"Kim" wrote in message ...
"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
...
Kim wrote:

Dan, I can understand your exasperation with people who choose not to
learn
CW or decide that they don't like it. However, that is as far as the
understanding goes. It seems impossible to me that you can't understand
that people know what they do, or don't, like.

Kim,

Have you *ever* had the experience of "having to" try something you
thought you wouldn't like, and finding out you really enjoyed it?

Do you know anyone who has had such an experience?

We all have to learn things that we may not like all that much. I had
to sit and learn classes in school that I found boring to distraction.

I think there's a difference between what we "must" learn in school for a
real degree vs. what we must know to operate as a licensed amateur. I don't
need an amateur license to "get by" in life. I do need my High School
Diploma, or better, to get by.

That reasoning works to support Mike's argument. If a high school
diploma is a practical necessity, why should it require ANY
non-essentials? Those nonessentials could be considered arbitrary,
capricious, irrelevant, discriminatory, hazing, etc. OTOH, since a ham
license is not a necessity, it can require all sorts of stuff that
some would say is nonessential.

For instance, I happen to absolutely know I would not enjoy jumping out
of
an airplane to parachute. I've never tried it, no. But I don't intend
to
because "it's just not me."

But if you wanted to parachute out of planes, you would indeed have to
jump out of a plane. I know that sounds redundant or maybe redumbdant,
but it helps prove my point. You aren't that interested in that sort of
hobby, so you don't do it. It is strange that so many people have a
problem with my basic premise: that people who aren't willing to learn
the requirements are not all that interested in the ARS. In this case,
the requirement is the Morse test.

Not really a good analogy, because in order to parachute you have to
jump out of, or off of, something.

I don't have a problem with the CW requirement for an amateur ticket on its
face. However, if its primary purpose is that of "filtering" people from
the hobby, as many attitudes seem to demonstrate, then I am all about
getting the requirement outta here.

I think what really bothers some folks about the code test is the fact
that it acts as a "Great Equalizer". Very few prospective hams already
know the code, which means that, when starting out to get a license,
the Ph.D. in EE is placed on the same playing field as the elementary
school kid. It can't be learned (by most people) by reading a book or
watching a video, or picked up in bits and pieces here and there.
Guessing doesn't help you pass it.

Also, once you learn it, the code is extremely useful in amateur
radio. Particularly HF/MF amateur radio.

I do not believe that a knowledge of CW
makes one any better a ham than any other.

I think it does. Maybe not the test itself alone, but the USE of the
mode. It's a useful skill for hams to have. That doesn't mean it MUST
be tested, however.

I also don't believe, as you
mention later in this post, that one's interest level is important to this
hobby.

So, why is it so difficult for you to understand that people can and do
make
the decision that the CW part of this hobby is something they are not
interested in? Are you saying that there is nothing you would not try
to
see if you liked it or not? You don't know yourself well enough?

If a person does not want to take the Morse test, that is their right
and privilege. They won't get the HF ticket however.

At least not right now, eh?

You got a date in The Pool yet? (see the thread by that name)

If they are interested in the ARS, but do not learn Morse because they
don't like it, they are not as interested as someone who does make the
effort.

But, who dictates that "interest" is a necessity for this hobby/avocation?

The FCC, among others. If someone is interested in the ARS, but does
not bother to get a license because they don't like taking (written)
tests or studying for same, then they are not as interested as someone
who does make the effort.

I don't care about someone's interest level. There are, what Jim/N2EY(?),
650,000+ amateurs in this country alone.

686,802 as of yesterday. ;-)

But how many of them are active?

Of them, there are numbers of
every kind of thinking and interest level, right? I don't care about
someone's "interest." I care that once they are a licensed amateur they
conduct themselves within the parameters of the FCC's R&R.

OK, fine - now how do we assure that? Look at the enforcement actions
by FCC - hams of all license classes being cited for doing dumb
things. Each and every one of them had to pass a written test - in
most cases, several written tests. Yet they break the rules, and in
most cases the violations are not technical things like a misadjusted
or broken rig. Instead, most of the violations I read about today are
"operating" violations - jamming, cussing, failure to ID, operation
outside of one's license privileges, etc. Really basic stuff that was
covered at the Novice level.

Yet almost all of that stuff happens using voice modes, rather than CW
or data modes. There must be reasons for the enormous disparity in
behavior.

That is all that is required.

So how do we get it?

73 de Jim, N2EY