about my adventures in Hilton Head when I had gone to purchase the sailboat I have now, and here's the except that applies to this subject at hand:
Carl had replied to my above saying:
"Yep! Believe in Bill's Church or no heaven for you!
And from around the same time frame, was this correspondence where I had said to Carl in regard to the disappearance of Phil and his SStran:
"As for Sstran... my speculation is that he was offended by the hb transmitter challenge.. like maybe it was the last straw or something. I wouldn't know but that's the impression I had back when it happened. If you recall he was already getting behind fulfilling orders, I think frustration set in and he threw in the towel. But that's only speculation.
Carl replied:
And I also am suspicious of Hobbybroadcaster as possibly having driven PhilB away. Their attacks on Phil were relentless and plenty vicious. Now Hobbybroadcaster seems pleased in a subdued way, although they haven't made a definite admission of guilt. I also wonder if they played a hand in causing part15.us to crash. Again, I sense a "pride" whenever they make a catty remark about the reborn version of part15.org.
It's bizarre that a simple hobby would have so many detractors who have the time and interest in stirring the muck.
I replied:
You know I haven't been welcome at hb for a few years now.. Bill and I had been butting heads for awhile and I was expecting he'd eventually boot me. His opinion of me soured when one day about 3 years or so ago he posted something derogatory about part15.org because amongst other things someone's criticism about him spelling "complaint" instead of "compliant" on the hb main page. I responded to his remark saying that it had actually been me who had made that post at part15, and there was nothing derogatory about it, it was just an observation... what's so crazy about it is that my post had been made 8 years earlier (which I also pointed out to him) before I ever became a member of hb.. Anyway, that shows how long he harbors insignificant grudges! Anyway things went downhill from there... From that point on he was frequently re-editing my post and often their titles as well for no reasonable cause. By the way, neither you nor KDX can be mentioned at hb, if you do he will immediately edit it out.. same goes for Tim in Bovery and Iron Range Country station, Mram, oh and there's others too, I forget them all.. there's even a forum category there which doesn't show up unless you've been a member for a long time (I use to have access to it), he had set it up as a means of discussing topics not deemed as worthy of new members, but the truth is it was his venue to express his suspicions toward his own (newer) members as well as criticisms of other sites.. pitiful. I could go on, really! He built a great part 15 site but his forums is sick and apparently has been for a long time. What a shame.
Excuse my rant, guess you touched nerve.
To which Carl later replied:
I am a few weeks behind in answering this message from you. Because of the unpleasant nature of Bill and his hb site I am careful not to say too much in my blog about him, but like you say, he already has marked me as someone he resents.
Today I blogged about 'vigilantism' and I don't have to tell you that I had Bill very much in mind. He only this week put a topic about a station he discovered that he thinks is operating illegally, and my question is... what will he and his vandals do... will they make a report to FCC about it? Or, will they hunt this station down in some way and do something evil.
People like him pretend to support the hobby but work behind everyone's back to wreck it for everyone else.
The internet allows the worst of people to set up little kingdoms to distribute hatred.