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

wrote:
John Kasupski wrote:


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." :-)

You are mistaken, Len.

The original articles by DTN Williamson appeared in the spring of 1947.
They outlined both the theory of an improved design and a practical
design that could be (and was) built by many audiofiles.

You can read the original 1947 articles online at:

http://www.dc-daylight.ltd.uk/Valve-...pril-1947.html

http://www.dc-daylight.ltd.uk/Valve-...-May-1947.html

Perhaps you meant the Ultra-Linear circuit, which came later.

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.

Really?

Radio control of models was being done by UHF cb as long ago as 1948.
"SWLing" was one reason so many general-coverage receivers were built.
Electronic music (as opposed to music reproduction) was on the scene
with theremins, electronic organs and electric guitars - which led to
synthesizers in the 1960s.

The electronic hobby magazines like Popular Electronics and Electronics
Illustrated in that era had no shortage of projects that were neither
amateur radio nor "hi-fi".

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.

Why would anyone rewrite what Mike wrote?

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.

That's recent, compared to the long period of growth that preceded it.

Not much of a shrinkage
but nowhere close to keeping up with the population increase.

Just like in the 1960s. Yet after the "incentive licensing" changes,
the growth picked up again. There were folks back then
who said amateur radio was dying out, and that the "incentive
licensing" changes would kill it....

Despite the snarling denial of amateur morsemen,

"snarling denial"? You're the chief snarler hear, Len ;-)

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.

You seem to be saying that if it weren't for that license class, none
of those people would have become hams. Yet in the 1980s the number of
US hams increased by about 200,000 even though all US amateur radio
license classes required a code test.

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.

And now they're all mixed up.

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]

Tell it to John Kasupski.


As of 17 Oct 05, 48.57% of all individual U.S. amateur radio
licensees were Technicians...

How does that percentage compare with what it was in 2000 and 2003,
Len?

MOST of them not having taken any
code tests.

How many?

Guess they don't count, huh? :-)

They're all counted in my twice-a-month postings of the number of
current unexpired individual licenses. The total number of Technicians
and Technician Pluses has dropped by about 15,000 since the 2000
restructuring - that's more than the entire 'shrinkage' of all the
other license classes combined. Given that the Novice and Advanced
classes are no longer issued, they are bound to shrink...

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.

So?

Back in the 1960s, the "incentive licensing" proposal generated more
than 6000 comments to FCC, even though the number of US hams was only
about 40% of what it is today, and practically all commentary was by US
mail.

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? :-)

Who said that? Not me.

And note that by your own unchecked-for-accuracy comment count, the
comments are almost evenly balanced between retention of at least some
code testing and total elimination.