In article et,
Joseph Fenn wrote:

If what you say is true then why would the BBC bcst that sample of
CQ CQ CQ in cw and then announce that cw is no longer avilable
to US hams ????

Either the BBC was wrong (very wrong), or you misinterpreted what the
BBC said. Nobody has forbidden US hams to use CW.

You can find out the facts by surfing to any of a number of Web sites,
the "WWW.ARRL.ORG" site being the most obvious first choice, I think.

Take a look at the following band-plan chart, updated only two weeks
ago:

http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/reg...ands_color.pdf

You'll see that CW is an authorized mode for U.S. hams in *every*
portion of *every* ham band, except for the USB-only 60-meter band.

Or, download the following:

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_publi...C-06-178A1.pdf

which is the actual text of the FCC Report and Order.

Here's the situation as I understand it:

[1] In 2003, the WRC conference declared that member countries would
no longer be required by treaty to insist that hams be proficient
in Morse Code in order to transmit on frequencies below 30 MHz.
It would be up to each individual country government to decide
whether or not to require code proficiency.

[2] Quite a few countries quickly adopted rules changes, so that their
own hams could have HF privileges without having to prove that they
can use CW. In fact, Great Britain (home of the BBC) dropped the
CW requirement some time ago.

[3] After a great deal of discussion, the FCC has decided to follow
suit. In a month or two from now (probably), the rules change
will go into effect, and it'll be possible for US hams to
upgrade to General or Extra without having to pass a Morse Code
proficiency test.

[4] Nothing in the FCC rulings forbids the use of CW. Period.

[5] There are still many CW contacts, contests, and nets taking
place between US hams. CW remains one of the best available
modes for making contact under weak-signal conditions, and
is probably _the_ best such mode when you don't have computer
assistance available.

Now, there was a different FCC rules change recently... one
which was announced a few months ago, and actually took effect
back on the 16th of this month. This "omnibus" change made a
change in the band-plans for several of the HF bands. It had
the effect of increasing the portion of several HF bands in
which phone traffic can be carried, and reducing the portions of
those bands which is *reserved* for CW and other narrow-bandwidth
modes.

However, it's still legal to for US amateurs to use CW in the "phone"
portions of the band, although most refrain from doing so except under
emergency and other exceptional circumstances.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
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