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Old September 7th 08, 02:03 AM posted to rec.radio.amateur.homebrew
[email protected] N2EY@AOL.COM is offline
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First recorded activity by RadioBanter: Jul 2006
Posts: 877
Default Heterodyne conversion crystals

On Sep 6, 7:38�pm, raypsi wrote:

They want everyone dumbed down so they can be
controlled,
that's why they did away with code, nobody will ever know it ever
existed in 5 years time.


They didn't do away with Morse Code. They did away with the test for
it. It was done a little at a time over the past 30 years.

My personal theory on why it was eliminated is this:

Since the early 1980s, the FCC has been required to do more and more
stuff with less and less resources. So they have constantly sought out
ways to reduce their workload, particularly for radio services that
don't bring in $$, like ham radio.

That's why they turned over the job of amateur license testing to the
QPC and VECs back in 1983 or so. Instead of paid FCC employees making
up and conducting amateur license tests, unpaid volunteers do almost
all the work. It's also why they doubled the license term to 10 years
about that same time - reduces the number of renewals by half.

Reducing the number of license classes reduces the number of tests and
the number of upgrade applications to process. In the old days when
there were six license classes, a ham who went from Novice or Tech to
Extra could upgrade as many as four times. Now there are only two
steps.

Eliminating the Morse Code test means one less license test. Less
work.

But even though the last remnants of the Morse Code test were removed
back in February 2007, there are still plenty of hams using it on the
air. This past Field Day, for example, the group I went with had one
Morse Code station and three voice stations, all similarly equipped.
There were three Morse Code operators and far more voice ops, yet the
Morse Code station made more QSOs than all the voice stations
combined. This wasn't a surprise, either.

73 de Jim, N2EY