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				July 4th 06, 06:49 PM
			
			
			
posted to rec.radio.amateur.equipment,rec.radio.amateur.policy,rec.radio.scanner,rec.radio.swap
	
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					First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Jun 2006 
						Posts: 9
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				 A question for nickle Generals and Extras. Would you renew your license? 
 
			
			One of the greatest mistakes people make is to try to analyze and manage 
things beyond their control.  The ear/brain thing people are talking about 
is irrelevant.
 
The process is there if you let it happen.  Designed by The Creator.  Forget 
about concentration, forget about analysis.  How many of you really think 
about all the connecting tissues that have to be pulled in order to just 
walk?   Just start writing down on paper what you are hearing.  Don't think 
about it at all.  Above all find the peace to release the anxiety of missing 
a word or character and just continue.  This is where the self-control comes 
in.  Soon you will find the errors less and less and you will be able to 
fill in the missing characters and words by memory.
 
Find the peace of Jesus and all is yours.
 
 wrote in message 
  oups.com... Dave, you were wasting your time & effort on the ******s in here.
 
 Dave Platt wrote:
 In article   et,
 Slow Code   wrote:
 
 What?  I ask a friendly question as to who would re-new their license
 
if Code speeds were increased to what they should be and I get called a
 troll.  Well eat **** and die.  I got a real Extra class license.  You
 nickle hams are really unfriendly assholes sometimes.
 
 Well, Slow Code, I'll give you a straight (and I hope friendly) answer
 to your question.  I'll then give you a straight (and I hope not-
 unfriendly) explanation as to why I believe people are calling you a
 troll.
 
 The first answer:  well, I think I'd certainly *try* to renew my
 license.  My CW is distinctly rusty - I use it only rarely, and I'm
 not sure I've ever managed to copy 13 WPM (let alone 20) well enough
 to pass the one-minute-error-free barrier, or be able to answer the
 necessary number of questions.  So, it'd take a bunch of listening and
 practice to reach that level.
 
 I'm not sure I have enough time free to do it.  I've got a busy life,
 work full-time plus a bit, and much of my ham-radio playing time goes
 into other areas of the service (I'm an ARES/RACES AEC for my city, a
 mutual-aid comms responder for the county, and I've put in a huge
 boatload of hours over the past couple of years helping redesign and
 rebuild and debug the local hospital's repeater system).  Getting
 really serious about doing high-speed CW would consume a lot of time,
 which would necessarily subtract from my ability to (e.g.) spend many
 hours of circuit analysis and modelling and experimentation to figure
 out why the fancy commercial repeaters we bought had such
 lousy-sounding audio (turns out the designer had mis-used the
 discriminator IC, forcing it to "clip" the signal internally, *and*
 had messed up the design of the de-emphasis network.)
 
 And, I have no assurance that I'd ever reach that level.  As several
 other people have commented, it's perfectly possible for people to
 work, hard and honestly, at copying CW for years, and never be able to
 reach the 13 WPM level.  I strongly suspect that to some extent,
 CW-copying is tied to certain sorts of neurological organization in
 the ear/brain system - some people may be born with more potential
 ability to handle high-speed CW than others.  Effort or no, some
 people seem unable to learn to copy CW at all, others can do so but
 never become very good at it, and *many* people report hitting the "13
 WPM wall" and never being able to copy reliably at rates much faster
 than that.
 
 Now, in your previous epistles on the subject, you and your nym-clone
 were advocating not only requiring testing for 13 WPM (General) and 20
 WPM (Extra), but also making the no-code license a one-year
 nonrenewable.  If that proposal were accepted, there's a strong
 possibility that I'd end up being kicked off of the air the next time
 my license came due... either because I was unable to push up to 13
 WPM no matter how hard I tried, or because I'd devoted my time to
 other aspects of ham radio and hadn't taken time to study-up.
 
 So - that's my answer.  I might end up being able to renew my license
 (although probably not at the 20 WPM level), I might fail the CW test,
 or I might just decide that the "old boy's club" had made it clear
 that they didn't want anybody other than rabid CW operators on the
 air, and decide to go do something else productive with my time.
 
 Now - that being said - let's address why you were being called a
 troll.  I think it's because it's quite clear to people reading these
 threads that you have a serious agenda, sir.  You've made several
 attempts (apparently under several posting IDs - some refer to these
 as "sock puppets") to drum up support for your CW Uber Alles rules
 change proposal.  You've scoffed at, or simply ignored, the many
 people who have pointed out that your proposed changes are 180 degrees
 out of phase with the international trends (i.e. the WARC rules), and
 with the FCC's publicly-stated feelings on the matter, and that your
 proposals are essentially equivalent to ones which have already been
 ruled out by the Powers That Be.
 
 In short, the "what if?" question you asked is entirely hypothetical.
 There's just no chance at all that the FCC would enact the sort of
 CW-centric licensing rules you have proposed.  Ain't gonna happen.
 Your asking questions about "well, if it _did_, what would you do" is
 probably part of why you're being called a troll.
 
 Numerous people have responded to you, expressing their opinions that
 your rules would decimate the ranks of amateur radio by forcing off of
 the air a large percentage of today's licensed operators.  Your
 "friendly question" seems to be intended to try to address that
 question, but you phrased your inquiry in somewhat-loaded terms, and
 in a way which almost guarantees that you won't receive an accurate
 and unbiased set of answers which actually represent the feelings and
 opinions of this newsgroup's readers.
 
 To sum it up, your way of presenting your agenda probably leads people
 to believe that you aren't serious about debating or discussing the
 issue... and that's probably another part of why you're being called a
 troll.
 
 I agree with you that the Amateur Radio Service (and hobby) benefits
 greatly from being hams to like to study, learn, advance their skills,
 and use what they know. That's one of the specific purposes of amateur
 radio here in the U.S., and I think it's great.
 
 I *disagree* with you that the ability to learn to copy CW at 13 - 20
 WPM is, or should be, the "litmus test" which decides whether a person
 is Worthy of being a ham.
 
 Your fixation on CW is, I think, actively interfering with your
 ability to support ham radio by promoting *all* aspects of technical
 and operational learning.  I believe that your attitude hurts ham
 radio more than it helps.
 
 That's my $0.05 worth, adjusted for inflation.  Take it for what it's
 worth for you.
 
 [and, I'm sorry to say, based on your past postings I don't really
 expect you to address the meat of what I've said.  I expect that
 you'll toss off a one- or two-liner, dismiss what I've written, and
 keep on as you have been.  I'd be pleasantly surprised to be wrong
 about this!]
 
 --
 Dave Platt                                    AE6EO
 Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
 I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
 boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!
 
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