Alun L. Palmer wrote:

Mike Coslo wrote in
:

some snippage



I don't know if any of us geniuses have though about it, but lets
say
in a country where a business can get successfully sued for a woman not
knowing that here hot coffee was hot, and burning herself when trying
to hold the darn thing between her legs. (sorry Phil, but what if she
simply ruined her dress because the coffee was wet?- negligent design
of the cup?)

So lets have a newbie ham that fires up his/her kilowatt rig, and
is
half fried because no one told him not to touch the wirey thingies on
the back of the box thingy. Ohh, I can see the successful lawsuits
already!

I've nailed myself with 50 watts, enough to produce a painful burn
and
a cute little scar on the boo-boo finger. Some dunce that catches a
ride on a thousand watts might just have a very successful lawsuit if
we don't train them well.

RF Safety should be the FIRST order of the day, and NO one should be a
Ham until they are tested for RF safety to the ability to handle full
legal limit.


And those who think that limiting the finals voltage, or some
other
weird thing is the answer, are advised to think about things such as
Technician Hams operating under supervision. It only takes a second to
drop a paper and reach behind a Rig. Less time than the control op can
react. I want those Technicians to be exposed to full power safety
requirements.

Anything else is criminally negligent.


It would be interesting to see what the JA 4th class *written* exam
looks like.

And as mentioned before, the number of JA station licenses and new
operator licenses is way down.



That's 18, I didn't count both Austria and Australia!

OK. But it's still a small fraction of the number of hams
and the number of countries.

The big questions: Must all countries drop the code test
because a few have decided to? Or can each country decide for itself.


Each country can do as it chooses, but the trend is to abolish the
code test.


The trend in most countries is to ban or severely restrict individual
ownership of firearms, too.



Has the change caused lots of new growth in countries that have
dropped code testing?


No, but it's increased HF activity in those countries


So all it's done is to permit *existing* hams to upgrade. But it
*hasn't* brought in lots of new folks.

Which means the Morse code isn't the "problem" some people make it
out
to be.


- Mike KB3EIA -





Well, it is a problem. No-coders may have been in the hobby, but they
couldn't do everything that they wanted to do.

People who have not passed the test have been kept out of things they
want to do in the hobby too.

Not that I'm saying that the
Tech theory should get you full privileges, but there have always been many
Techs who could pass Extra class theory.

Yup, Like me. But I apparently showed the character flaw od learning
Morse code! ;^)

As a guy who can't "hear" people unless he can see the mouth of the
person speaking, I have just a little trouble figuring out the problem
with normal people for which the test is too hard to make it worth
getting a license.

But it is! Witness all those who are dropping off the ranks when their
license expires.

I predict the next tack of the NCI's is that not allowing the codeless
Techs HF access is why they aren't renewing their license.


Herding them above 30 MHz is a
problem, not for you perhaps, but still a problem.

"Herding" is a strange name for allowing access to almost all the
Amateur spectrum.

- Mike KB3EIA -