N2EY wrote:
In article , Mike Coslo

That is how I read it also. You (we) are being told to just keep quiet,
and that if we say anything, it will be our fault if the things we are
warning about come to pass.

To which I would ask Carl and Hans:

Do you really think people are so stupid that they won't think of
something unless Jim Miccollis says it?

And I was always told that there is no such thing as a stupid question!
Good thing I was set straight on this! ;^)



Nothing ever stands still. If the political currents happen to make the
entrance requirements for getting into the ARS easier, do those currents
stop once the original goal is met?

Face it, the people who want drastically reduced entrance requirements
or no requirements at all are a subset of those who want no Morse code
testing. Can you deny that?

Did you ask KL7CC and the other authors of that paper to shut up?


Jim, please listen to Hans if you won't listen to me ...



I've never seen you guys more eager to get someone to be quiet about
something.
Tell it to W5YI. Oh, no, Fred's sacred - no one must criticize Fred - he's
the Maximum Leader.


Or KL7CC.

And his views do not reflect those of NCI...yeah, I know.


No, they do not.

NCI's mission in the USA is to get rid of Element 1, nothing else. If/when FCC
dumps all code testing in the USA, NCI will cease to function in the USA.

So I've heard. We shall see. Organizations have a way of morphing, and
are notoriously resistant to organizational self dissolving.

That mission is demonstrated by NCI's petition, which asks FCC to drop all code
testing as a requirement, merge Tech and Tech Plus, and....nothing else.

Why isn't he, if not asked to shut up, at least be asked to provide a
disclaimer. Instead, all we get is that his views do not reflect, yadayada.


Fred et al ain't on rrap.

True enough Jim. Remember I was replying to your rhetorical question
with another one!



If you guys have an answer that simply quashes the KL7CC paper's bad ideas,
why are you so afraid?

ahem....


You didn't ask Hans to shut up with his 2 license class proposal.

nope....


Hans' proposal is nothing like what's in the KL7CC paper. But Hans' proposal
has at least one major problem: forced upgrading.

I doubt FCC would ever again enact a ham license that wasn't renewable. They
dumped that feature of the old Novice more than a quarter century ago.

But even if FCC *did* make the entry-level class nonrenewable, it wouldn't stay
that way.

You didn't ask Len to shut up with his age-requirement nonsense.

nope....


Len wants just one class of license.

From what I can gather, I'm not so sure he wants any license, or at
least the equivalent of that.



You haven't asked KL7CC et al to shut up with their bad ideas.

nope....


Only me. Interesting.

Do you want to know why Jim? What you are saying is:


T H E T R U T H

And that makes some people very very uncomfortable.

I hear Hans telling you about his losing respect for you. I hear Carl
setting you up for taking the blame when the FCC starts seriously
looking at massive reductions in knowledge needed to get a license.

And how's this for getting the great unwashed worked up?:

"Testing for the Amateur Radio Service is an anachronism, a relic of
previous days of left wing Socialist ideas. Much of the regulatory
morass that such thinking has inflicted on us has already been swept
aside, witness the great success with deregulation in the broadcast
bands. It is time we complete the process, and eliminate such regressive
policies in the rest of the radio spectrum." This will truly turn the
Amateur bands into the..............


Who the heck wrote *that*?? Not me! Not Hans or Carl, either!

Where's it from??

That is something that I came up with while I was typing out the reply.
It has a number of qualities that would appeal to some people that are
in power now:

It speaks to lowering or elimination of regulations. This is a very big
thing with some people. It relates itself to the "The government that
governs best governs least" worldview.

It speaks to the continuance of a process that has been going on for a
few years now where less constraints have been put on radio
broadcasters. A disaster IMO, but to some a great thing. I'm talking
about relaxation of broadcaster regs, leading to outfits like Clear
channel owning all the radio stations in town. But as I say, there are
plenty who would think that this would be good.

Spin city, IOW. It is ridiculous, but ridiculous can sell big sometimes.



You think THAT wouldn't sell with some people in power? Another chance
to diss the hated regulators.



Is it a strawman when there is a paper,suggesting that the testing
requirement be radically reduced?



It's there, the proposal has been made, and the authors rely on their
credentials, despite protestations to the contrary. Some strawman!

- Mike KB3EIA -

The FCC has determined the ARS to be "primarily a technically oriented
service"



Right. Now what the heck does that actually mean? How does it somehow prove
the
need for multiple license classes and written tests such as we have now?
Why
can't hams be left free to choose what parts of amateur radio to pursue?

Here is what I think it means (to some):

I know people who think that they are "high tech" because they use a
cell phone. Or a computer. Or a GPS reciever. They might not be able to
explain how any of those things work, but by just using them, they
consider themselves high tech. I never asked, but I would be that they
would take one look at my IC-745 with it's 30 some buttons and knobs,
and conclude that just knowing how to operate it was a major bit of
"primarily a technically oriented service"


They oughta try to use the Southgate Type 7....


Oh-Oh! A percon of average intelligence could indeed learn to operate my
rig if they read the manual. NO test required!


No test to use a computer....

... I really don't see ANY "no theory" proposal getting a lot of
traction there ... and I will be right in there with Jim and most others
fighting that one.

How will we fight it? Saying amateur radio is primarily a technical service
doesn't prove anything more than the old "trained pool or operators"
mantra.

We won't be able to fight it, will we?


Sure we will - the question is how? That's what I want to know, so we're ready.


Perhaps I should have said "fight successfully"


How on earth can Pro-Coders fight
it when we lost the last war against the arguments presented by the No
Coders, and how are the No-Coders going to fight against the same
arguments that they had once used so successfully?


My questions exactly.

And that leads us back to a question I posed a while back. Why didn't
the peolpe who were officially agitating for the elimination of the
Morse code test have some simultaneous proposals to fill the vacuum that
would be created when the requirement went away?. It's called
responsibillity.

And here we DO have some people with some ideas, who ARE making
proposals. Who are they?

Has taking and passing all those written exams caused anyone to decide to
build
a radio or be "more technical" than they would have been otherwise?


Let's just stop advertising something we don't want to sell -



Sounds to me like you're afraid that there are plenty of folks out there
who will *agree* with KL7CC.....


No doubt there ARE plenty.


I hope there aren't. I don't see how my discussing a paper that is already in
the public domain on a website is going to change people's minds to agree with
said paper.

Of course it doesn't. The whole concept of your devil's advocacy
serving as the seed for a no-test movement is at best amusing.

More likely you are making some people feel very uncomfortable.
Certainly my questions make some people unconfortable.


But Jim, I think you are just being set up to
take the blame here. Once the movement has gained momentum, it will just
be one more thing to blame upon those arrogant "Pro-coders".


And it can be said that they were told to be quiet....

And that and 50 cents will get you a down payment on a cup of coffee.
It will be much too late by that time.


there will
be plenty of time to comment vigorously against it if the FCC ever were
to lend any credence to such a proposal.



It's probably already too late.

I don't see what else there is to say. I've been working up a response to the
KL7CC paper.


I'll be happy to publish said paper on the web.

- Mike KB3EIA -