From: Michael Coslo on Oct 19, 6:31 am

wrote:
John Kasupski wrote:

I can recall back in about 1975 or so, there was a proposal for
a no-code "Communicator Class" license. It was shot down, largely
due to opposition by ARRL.

By widespread opposition by the amateur radio community. And it wasn't
a stand-alone proposal - it was part of an FCC proposed restructuring
that would have resulted in a 7 class "two ladder" license system, less
than a decade after the "incentive licensing" changes.

1975 was also when cb was booming and FCC proposing to convert 220 to
"Class E" cb.

1975 is also THIRTY YEARS AGO. :-)

It was along about the same time that computers
first became reasonably affordable for home use.

You might want to check the dates, costs, and capabilities of what
you're calling a "computer", John.

A "computer" is an electronic apparatus that calculates according
to a predetermined sequence of operations stored in memory.

The first "low-cost computers" were exemplified by the
1969-debut of the Hewlett-Packard 9100 programmable desk
calculator. [not a single IC in that model, by the way]
Magnetic-card storage of programs (size of a credit card of
today). CRT display of alphanumeric register contents.
Very expensive by hobby standards (unaffordable by most) but
it set a pattern. The general format/design has been carried
through to the current HP 33S ($55 through HP mail-order)
handheld programmable scientific calculator.

A generation of
technically inclined young people suddenly had an alternative
to ham radio and its code testing.

Sorry, that doesn't make sense.

Makes PERFECT SENSE to those involved, from buyers to sellers
and the growth of the personal computer industry. Made Bill
Gates the richest man in the USA... :-)

Those early small computers weren't much in the way of communication
devices. Look up what a 300 baud modem for a TRS-80 cost...

Not a problem to most, really. I started up a second time with
a new Apple ][+ in computer-modem communications in early
December, 1984, got on local BBSs and had a ball from then on.

Thirty years ago, 300 BPS was considered "fast" (in comparison
to the "standard" rate of 100 BPS). It took a few years of
modem development to reach 2400 BPS (decried as "impossible" on
voice-grade telephone lines by so-called "experts" in comms).
Took a few more years and some heavy research into Coding
and Information theory to hit the now-top-rate of 56 KBPS.
Meanwhile the Co$t of that developement had to be paid by
somebody and that somebody was the consumer, the buyer.

Thirty years ago, the offshore production of consumer electronics
was just starting to make an impact on the market for such things
and had not gotten into the small personal computer area. Much
of the hardware for that area was still built domestically then.
The reverse is true now.

I think its called technical time shifting, Jim. Somehow all those
early computers were imbued with all the features that the new ones
have. That Timex computer can do everything my G5 can do apparently! 8^)

Timex-Sinclair was a LATE-comer into the personal computer market.
The first established generation of personal computers were the
Intel 8080 MCPU systems running CP/M (the first popular DOS). The
Motorola 6800 MCPU and then the MOS Technology 6502 MCPU (as used
in the first kit Apple, the Apple I, then the Commodore C64 ready-
built) began to change that. The Apple ][ series had almost
seized the whole personal computer market of 1980 until IBM struck
in 1981 and then Apple screwed up on new series designs, beginning
with the Apple III. CP/M systems had gone down the tubes by then.

The whole argument does this sort of thing. Assuming that for some
reason people make a conscious choice between Ham radio and computers
(and apparently between a hobby and a vocation) doesn't make sense to
me. If they had more in common, maybe, but computers as a hobby tends to
involve surfing the net these days, and as a vocation it means either
working with programs or programming. The two don't meet except at the
edges.

That's only from YOUR personal experience. Prior to 1991 and the
Internet going public-access, there was NO "net surfing"...no
Internet to surf. BBSs were well established and growing by 1990
with tens of thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) actively
communicating on BBSs and BBS netwroks. Nearly everything in
TEXT form and imagery largely confined to still pictures and games
of rather crude (by today's standards) imagery/art. Games were a
very popular market item. Real computer afficionados were into
programming, by BASIC, by Assembler, by Pascal, the few with the
first hard disks using compilers for compiled-source programs.

Technically-inclined young people have *always* had lots of
alternatives. Look up "Williamson amplifier" and see how many "hi-fi"
folks were building their own audio systems in the 1940s and later.
Lots of other examples.

Change "1940s" for 'late 1950s' for that "Williamson." :-)
Having been in that area as a hobbyist and once a suscriber to
Audio Engineering magazine in the 1950s, "hi-fi" was about the
ONLY area (other than ham radio) for hobbyists of the 50s.
The industry development of good, affordable ICs was only just
beginning with the one-package microprocessor about to change
that radically.

Maybe people who are interested in radio would go into a radio type
hobby, and people who are interested in other things would be doing
other things. Simple sort of concept.

If you re-write "radio type" into "electronic type" you would get
a different picture of the three decades from 1975 to now.

Or of course we could assume that the Morse code test was what kept
people from being hams, and then try to explain away why the first batch
of Hams who didn't have to take a code test are the group that comprises
the biggest part of the recent drop-off? Seems a strange conclusion.

"Recent" drop-off? :-) The number of U.S. licensed amateurs has
been steadily shrinking for two years. Not much of a shrinkage
but nowhere close to keeping up with the population increase.

Despite the snarling denial of amateur morsemen, the no-code-test
Technician class license added about 200 thousand new licensees
to the U.S. amateur radio database since it began. Without them
there would have been NO peak of numbers in July, 2003, and the
total numbers would have SHRUNK before the new millennium was
entered. Never mind the "lumping of no-coders with code-tested
techs" happening after Restructuring, the tabulations elsewhere
show that the 200K additions by NO-CODERS actually happened BEFORE
Restructuring.

In my youth the hottest thing for the techno-kids was - cars. Old cars,
new cars, fixing up junkers, customizing, improving performance, you
name it. For less than the cost of a new ham rig, a kid could buy an
old car, fix it up with simple tools and easy-to-get parts, and get it
on the road. Even kids without licenses or the wherewithal to have a
car would help friends work on their cars, both for the experience and
in the hope of rides once the car was running.

No form of radio could compete with wheels.

That "youth" is rather long gone...but southern California is
still the doityourself/custom car place showing how it is done,
today. :-) A good (enough) car was a "scarf magnet" for
young male teeners deep into testosterone flow.


A Timex-Sinclair 1000 could be had for
around $50, an Atari or Commodore 8-bit computer could be had for a
fraction of what ham rigs cost (since Heathkit and many other kit
manufacturers vanished around this time period as well).

[a regretable time shift there...were NO Sinclair models in 1975]

In 1977 I bought and built a Heath HW-2036 2 meter rig. Cost a bit over
$300. Still have it and it still works. Heath lasted a while longer
after 1977.

Heath is still around. They make a nice wireless doorbell (we
have two transmitters and three receivers), ready-built. That's
about IT. :-)

Anyone using Timex-Sinclairs for ham use?

I doubt it. CQ magazine used to feature all kinds of adaptations
of the Commodore C64 series.

Let's see...spend weeks learning an arcane code from the 1800s
and then spend hundreds of bucks building a station, or skip the testing
and spend $200 or so on a computer.

I built ham stations for a less than $100 in those days. You might want
to see how little a $200 computer would actually do. And you needed a
TV set or monitor to use it.

In 1980 it should not have been a problem to obtain an old TV
set (even black and white) to use as a display (what you call a
"monitor"). :-) Without tearing it apart to make an 80m CW
rig rock-bound on 3.579545454 MHz, it could still pick up NTSC
TV 25 years ago (nobody had any serious plans for "digital TV"
back then).

Seems to me that the biggest thing they could be used for is learning
Basic programming. Okay.

That isn't valuable at all? Tsk, tsk. :-)

Thousands voted with their feet,
and the best of a generation or two or three said to hell with
radio and went into computers instead.

"The best of a generation" went into computers? Hardly.

I missed that one.

They didn't go into choo-choos. :-)

Now, 25 years later, hams lament the declining number of licensees as
posted by N2EY every other week. It occurs to few that the guys
who might have become hams 25-30 years ago if it weren't for the code test
are now holding down good paying jobs in the computer industry
and probably wouldn't be interested in a ham ticket now if you
handed them one gratis.

Apples and oranges.

"Apples and oranges?" Sounds like more sour whine from morsemen.

Agribusiness did not grow through morsemanship...:-)

Who is lamenting anyhow? I wish those new old Hams would have stuck
around, but beyond that, big deal.

Mostly those hams just let their ham licenses expire. How about
that? :-)

What I take from the statistics is that an early generation of Hams got
their licenses without a whole lot of actual interest in radio. These
were the "honeydo" hams, who used 2 meter repeaters to get a shopping
list or the like on the way home from work. Their interests lay along
those lines.

??? Is "radio" only that region called "HF" in the EM spectrum?

There is "NO technical interest" in the frequencies above 30 MHz?

Tsk, tsk, tsk...

Well along came cell phones, and the honeydo'ers went to that. Cell
phones are a better technology for getting a shopping list than using a
repeater.

That can't be! Cell phones are absolutely useless as comm devices
according to all the morsemen...the Jay Leno show "proved that"...
in every single emergency situation, cell phones are "useless." :-)


Another subset of the dropoff is Hams who were somewhat interested in
radio, but became bored. They dropped off too.

I'm getting a bit bored by all this blather myself... :-)

My prediction of what will happen after Element 1 is history is that
there will be more new hams, and a higher attrition rate. People with
only a passing interest will become Hams. There is not likely to be a
net gain. I won't pass judgment on this being good or bad. It is just
different.

Tsk, from the output in here, much more judgement has been passed
than has gas. [or, they are one and the same...]

As of 17 Oct 05, 48.57% of all individual U.S. amateur radio
licensees were Technicians...MOST of them not having taken any
code tests. Guess they don't count, huh? :-)

So far on WT Docket 05-235, the number of filings in only three
months averages 866 per month. On WT Docket 98-143 (Restructuring)
they averaged less than 205 per month over an 11-month period.
Guess the morse code test is "unimportant" and, since PCs are
"only used for surfing the net," it doesn't have any impact on
input to the FCC, right? :-)