Thai king - RSGB plays it safe.

The RSGB, formerly the London Wireless Club, is a strange organisation that seems to revel in big-wiggery and deference to what it sees as 'important' people.

HS1A.  Very dead.  Image: WikiCommons, author unknown.

This week saw the demise of King Rama IX, of Thailand.  Whilst a general summary of his reign might conclude that he was, like many royal elites, a pragmatist who did what he had to to maintain 'stability' (read: preserve his position), he was also given to brutality at times.

King Rama IX switched sides - and permitted atrocities - when his position was at stake.

Probably a good job, then, that the RSGB seems to have consulted the king's track record, and found quite a few terrible instances, such as the 1976 Thammasat University massacre, before issuing a very brief, terse SK announcement in this week's GB2RS.

A day later, the ARRL also released a gushing announcement, celebrating the king's many interests (but none of the bad ones.)  At least they admitted that he almost never used amateur radio.

Perhaps it might have been more fitting to the memory of those who suffered under Rama IX - and the fact that this wasn't ever an active ham - for the RSGB and ARRL simply to have ignored his death.