In article ,
Mike Coslo wrote:

| The world is full of examples of things that have been improved by
| making them really easy, isn't it? Want to see a kid get rid of a
| video game? Give him or her one that is real easy to beat. It will
| be traded in in no time. A game that is just difficult enough will
| keep 'em busy for a long time. If there is no intellectual
| investment in the hobby, then there is no intellectual investment in
| the hobby. A challenge is not a bad thing.

Bad analogy, a game vs. ham radio.

The FCC tests are a tiny fraction of what there is to learn out there.
The FCC could replace all the tests with a `check here to get your
license' form, and ham radio wouldn't be any easier, harder or less or
more interesting.

You make it sound like ham radio is all about the FCC test, and if
that's easy, ham radio is suddenly easy. Well, I disagree. The tests
are already easy -- it's all the other stuff to learn, the *useful*
stuff, that's interesting and challenging.

Really, all the tests do is keep the riff-raff out. (Which seems
*very* important to many people.) And I guess as far as 30 mHz goes,
I'm riff-raff. For now.

| Show a newbie that it is fun. Let them make a DX contact with you as a
| control op. If they are shy to talk, maybe that keyboard and PSK31 might
| be a catalyst!

I actually was able to decode several PSK31 discussions last night on
14.073. I was very pleased. I was beginning to think that the dipole
I set up in my garage was somehow wrong.

I've passed elements 2, 3 and 4 and am working on 1, but I'm still a
rank amateur and I know it. Still, I'm really bummed that I can't
transmit on anything under 50 mhz until I pass the CW test, even
though I'm not really that interested in doing CW.

(And passing element 1 isn't going to magically make me stop being a
rank amateur. But at least then I'll be able to transmit `down
there'.)

--
Doug McLaren, , KD5YRD
01234567 - The amazing* indent-o-meter!
^ (*: Indent-o-meter may not actually amaze.)