In article . net,
Slow Code wrote:
Yes, Yes, yes,
but what are your thoughts on the following:
Meta-comment: I think that if all of the ideas you propose were
actually enacted into regulation, and then ten years were go by, the
United States Amateur Radio Service would be unlikely to have more
than 1/4 of the number of licencees that it has today.
That's great if you want to create a "private club" for a few years
after that.
However, it's lousy if you want there to actually *be* an Amateur
Radio Service twenty or thirty years from now. With so few licensees
and as little activity as I think there'd be after such a decimation,
the odds are good that a lot of the U.S. amateur radio bands would be
"re-purposed" for other spectrum users.
No more automatic renewals. Individuals must retest and pass
all elements required for their license class.
Unlikely to pass, due to the cost and bureaucratic overhead.
I'd guess that at least a third of current licensees coming up for
renewal would decide not to bother, and let their licenses lapse (and
that's in addition to the rate of non-renewal which takes place today).
The passing score for written exams needs to be raised to 85%.
I'd have no real objection to this. Dunno if it's a good idea or a
bad idea.
Code elements should be 13 wpm for General, and 20 wpm for Extra.
This will never happen, for two major reasons:
[1] CW is no longer an international treaty requirement AT ALL.
The results of the WARC conferences made it clear that the
international community considers CW a useful mode, and a big
part of amateur tradition, but that it's no longer in sufficient
use in military/commercial applications to justify making it
a legal requirement for amateur HF licensing.
[2] The FCC has made it quite clear (in their responses to the
numerous petitions filed about [1]) that they no longer consider
it in the public interest to require CW proficiency for an
HF license. They are proposing to remove the CW requirement
entirely.
In its filings, the ARRL has proposed retaining the existing 5 WPM
requirement for Amateur Extra. The FCC's response adds up to "No.
Not justified. No CW requirement at all."
My understanding is that the ARRL's comments received from their
membership, and the comments received directly by the FCC in response
to the various petitions, are pretty consistent. Only a small
percentage of the people who have commented, feel as you do. Most
commenters either want to eliminate the CW requirement entirely (as
many other countries have done), or eliminate it for General and
retain it for Extra.
What you propose is also unlikely to happen because the FCC and ARRL
both remember what happened the last time they tried tightening the
rules and raising the requirements and trying to force people to
upgrade. My understanding (from reading - I wasn't licensed back
then) is that the Powers That Be concluded that this sort of incentive
licensing pressure created more resentment, and did more damage to the
health of the amateur radio community, than whatever benefits came
from it justified.
I've read statements from the FCC, over the past few years, to the
effect that they're just not interested in taking operating privileges
away from anyone.
Make the no-code Tech license one year non-renewable.
Once again, I think that the number of licensees that the Amateur
Radio Service would lose (or would never get in the first place, once
people learned of the non-renewable status) would outweigh the
possible advantage of this approach (giving licensees more of an
inducement to increase their level of knowledge, and upgrade).
--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page:
http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
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