Mike Speed wrote:
You cn worry about BPL 'till the cows come home. It won't make one
whit of difference if the number of active hams continues its steady
decline.


You couldn't be more wrong. I read a statistical study in which the number
of hams world-wide *and* in the U.S. has shown to be steadily increasing.

Where is the statistical study you read.

You seem to be long on unfounded opinion and short on fact. Here is
the conclusion to an extensive analysis of trends in ham license
statistics. The link is also below.

Average age of licensed Hams is approaching 60 years as these trends
in License Counts and Remaining Life continue. These trends lead me to
believe our hobby of Amateur Radio will suffer from severe problems
unless there is a major change in our ability to recruit, educate,
license and sustain activity of new young Hams.

http://users.crosspaths.net/~wallio/LICENSE.html



The life of
this hobby is at risk if the ARRL doesn't get it's collective head out
of the sand and make the radio hobby interesting enough to attract the
teens and 20somethings.

Cite some precedents - what is your basis for such a statement?

Precedents for what...your question makes no sense.

You said the hobby is at risk - prove it.

See above for some facts and just listen to the guys on the bands.
The membership is getting older on average. Not a good sign of
vitality.


The only reason ARRL retains its out of date tests is to control access
to the bands, or to act as gatekeeper. And to keep an ever aging group
of members happy because they are requiring the same meaningless morse
code test that the grey hairs took 40 years ago.

Once again - *prove* the the reason the "...ARRL retains its out of date
tests is to control access
to the bands, or to act as gatekeeper..."

That is one of the ARRL's functions...to limit access to the bands by
requiring and adminstering a testing program. If you don't believe me
read their charter. The ARRL continues to support out-of-date tests
and do little to entice young blood into the hobby. The ARRL behaves
as though they were in the 1950's when every high school had a radio
club kids built crystal radios and the hobby didn't have to worry about
attracting members. Youngsters were clammoring at the gates to learn
code, take the test and get a license. Times have changed and the
young have other ways of talking with one another and otherwise finding
out about the world. In other words they are not knocking at the gate
manned by the ARRL gatekeeper. In fact they have no idea where the
gate is.


snip

Which retailers are going out of business?

They've already gone.

Ummm - the retailers I've dealt with for *years* are still in business.
You completely avoided an answer to my question - you didn't even
cite one example.

Here's two: Delaware Radio and EEB.



The morse code test is the equivalent of requiring prospective car
drivers to know how to control a horse and buggy. Fact is the 20
somethings have little or no interest in ham radio and all of its
quaint licenses.

I can discuss situations in which morse code is the most effective way
to communicate in certain situations until I'm blue in the face - it won't
change your mind - I've already cited examples and you didn't say a
word about them. I wonder why?

The fact is that morse code has been abandoned by virtually all
commercial and military users of the spectrum. It is a skill for which
there is no modern day use, other than for hams to talk slowly with one
another. From personal experience I know the military communications
pros tend to chuckle a bit when the discussion comes to hams and mars
activities on hf.

I remember when the H&W nets actually attracted traffic several years
back. One notable instance was covering the aftermath of a hurricane
and was jammed with hams walking over one-another transmitting in voice
and morse code all trying to talk with someone in the effected area.
It was not a pretty thing to listen to...in-fact it was chaos and no
information of any consequence could have been exchanged. My sense was
that most of the hams were trying to score rather than pass traffic of
concerned loved ones.