From: David Stinson on Aug 21, 7:14 am

wrote:
.... We can confine any public
discussions on WT Docket 05-235 to that and avoid personal
squabbling such as demonstrated by Robeson and Jeswald...or not.
Your choice. But, "ya gotta know da territory!" first... :-)

A careful reading of my post
(and it was written carefully, just because of this)
will show that I did not aim it specifically at you,
though it was easy to imply, I suppose.

ALL public postings are OPEN for comment, any newsgroup. ANY
kind of postings as you will gather with some experience in
here. It's been like that even before ARPANET spun off the
newly-created University Net (USENET).

I said "people like" those he mentioned.

"People like" turns into whatever your reaction is to
certain posters. To repeat, you WILL notice the "flavor"
of Robeson's "style" in this newsgroup...which is little
more than a frustrated, angry person's wanting to turn
every single thread into some personal vendetta.

Though I do admit your first post within the tread read
"tart" to me, so I added a little lemon to mine, as well ;-).

Not a problem to me. :-) That's the "territory."

I don't know you, Mr. Anderson, any more than I know
Steve, but it's a good bet you have both halo and horns
at the same time, just like everyone else on UseNet.
Some have more one than the other, and at different times.

Irrelevant, really. The SUBJECTS are not quantified or
qualified by personal attacks against others. Yet, they
are colored and flavored and chopped into meaningless
puerile babble by a few who must vent their aggressions,
caring little for anyone but themselves.

But we can discuss this issue despite harps and pitchforks.

Absolutely! [but...:-)...the harps will be discordant
and the pitchforks jabbed by others in their obsessive
need to fight]

I believe that Morse Code deserves preservation on two counts:

1. It has proven simple, practical and useful for 160+ years.
That *you* have not used it, or that I have, is irrelevant.
A very great many have, and successfully, over a long time.

Also true is that morse code has been SUPPLANTED, displaced,
replaced by more efficient means of communication by humans
in all radio AND wired venues...except in the avocational
activities of radio hobbyists.

Insofar as WT Docket 05-235 is concerned, that issue is solely
about Test Element 1 of the U.S. amateur radio license
examination. Anything other than elimination or retention of
Test Element 1 in regards to morsemanship skills can be
regarded as personal polemics that reach far beyond the subject.

A closer examination of the history of Al Vail's contribution
to the "morse code" shows merely that it is a representation
of the English language characters used in a PRIMITIVE
technology. One can only describe the original Morse-Vail
Telegraph System as Primitive (with a capital P). One can
only describe the OLD radio of 1896, the one without any
active amplification devices as PRIMITIVE. At the time, some
109 years ago, about the ONLY practical means of using this
new communications medium called "radio" (later description)
was by ON-OFF KEYING. Since this landline morse code was then
mature, past the 50-year mark, and had spread throughout most
of the earth, is was practical to ADAPT it for radio
communication. ADAPTATION is all that it was, not some "magick"
conjured up by techno-wizards of the century before last.

That "many used it" in the latter half of the 1800s is more due
to it being BETTER THAN WHAT WAS USED FOR COMMUNICATIONS BEFORE.
The ONLY other means of instantaneous communications farther than
audible means was optical, by semaphore vanes or flags, those
being rendered ineffective by bad weather occluding the optical
path. The Morse-Vail Telegraph System, patented largely through
the "relay" part of their invention, was practical (for its time)
and "efficient" (relative only to all other means of very-fast
communications) despite an enormous (then) infrastructure of
WIRE...wire that had to be strung on poles above ground due to
as-yet undeveloped long-lasting insulation material. Expense
was large for this infrastructure then but, the public it served
was willing to pay for services rendered. It was BETTER THAN
WHAT WAS USED FOR COMMUNICATIONS BEFORE. As the Morse-Vail
Telegraph System spread throughout the globe, a great many
operators became proficient in this "morsemanship" skill.
The period of 1844 to 1896 encompasses nearly three generations
of "operators." That is certainly sufficient time to develop a
set of skills on par with any other craft of that time, but a
specialized one. It has no qualifications of being "better than"
or "lesser than" any other skill of humans then.

What did the Morse-Vail Telegraph System displace? The various
optical means used in Europe and Great Britain, all of which
required a heavy burden of infrastructure support. The horseback
courier, a most common means of surface communications well before
the overly-storied Pony Express (a short-lived system). The
common paper letter postal system in part, those postings being
carried by any means available. The then-cheap Morse-Vail
Telegraph could reach about 100 miles maximum for a single
circuit of one operator at each end. A much more expensive
version (through underwater cable) could increase that distance
ten times, but at only a slight reduction in throughput (rate
of communications transmission)...still faster than by ship
surface transport. The telegraph was BETTER THAN WHAT WAS USED
BEFORE.

Enter "radio" as demonstrated in Italy and Russia in 1896. It
was telegraphy WITHOUT wires. No expensive infrastructure of
wires on poles and the unattended relay stations, no squabbles
over rights-of-way of the telegraph lines. Even better, it could
be used on water! The maritime world loved it...it was something
THEY NEVER HAD BEFORE...a means of instant communications BEYOND
the horizon! Incredible invention embraced whole-heartedly by
navies and deep-water shipping then. A miracle of the times.
RADIOTELEGRAPHY WAS BETTER THAN WHAT WAS USED BEFORE.

However, all was not as wonderful with land-based telegraphy at
the turn of the last century. Manual telegraphy itself was
being displaced, replaced by the PRINTING telegraph, the
teleprinter. Teleprinter circuits were as long as the manual
telegraph circuits, still required the wire-pole infrastructure,
but the specialist telegrapher was NOT NEEDED at each end. The
native written language was conveyed directly, could be read by
any literate person, no need for translation into dots and
dashes to send, then re-translation back to the written language
on receipt. Telegraphers were being "downsized," displaced by
something BETTER THAN WHAT WAS USED BEFORE.

Manual telegraphers turned to this new "radio." They could use
their skills and craft in a new medium with minimal adaptation.
The technology of "electronics" was then sufficiently primitive
that the manual telegrapher specialist could generally learn
this new "technology" and to operate the primitive controls.
Early radio was a godsend to the displaced telegrapher specialist.

However, technology did not stop with this magical new means of
communication. The invention of the vacuum tube now made radio
of far greater sensitivity, thus longer range, clean power
amplification in transmitters, and it enabled VOICE transmission!
Voice, nearly as clear as the land-line telephone, instantaneous,
understandable to anyone speaking the language. New modes of
communication opened up. The land-line teleprinter was adapted
for use over radio. Those new modes were BETTER THAN WHAT WAS
USED BEFORE (radiotelegraphy).

"Radio" has been in CONTINUAL EVOLUTION over its quite-short
lifespan barely over a century of time. Those who worship the
beginnings of anything may embrace the first mode of radio,
telegraphy, but that is solely on emotional, subjective terms.
Radiotelegraphy came about ONLY because the on-off nature of
telegraph transmission was suited to the primitive technology
of ealy radio. EVOLUTION is a natural course of events, a
sort of "Darwinism" applied to technology, humankind adopting
what is BETTER THAN USED BEFORE.

Bicycles are also "old technology," but that does not
invalidate them as a simple and reliable means of transportation.

The general sublect of TRANSPORT is not involved in WT Docket
05-235. In the subject of transport, HORSES were used as a
simple and reliable means of transportation for CENTURIES
before the evolution of metalworking and machinery made the
bicycle possible. See two-wheeled chariots of the Roman
Empire time, centuries past, all "powered" by horses.

A large fraction of humanity uses them, because they
do not have the luxury of expensive automobiles and gas.

Horses can graze off the land, avoiding cost of feed. They
can also reproduce themselves, thus avoiding costs of
manufacturing.

Continuing within the context of such a society
(or what an more wealthy society can certainly become,
as anyone in South Africa can tell you):
One must practice and develop skill in using a bicycle,
if he wants to get around faster than walking.

In trying to get back to "radio," the invention of the manually
wound spring generator radio receiver happened in South Africa.

For that matter, while few written records exist to verify it,
middle Africa had the "jungle telegraph" of drum rhythm
representation of spoken native languages for centuries...

If one is unwilling to do the work and take the occasional
fall needed to become a proficient bicycle rider,
then they must accept walking.

Not a problem. Walking is as natural to humans as speech.
We learn that as infants and progress in such things as we
grow up.

It is foolish and futile
for those who have chosen to walk
to curse those riding bicycles and the bicycles themselves.

[that's beginning to sound like some Sunday School morality
lesson...:-) ]

Is anyone "cursing" riding bicycles? Other than on streets,
that is? I think not. The parable of the bicycle is overdone.

It is also foolish and short-sighted to take for granted that,
once one has an SUV, that the need to ride a bicycle
will never come again.

While I've never driven an SUV nor do I own a bicycle, I was as
fully qualified to drive an ancient "SUV" called the "Jeep" plus
the "three-quarter-ton" truck and "deuce-and-a-half" (2 1/2 ton)
truck in the military...as carrying a 70-pound field pack with a
AN/PRC-6 handheld transceiver and personal weapon in the Army.

I have never "sat" a horse nor do I intend to, yet horses have
been used for human transport for centuries. [there are more
horses in all of southern California than there are in the country
of Sweden...as my late father used to remark with some humor]
I do not venerate horses - which were there and used LONG before
the bicycle - but can appreciate the feelings of horse lovers.

On such a day,
If *all* have forgotten how to ride,
than all of us shall walk.

Not a problem. Walking is fine, healthy personal transport.

If even a few are rewarded for remembering how to ride,
they can teach the many.

"Always begin with the left foot" is a basic instruction in
military close-order drill. Not a problem. :-)

I must have learned walking as an infant, not remembering
the empirical data derivation method of self-teaching since
it has always been very natural. Humans ARE capable of
self-learning a great many things.


2. Historic preservation.
There are some who place no value on spending assets to
preserve touch-stones of humanity's progress.

I support the IEEE History section and regularly receive their
bulletin/newsletter (containing "Static from the Editor"
editorials). Marconi and Popov are given their rightful
place in electronics history as are all the greats, the
innovators, the inventors, the true pioneers of the electronics
world such as James Clerk Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz and
Lee de Forest and Edwin Armstrong (the troubled genius) and
many, many others.

Most of us do, which is why we spend money and labor
preserving "obsolete" ships, aircraft, telephones,
steam engines, etc. All of them take money and work
to preserve. Morse Code has been at least as important
as the development of the telephone, radio and even
the internet, having been the first "real-time" means
of knitting-together the globe.

I prefer the Morse-Vail Telegraph System rather than just
the manual telegraphic code used ON it. Without the "relay"
of that invention, it would bave been limited to relatively
short distances on land.

I submit that is a
valid reason to incentivize its preservation,
and that my proposal is an inexpensive, efficient
and reasonable means of doing so.

The Federal Communications Commission is NOT chartered by law
of Congress as a "historical preservation agency." There
ALREADY exist a number of museums containing artifacts and
recorded history of telegraphy all over the world. There exist
at least a half dozen computer programs that permit self-learning
of cognition of the "morse code' sound patterns, three of which
are in use at the Military Intelligence School at Fort Huachuca,
AZ, to train military intercept operators.

I see NONE of that "incentivization" as being ANY reason for
the retention of a Living Museum of Archaic Radiotelegraphy
through federally-required radio operator licensing, commercial
or amateur. I see the above as merely a desperate attempt to
preserve a purely personal desire for a mode which is evolving
out of practical existance...and has done so in every other civil
radio service in the United States of America.

Much of the "incentivization" by others on WT Docket 05-235
has been nothing more than transparent rationalization of their
desire to maintain their PERSONAL rank-status-privileges, to
keep the status as much quo as possible out of fear that
changes in regulations will reduce their rank and status. May
be fine for a clubhouse environment but NOT for federal laws
and regulations applicable to ALL citizens.

bit bat