On Mon, 28 Jul 2003, Phil Kane wrote:
On 26 Jul 2003 04:49:22 GMT, Alun Palmer wrote:

OK Phil, read 97.301(e) and let us know how you understand it, parsing
each part carefully.

OK - I presume that you mean the following text, not the frequency
table:

(e) For a station having a control operator who has been
granted an operator license of Novice Class or Technician Class

This is self-explanatory.

and who has received credit for proficiency in telegraphy in
accordance with the international requirements.

The key to this discussion is, or course, "what are the
international requirements".

Up until the 2003 revision of S25.5 of the IRR, each Administration
was required to determine the proficiency of each applicant for a
license valid for operation below 30 MHz. In the US, this was done
by requiring the applicant to pass Element 1.

Upon the 2003 revision of S25.5 of the IRR, the requirement to
determine proficiency was made optional for each Administration.

That is the only change in the "international requirement" - each
Administration can now decide by its own rules/regulations whether
to require a code test. The code test is no longer mandatory for
each Administration. Each Administration's requirement for code
testing has not been automatically "dropped" or "eliminated" solely
by the revision of S25.5.

If it's OPTIONAL (on a country-by-country basis, but that doesn't matter; any
basis will do), then it's NOT A REQUIREMENT. One cannot comply with a
requirement that doesn't exist - and that's the problem.

Until the FCC changes the rules concering Element 1, the
requirement in the US remains that Element 1 must be passed.

But that's not the requirement. 47 CFR 97.301(e) made DIRECT REFERENCE to the
international requirement, not to "element 1 credit." Certainly, there's no
need to cite "element 1 credit" for the novice license!

If it had cited "element 1 credit" as the second requirement for technican
licenseholders (novice licenseholders already have it by definition in .501),
then I would agree that nothing had changed. But that's not how the FCC wrote
..301(e) and you know it! ;-)

The question of -when- and -how- the FCC Rules will be changed is a
separate item from -what- the rule requirement is up until they
-are- changed. Ditto for how the FCC will handle the issue of
giving -what- privileges to folks who hold a Technician license
but have never passed the code test.

I don't believe that's the correct question. It's not a matter of no-code
technicians now having HF privileges. It's a question of "coded techs" and
Novices having their HF privileges STRIPPED on account of one of the two
requirements now being untenable.