From: on Aug 4, 1:08 pm


Perhaps someone can clear up one issue for me.....why do we take a
morse code test to gain access to phone portions of the bands? It has
never made sense to me that you had to pass a code test to operate HF
phone.....

Heyo John T.,

Oh, my, that IS a long story, but it begins in 1896 and the
first demonstration of radio as a communications medium. Back
then, before transistors, even before vacuum tubes (!) this
"radio" thingy was VERY primitive. One could turn the Tx ON
and OFF, though, so all turned to the Morse-Vail telegraph
code which was now 52 years old and mature.

Okay, 18 more years to 1912, the appearance of the first U.S.
radio regulating agency and the sinking of the Titanic. This
fledgling radio regulating agency had no precedent, played it
by ear and eventually made radiotelegraphy a necessary test
for applicant radio operators. Almost ALL radio transmitters
used on-off keying. Damn simple technology, if you can call it
"technology" in radio. On-off keying is a no-brainer thing.

Two more years to 1914 and Saint Hiram of Maxim, the new
"leader" of hamdom who, with a couple buddies, establishes
the ARRL. [never mind that the Radio Club of America was
formed a lot earlier as well as some competitors] Things were
very competitive amongst the ham clubs then.

Cut to 1919 and Hiram Goes To Washington to lobby for the
restoration of the amateur bands...which had been shut down
for World War One. Big Publicity is later made of this
successful lobbying...even though Maxim wasn't the only one...
in the ARRL's telling of the tale Saint Hiram did everything
but walk on the reflecting pool of the Mall in DC.

ARRL has made it to the top of the club heap after WW1 with
a neat trick: Becoming a publisher...of books on ham radio,
of a periodical called QST. EXCELLENT base for spreading
the ARRL's word, it's "maxims" as it were. H.P.Maxim does
a regular column (he is now virtually President for Life)
under the pen name "T.O.M." ("the old man") and talks a lot
about sending good code, behavior, and all the other things.
Publishing MAKES MONEY and they can get away with it on taxes
because the League is ALSO a "membership organization." With
profit the League can afford a legal firm in DC to represent
them before the various radio commissions.

New findings, new rulings. Hams are banished from the "BC"
band and "vanquished" to "wavelengths shorter than 200 meters."
I.e., frequencies above 1500 KC (as they usta call KHz), or
MF and HF the "short waves." Oh, wow, lots to write about,
lots of "technology" to publish about with this new "shortwave"
stuff. Between the Wars the world's hams begin to converse,
but in the newly-standardized (more or less) International
Morse Code (standardized for international commercial
telegraphy). Vacuum tubes begin to be available and the
radio technology starts looking like technology. But...

The Great Depression hits with over a quarter of the workforce
in the USA out of work (but almost three-quarters still work).
Tough times, little income. Tube radio parts are expensive
and radiotelegraphy is the cheapest mode in hardware...AM voice
sounds too "commercial" like professional broadcasting. Very
few hams know about "sideband" which the telephone long-lines
folks started on land, then pioneered on HF with four voice
channels per transmitter. T.O.M. hung in there into the
thirties and kept on plugging morsemanship. Vive la beeping!
"The Amateur's Code" came out in the 1920s, one item of which
was a shameless plug for the League ("owe your allegiance to
the ARRL" etc.).

Come WW2 and there's another blackout of ham radio. QST keeps
being published, yielding free publicity for income-producing
ham books. ARRL makes a big thing about hams being a "national
resource of trained radio operators for the nation" and that
notion will hang on for six decades plus. "CW" is King in the
ham world. But...with the revolution in post-WW2 technology
arrives the single-channel single sideband technology for voice
at lower power, somewhat lower cost. The military starts the
demand and Collins Radio leads the commercial pack in producing
the bestest SSB rigs...which they also market to hams. Oboy,
new technology in 1950 (although lagging the commercial radio
field by at least two decades). QST and some olde-tyme hams
bring back the hoary old saying "CW gets through when nothing
else will" in defiance of this new voice mode and new
technology (who the #$%^!!! ever heard of "sidebands" and what's
all this "vector" crap?).

ARRL starts making good bucks in publishing after WW2 and several
other publishers start up. Profits for all. Standard of living
improves, money is spent. But, the leaders at the League are
still of the "old school" where Code is King. Now back in that
prehistory, few hams lived close to DC and the Internet wasn't
even a pipe-dream. Communications with one's government had to
be done by surface mail (slow) or telegram (fast but expensive).
Few could afford Telex things except maybe the attorneys who
worked over the gubmint for their clients.

The League got terribly Conservative in the post-war time and
that spread throughout the world. Political tensions were high
all over and the "Reds" were waving sabers and tossing test nukes.
Instability after a terrible Second World War. Conservatism
and simplicity looked good, a comfort. Olde-tymers at the League
pushed for "CW" to be at the top of the heap and there it stayed
for decades. ARRL had the MAJOR publicity vehicle and monopolized
the influence on ham hobbyists. Olde-tymer ham conservatives
ruled the IARU and did their thing with the newly-formed ITU for
ham radio standards.

Things didn't go as well for the olde-tymers as they thought.
New blood was out there and flowing hotly. At the WARCs this
progressive group were able to set the "code test mandatory"
rule of the ITU to just below 30 MHz. The "T-hams" started up
in various other nations before the USA made the no-code-test
Tech in 1991. Domestically, the no-code-test movement was
stirring and sounding off during the 1980s (they pushed the
no-code-test Tech creation, NOT the League). But, comms on
legal matters took TIME and effort for all but the attornies.
Conservatives in the League were entrenched now and were
determined not to give up at any cost!

Behold the Internet, finally public in 1991...then the push in
the government to take advantage of that, to eventually integrate
it into the DSN as a part. Pow! Suddenly the lowly citizen
with a PC could now TALK DIRECT with their government! Wondrous!
Something they never really had before...no need to "filter"
things through some "membership organization." Internet exploded
in many directions and the convservative olde-tymers groused and
grumbled. Their INFLUENCE was waning and they could no longer
"direct traffic" of members to THEIR way of thinking.

Cellular telephony, CDs, dial-direct-wired phones, DVDs and VHSs
and a burgeoning fun-with-any-electronics in hobby things vied
for attention among hobbyists. The WORLD was open to explore
and didn't depend on the vagaries of the ionosphere or solar
index. Olde-tyme conservatives were ****ed and strutted around
with hoary old phrases, cussing at evil CB types (now 47 years
old), and making big big with morsemanship. The League managed
to hang onto its core membership but the core was olde-tyme
conservatives who prized morsemanship above everything else.
The League fought tooth and nail for maintenance of the status
quo since their black-ink ledger notations needed MORE $$$.

By 2005 there are MORE cell phone subscriptions than there are
wired phone subscriptions, one in five families have some kind
of Internet access, and the League membership has shrunk to
less than a quarter of all licensed U.S. radio amateurs. ARRL
was seemingly unaware that the two Technician class license
totals had reached 48% of all licensees in this year...they
have never really reached out to them. Why, I don't know, but
the League is hide-bound to their olde-tyme core conservative
membership desires. The numbers of amateur licensees is NOT
growing, actually slightly dropping (small but continuous).
The newcomers are getting in via the NO-CODE-TEST class and
most are staying there. They do NOT want, en masse or not,
to be the greatest 1930s radiotelegrapher possible in 2005.

In 2000 the IARU defied the ARRL and pushed for no-code. By
mid-2003 the ITU-T *finally* got S25 rewritten and the mandatory
code test for a below-30-MHz license was removed, deleted, made
defunct. Trouble is, all them olde-tyme conservative hams had
been so thoroughly brainwashed by code testing that they opposed
U.S. code test deletion like it was a battle for life itself.
For some that may have been true...morsemanship was THE thing
in their radio world and that world would END on code test
elimination! Olde-tyme mentalities are VERY stubborn.

Trouble is, them morse lovers are outnumbered 3:1. They just
don't realize it yet...

yee haw