From: on Oct 20, 9:40 am

Leo wrote:
On 15 Oct 2005 14:02:03 -0700, wrote:
From: Leo on Oct 15, 9:36 am
On 14 Oct 2005 15:02:32 -0700, wrote:
Leo wrote:
On 14 Oct 2005 12:39:50 -0700, wrote:
From: on Oct 14, 9:20 am
Bill Sohl wrote:
wrote in message
wrote:

If the growth doesn't happen, it means the code test wasn't really a
problem in the first place.

Ahem...this is a "preconditioning" artificiality of "reasons."
[akin to the "do you still beat your wife?" question]

Precisely so - and, it is indicative of the assumption that code
testing is currently under review because it is perceived as a
"problem".

This is, of course, not the case.

It's exactly the case, Leo.

PROVE there is a "problem," Jimmie.


"Growth in numbers" is not a raison d'etre for the elimination
or retention of the code test. The lack of love and worship
of morsemanship should be enough.

Agreed - the review of the requirement is based entirely upon an
change of requirements in an international treaty.

No, it isn't. Not in the USA, anyway.

The FCC could NOT issue such an NPRM (as 05-143) prior to July,
2003 because of the international agreement to abide by the
Radio Regulations of the ITU-R.

The treaty changed more than 2 years ago, yet FCC did nothing at all
about it.

The FCC did MUCH about it, allowing for those 18 Petitions for
change which you mention in:

18 petitions/proposals were filed by various groups and
individuals. The NPRM is in response to those petitions/proposals and
their comments.

A significant amount of effort in 2003 and 2004 was taken up
by the Comment period ON those same 18 Petitions. [that seems
to be lost by the no-change-ever morsemen]

FCC could have simply dropped Element 1 in August of 2003. I was
surprised that they didn't, particularly after there were at least two
proposals to do just that.

Gotta love it...yet-another input from a self-appointed
"FCC Insider" telling us "what they could and could not do!"

If the treaty change drove the FCC, they'd have simply issued a
Memorandum Report and Order saying Element 1 was no longer a
requirement. But they didn't.

Hello? Where is all the talk NOW about "getting a consensus?"
It was once a big driver in decision-making according to the
morsemen and the Believers of the Church of St. Hiram. :-)

WT Docket 05-235 pretty well shows there is NO HOPE for any
"consensus" on code testing in the USA.

The regulators
create the rules and regulations which control the hobby - it is up to
the amateur community to promote it and drive growth.

Growth in numbers is one of the reasons repeatedly cited by those
asking for an end to code testing.

By the PRO-code-test advocates, Jimmie, by the PCTA... :-)

Us NCTAs have been saying the code test is an OBSOLETE
REQUIREMENT for AMATEUR RADIO LICENSING. Oddly enough, the
FCC agrees with that! [ sunnuvagun! ]


Another view would be that it was a problem that is being fixed way
too late to repair the damage.

How could it have been any different?

The Believers in code testing COULD have TRIED to compromise earlier
but they did NOT. :-)

The code test was a treaty requirement that FCC would not violate.

Make up your mind. Earlier this post you said that the FCC
could have voided the code test on its own. Which is it?

The testing was minimized in
1990 by the medical waiver petition, which effectively made all classes
available for a 5 wpm code test and a doctor's note. *Any* doctor could
write such a note, or sign one written by the ham asking for a waiver.
All it had to say was that it was harder-than-usual for the ham in
question to pass the code test.

Tsk, tsk, the morsemen still believe that morsemanship is an
elemental base requirement for U.S. amateur radio...


Amateur Radio was a very popular hobby back when you and I were kids -
today, there are too many other far-more-glamorous things competing
with it.

When were you a kid, Leo? Ham radio is far more popular today than when
I was a kid.

Tell us all about the late 1940s in electronics hobby projects,
old timer... :-)


There have indeed been massive changes in technology over the past
half century. Instant communication on a global basis is available to
almost everyone now, affordably and from virtually anywhere.

So why should *anyone* get a ham license, test or no test?

To get Status, Rank, Title of Nobility, a pretty certificate
(suitable for framing), to show that they are "better" than
others? :-)


I would think that the vast majority of the folks who are interested
in the things that Amateur Radio offers are already a part of the
hobby. Adding HF access might broaden the scope of those who did not
gain access to HF via morse testing (for whatever reasons) - but to
think for a moment that there are legions of wannabe hams who are
waiting exitedly for morse testing to be abolished so that they can
rush in and get on the air would be foolish.

Yet that's what many anticodetest folks think and say.

...and they are "simply mistaken" according to you... :-)


Fifty years ago there were maybe 150,000 US hams. Today there are over
650,000. Where did all that growth come from? Most of it happened in
the 70s and 80s, btw.

Where was Jimmie "fifty years ago?"

Interesting that Jimmie's claim of "most of the growth" occurring
when HE was first licensed. :-)

Jimmie tries his darndest to AVOID admitting that a large number
(over 200 thousand) no-code-test Technicians became licensed
after 1991. :-)

What many are concerned about is that the same problems that plague cb
will also plague amateur radio if the license requirements are reduced
too much.

Many of those same folks say that "morse code testing will save
lives!" :-)

They also say that ending code testing is a "bad thing!"
Not to be outdone, some say it will be "the end of ham radio!" :-)

Of course, to understand that, one has to go in and READ the
2,612 filings on WT Docket 05-235 that have been filed by
midnight EDT 19 October 2005.


In the three years that I have held a
license, I have met very few people who were interested at all in
radio communications.

That's been true for a long time - most people aren't interested in
"radio for its own sake".

No? What is it then?

Title, Status, Privilege, "official recognition" of being better
than the average human for receiving a license?


Then what's the "new paradigm"? Eliminate all licensing? We've seen how
well that worked...

Oh, no, dragging out that FALSE equation again:

End of Code Testing = Ending ALL Testing

Typical PCTA ploy.