Len Over 21 wrote:

In article , Robert Casey
writes:

At which age did you pass an amateur radio license exam, Leonard?

Never tried, snarly dave.

I passed my First Phone exam on the first try in Chicago at an FCC
field office in March 1956. Never looked back.

Then learning the 5 wpm and getting the extra should be a walk in the park
then.
It took me about a month to learn 5 wpm and I'm no good at such motor skills.

Gosh, olde-tymer, I've walked in many fine parks in my time but not
a single one of them required any morse code proficiency to walk.

That "Extra right out of the box" park requires it at the breakneck pace
of f i v e w o r d s p e r m i n u t e.


Psycho-motor skill I learned in middle school (we called it
"junior high school" back then before educational PC) was typing
at tested maximum of 60 WPM. On typewriters that had no key
markings. :-)

There's no typing test involved in the Amateur Extra. Just a morse test
of f i v e w o r d s p e r m i n u t e.

Now, let's concentrate on WHY there's still a morse code test for
an AMATEUR radio license...and WHY it must remain law forever
and ever. Or, at least until the last PCTA has their code key
forcibly removed from their cold, dead fingers.

At the rate you're progressing toward that Extra Class ticket, there
won't be any amateur radio license at all to pry from your cold, dead
fingers.

Is morse code not so wonderful that the feds have to keep the
morse test in law so that cute little seven-year-olds can have
radio playmates? Or forty-seven-year-olds and older?

It still gets you that mere children can obtain that which you covet,
doesn't it?

Ever wonder why morse code is the SECOND most used mode
on HF, a distant second behind voice? All the HF hams had to
test for code but so few continued to use it.

Let's see.....hmmm....It is probably because the overwhelming majority
can already talk? Operating on SSB would seem to be as easy
as...talking.

I guess it must not be
so wonderful, so popular after all.

....but you'll have to continue to rely upon second-hand information.

Dave K8MN