"N2EY" wrote in message
...
In article , "Carl R. Stevenson"
writes:

The ham bands have *not*
"become sounding like CB over the last 17 years" -

Not the CW/digital subbands, anyway. The 'phone bands are another story...

I haven't seen it ... and you know I don't choose to operate CW.
YMMV ... but I doubt it's the broad reality.

there have always
been a few bad apples - MANY of them OTs who passed the 20 wpm
Morse test and believe they are some sort of gods.

SOME of them, anyway.

But ALL of them passed the written tests, too.

So? I think it's a given that NO test filters out lids ... no way to fix
that.
Bad behavior is an enforcement issue, not something that can be dealt
with "up front" through licensing requirements.

[snip]

So tell us what you think of the ARRL proposal, Carl. We already know
about the
code test, so let's just skip that part.

OK, we agree that NCI will not support keeping Morse tests for ANY class of
license.

What do you think of:

My *personal* views, NOT necessarily "NCI policy" ...

1) the "NewNovice" idea? (easy entry-level exam, limited power, more HF
modes
and spectrum, less VHF/UHF)

Good idea ... we need to give newcomers a better taste of all of ham radio.
Power
restrictions make sense, and I don't see a big enforcement issue - the
Novice
license had power restrictions and I don't believe that ever presented a
real problem.

2) closing Tech to new issues?

OK by me, given a more sensible beginner class license as proposed.

3) free upgrades for Techs and Tech Pluses to General?

I was initially against this idea, thinking that taking the additional
written
element should be a requirement. However, I've read Ed Hare's excellent
*personal, not ARRL policy* comments on this from eham, and find that
they make sense to me - a compelling case for a "one-shot adjustment" to
make things clean in a way that nobody loses anything.

4) free upgrades for Advanceds to Extra?

As #3 above ... Ed's argument are pretty persuasive if you think them
through with an open mind. The tests between Tech/General and
Advanced/Extra are *really* not ALL that different ...

5) widening of some of the 'phone image subbands?

While I've stated many times that I would not support wholesale
proliferation of SSB/SSTV to the detriment of CW/digital modes,
the "refarming" of the (largely unused) "Novice bands" as proposed,
is modest and I can tolerate it ... if it doesn't happen, the proposal
can be tweaked a bit to allow for the increased access to HF for
the "new Novices".

I say 1) and 2) are good ideas. The rest are bad ideas.

What say you?

As I said above. Note again, these are my *personal* views after
considering Ed's excellent and persuasive explaination of why he
supports the proposal (of course, Ed knows that I will NOT support
keeping code testing for Extra).

73,
Carl - wk3c