RadioBanter - View Single Post - If you had to use CW to save someone's life, would that person die?

Al Klein

On 23 Jul 2006 07:26:05 -0700, wrote:

Al Klein wrote:

By taking the test you're claiming that you understand the questions
and know the answers.

By releasing the Question Pools, the FCC is claiming that you must
memorize the answers.

Must? Where's the "must"? Or do you mean "If you aren't intelligent
enough, or motivated enough, to learn a little, the only way to get a
license is to memorize the answers."

No one is claiming any such thing.

By memorizing the answers you're not learning
enough to understand the questions.

But I wouldn't expect you to understand what "honesty" means.

Why not?

Because he's already admitted that he's dishonest.

how balanced is to to place CW over all over ham knowledge?

No one is, any more than by requiring people to know the law one is
putting the law "over all ham knowledge".

CW is pass/fail. To fail CW denies all HF privs (except for Alaska).

Theory is also pass/fail. To fail to get the required number of
correct answers denies all privs - HF, VHF, UHF ...

How progressive is it?

How progressive is it to not require people to know ... oh, yeah,
that's progressive, since the new thing is to hand out licenses
because people have some kind of "right" to get on the air.

Then why is it with the prospect of losing the CW Exam, that you'se
guys want to "beef up" the written exams?

We don't. We want to get back the level it used to be before it was
dumbed down to the point that you could almost pass it if you never
heard of the FCC, ham radio or electronics. Just by guessing at the
answers. It used to require that you draw (was it 3?) schematics.
From scratch. Let's see how many people could do that today. A
Colpitts oscillator, a Hartley oscillator and some other circuit that
I've forgotten at the moment. They're still as relevant today as they
were 50 years ago.

how loyal is it to denny the nation the benifits of allowing more
operators

What "benefits" does the country get from more people using radios who
don't know the first thing about them? (Whatever "denny" means.)

It's always been that way. You could even buy Heathkits already
assembled.

But you had to actually *know* a little theory to use one legally.
Today all you need is the time to take the test and the money for the
test and the equipment. IOW, a CB "license" with a tiny bit of
annoyance up front. How does CB benefit the country?

You don't acquire knowledge (which is what's needed) by playing with a
radio.

Then the military has wasted billions of dollars over the years
"training" radio operators.

I trained operators when I was in the military. We didn't do it by
giving recruits radios and telling them to go jam each other.

how patriotic is it to keep a staion forom aquiing the skill to be
ready for service to conutry and community?

How does playing CB on the ham bands give one "the skill to be
ready for service to conutry and community"?

Who knows? That's not what Mark is talking about, is it?

That's exactly what he's talking about. Give someone a radio and a
"license" to use it and he'll "acquire the skill to be ready for
service to country and community". That's what Mark said, right up
above. How does one acquire skill by playing radio?

Or any skill, other than
getting what you want? You don't acquire skill by doing something
that requires no skill.

So it really is all about CW. Why have a written Exam at all?

You don't acquire technical skill by doing something that doesn't
require technical skill. You don't acquire operating skill by doing
something that requires no operating skill. And you don't acquire
skill in CW by cursing into a mike.

But that's what Mark and his ilk want - we'll have "skilled operators"
if we allow people to buy radios and put them on the air with no skill
or knowledge. By osmosis? Or by magic?

And you, particularly, don't acquire
knowledge by demanding something for nothing.

The requirements for an amateur radio license have been all over the
map over the history of the service. The ORIGINAL amateur radio
license had no Morse Code Exam, even when Morse Code was the only means
of communicating.

So you'd get a license not knowing CW, build a radio (you couldn't buy
one then) and ... what? Sit and look at it. Some things are just too
obvious to need mentioning.

Get over it. Everyone else is moving on.

Evidently not, or I'd be the only one in the world advocating that a
test should actually test for something. There are actually millions
of us who don't think lack of instant gratification is the worst thing
in the world.

What next? DXCC awards for those who *want* to work 100 countries?