Thank you all.  This thread has been both educational and useful.  So the answer is due to the adaptability of engineers who have learned to think in multiple systems of units.  We have read in this thread evidence how non-standard the world actually is, and how mechanical types must keep alert to this fact of life.  It's proper for engineers to be schooled for the realities of the job market.

Taking all this into account here is my conclusion:  there is no excuse for not publishing all amateur radio articles using at least meters, liters, and kilograms.  No excuse.  To the best of my knowledge these three units are standard worldwide.  Obviously some components like 1/2-inch copper pipe are literally defined this way, but cut that 2 meter dipole into a 1 meter length.  Assume others know what that means because surprise we do!

If you are good adaptable engineers, then your choice of units to write into articles is arbitrary because it's simple for you to convert.  Please don't make the rest of us do it.  Why?  You are compounding the confusion for new guys like me who struggle with hundreds of difficult new concepts from electric potential to EM radiation.  Believe me you are.  You do nobody a service by publishing for example, to cut that 2-meter dipole to 39 inches.  Use metric and us new guys will "get" the concepts easier, not to mention you enlargen your worldwide audience.

Again thank you everyone for replying.

Brian Ness
AE6RB
North Hollywood, Calif, USA

Being new to radio, it stikes me as odd that this international hobby is not all metric.  It's really surprizing to see formulas like 468/frequency with answers in feet.  So in all honesty I don't get it.  Radio is basically applied physics, and that's been using exclusively SI units (aka metric) for gosh I don't know how many decades.  In college I studied geology (science) and not engineering so maybe that's a source of my confusion.

What's the story here?

Brian Ness
North Hollywood, Calif, USA