Not quite correct. Amateur radio was around before commercial or military
radio. When the government finally got in on it, the amature licensing rules
and qualifications were put in place to ensure that those on the air new
what they were doing. At the time, most equipment was home made due to the
unavailability of anything commercial and they wanted to ensure that
armatures would know enough not to interfere with others and not kill
themselves in the process. Remember spark gap? Could be very user
unfriendly.
"starman" wrote in message
...

If the goal is to 'weed out' the undesirables, increasing the knowledge
base of the technical test(s) would be a more useful gatekeeper than
learning morse code. Knowing more about the technical aspects of the
hobby might also encourage more construction and experimentation, which
is (was) the primary reason why amateur radio was created.


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