I've actually dealt with a marine emergency on the radio. Have you?

No, all mine have been on land, but I am prepared to do so.

Not using CW you aren't,

Point is, CW is not used for marine emergencies anymore.

The testing
requirements for getting a GROL means you know what frequencies to monitor, and at
what times you have to be monitoring them and all that other good stuff relating to
marine emergencies, even though I got the license for broadcast use. Actually, now
the GROL doesn't even have any broadcast use, but some stations still like to see that
you have it if you want to be chief engineer. It is not required, but they like if
you have it. But getting it means you are tested on all this stuff too.
Interesting enough, morse code was never a requirement for that.

What does getting a GROL have to do with being capable of holding a CW
qso in an emergency?

What it has to do is, every ship has to have someone with with this license, and if you had
the license, you would know that CW is not used anymore in emergencies. The test insures
you know what frequencies to monitor and use, and the procedures, and to call using MAYDAY,
not CW.

substantially less power, you needed to know code. It was an international
requirement, although Japan found a nice way to get around it, and the US decided that
you could get out of the international agreement by getting a doctor's note.
Lazy handicapped people?

You said it, not me.

But we both agree on this.

Or is it that when you are handicapped or injured in an
emergency, you may not be able to operate a code key, only a microphone??? Aha!

If I can push a mike button, I can work a paddle. Besides, the mike on
my 706mk2g can be used as a code key in a pinch. Looks like I just
knocked down those lame ass excuses.

Exactly! So why are handicapped people excused from learning the code then? Besides, the
test today only requires you to LISTEN to code not pound it out. So there should be no
excuse why a handicapped person is excused from the code, but no one else is!

Fine tuning in to hear someone on sideband, and being able to do all the other more
complicated adjustments other than a simple closure of two contacts to send code, requires a
lot more dexterity and I don't see how these handicapped people are excused because they don't
want to use code, but the rest of us who also don't want to use code had to learn and pass it,
only to go and forget it again because we had no intentions of ever using it.

Wanna know how the boat got our attention though all the noise on 40m?
CW.

That doesn't do any good to those monitoring for a "mayday" like every GROL licensee
is doing.

What does GROL have to do with being able to work a cw qso in an
emergency? , or even noise in general? Do GROL'ers constantly listen
to the 40m phone band for emergencies?

No, but there were two frequencies you were required to monitor, and at specific times of the
hour to, not any HF frequencies, and you were listening for a mayday, not CW. This
changes constantly, and unless I am going to be in a marine situation, I don't need to find
out what frequency or frequencies are monitored now unless I am going to be doing that, then I
will update my self on what has changed since I was last tested. But the point here is
that there were only two frequencies I had to monitor, and anyone else in a distress situation
would know to use those two frequencies since he had the same license. He would also then
know that no one would be listening for morse code.

So? Most are probably too lazy to learn it anyway...

Is the reason you never learned every language of every country in the world is because you
are lazy, or because you don't waste time learning things you don't intend to use?

Everytime you tell someone who never intends to use code that they are lazy for not learning
it, they can come back at you with thousands of things YOU must therefore also be too LAZY to
learn.

Did you ever learn how to perform brain surgery? French Law? How to produce fuel for the
space shuttle? Marine biology? Russian sentence structure? Rules of the road in
Japan? Egyptian Hieroglyphics? Why not? Because you are LAZY?

Now what if I told you you had to learn one of more of those before you were allowed to talk
into a microphone on HF? You would tell me I was friggin crazy! Now you know how
everyone else feels when told they have to learn morse code before they can use a microphone.

I am surprised that people that had to learn the code like I did, never found it and odd thing
when they were told they had to do it. I understand NOW why some people want the
requirement.... because "if we had to learn the worthless crap, so does everyone else."
Well I had to learn it too, but I am mature and smart enough to realize that it is a silly
requirement that makes no sense, and can deal with the fact that others will not have to learn
and do what I had to do. I just take satisfaction in the idea that society has gotten rid
of a silly law, rather than be upset that I had to do something and now no one else has to do
it, like a little spoiled child.

Imagine former slaves getting mad that future generations will no longer have to get whipped
and be slaves but they had to go through it. I am sure they are all happy that no one has
to go through that hell anymore, rather than fight to keep slavery legal.

In essence, people fighting to keep the code requirement are doing the same thing as a black
man fighting to keep slavery around.

They were too weak to get through on fone until we actually knew
they were there. After they got our attention, yes, we went to phone.

Of course you did. You needed to know where they were and all the other details.
If they had to pound it out one letter of the alphabet at a time with morse code, they
would have been dead before the message ever got out.

Do you really believe all this dribble you are spewing out?

If I was wrong and you were right, then the military would not have dropped the code
worldwide, the international requirement for ham radio would not have been dropped as it just
was, and police fire and paramedics would be required to learn the code. But it is NOT that
way, it is the way things are now, and that backs up my position, not yours.

You need
to come by and watch me work CW. I'll straighten you out real fast.
It's obvious you have no earthly idea what you are talking about when
it comes to CW. I can receive CW faster than many of these rednecks
here in TX can talk.

Impossible. CW requires each letter be sent as up to several beeps each. Speech can get
entire words out faster than just some individual letters of a word using CW.

Plus, you can hear the distress and urgency in someone's voice needing urgent attention, but
with CW, a distressful emergency message sounds just the same as a friendly chat to someone
tuning across the dial quickly and passing it.

The coast guard met us on our freq , not the
other way around.

The coast guard doesn't go around scanning frequencies other that those they are required to
in the idea that you are out there and don't know the rules or didn't bother to carry a radio
with the proper frequencies as required by law.

If the boat had CW only, I'm sure they would have
dealt with it. How? They would let me do it and I would relay if they
had no one capable.

So all around the world, you will be there at a seconds notice for this situation.

See how useful I would be in such a case?

No, everyone out there who is LEGALLY out there knows what radios, frequencies, and procedures
are practiced in such a situation and knows that no one at the coast guard is going to be
trained in decoding morse code.

Now if someone is out there who doesn't know this, it is better off they never be found rather
than living in our world endangering our lives and taking our jobs because they don't follow
the laws.

See how
useless you would be? Kinda like tits on a bore hog...
You'd let them drown, not me.

Let them drown for not following proper procedure? That's like me accusing you of letting
someone die because they entered our country illegally, then called you for help in a
language you didn't understand and you were unable to help them or know what was wrong.

Mainly because the coast guard station in Miami was on phone.
That's right. They don't use morse code, and neither does the military.

I think they are capable of it.

We are all capable of learning how to fly the space shuttle, but most people on the planet
have no idea how to fly one.

MOST people in the world do not know morse code. Using that as a cry for help means most of
those that would be able to receive your signal would not understand your message.

Same would go for a foreign language in voice, and that is why all pilots and air traffic
controllers all over the world in every country must know and speak English. They do not
learn morse code.

a matter of fact. They usually have someone in the office that can
work a little CW if it's really needed. They wouldn't be much of a
coast guard if they couldn't.

You are wrong. The coast guard made an official statement when they were no longer going to
be using code.

From AP news archive:

Months after the code was abandoned under international convention for
ships in trouble, the only private U.S. network of coastal radio stations using
Morse has turned off the transmitters.

Simple but slow, the telegraph was overtaken decades ago by the telephone,
by data systems capable of reproducing printed words at the receiving end,
and by satellite for most forms of communication.

But until the newest generation of satellite and computer technology took
hold, Morse code endured for mariners.

Now e-mail is within easy reach for many at sea and modern ships have
automated emergency beacons designed to allow rescuers to zero in on them.

``Morse code has finally met its match,'' says Tim Gorman, operations director
for Globe Wireless, the company that dropped the curtain on commercial
radiotelegraphy by ceasing transmissions at its four stations in Half Moon Bay,
Calif., and Slidell, La.

Last week the World War II-era Liberty ship Jeremiah O'Brien, docked in San
Francisco harbor, transmitted a Morse farewell to President Clinton. ``History is
made on this day as we embark on a new era of communication,'' it began.

The message was translated back into English and sent to the White House
the modern way, via e-mail.

The International Maritime Organization officially phased out Morse code Feb.
1 for ships in peril, replacing it with the high-tech Global Maritime Distress and
Safety System.

Here is the IMPORTANT PART for you to read....

The U.S. Coast Guard ceased Morse operations several years ago and no
longer monitors radio frequencies used for the code.

``There's no government facility listening,'' he said. And now with the loss of
the radio stations, there is ``nobody privately listening,''

So, now this incorrect argument of yours can be put to rest!