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July 13th 03, 02:35 PM

(N2EY) wrote in message ...
In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

(N2EY) wrote in message
...

What will be very interesting to see is what effect complete elimination of
code testing has on the number of new hams and the overall growth of the
ARS.
More than three years ago, the 13 and 20 wpm code tests, and the medical
waivers, were dumped by FCC. Result was growth of about 11,000 hams - and a
lot of already-licensed hams got upgrades. Sure doesn't seem like there
werea lot of people being kept out by the 13 and 20 wpm code tests.

And of that 11,000 how many do you 'spose are engineers who wouldn't
have become hams unless the code test was dropped to 5 wpm?

Damfino.

And of
those, how many of these newly minted ham engineers will ever make any
"contribution to the service"?

Some will, some won't.

I know a couple of engineer-ham who have made great contributions. One of them
is W1RFI. Just for starters, he and other ARRL HQ. folks put together that 121
page commentary on BPL.

I don't mean contributions in the sense of Ed's work on the BPL
comments package. One of the rationales proffered over and over again
by the NCI types for deleting the code tests has been that
eliminatinating the code tests will bring flocks of engineers into the
hobby who would then come up with technical contributions, "advance
the state of the art" etc. Maybe I missed it but I don't know of any
such "event" since 1991 when engineers could become hams without a
code test.

Visit the FCC ECFS system and see who actually filed comments on 03-104 (BPL).
Particularly among the regulars here on rrap. I did, KB3EIA did...anybody else?

Of course Reply Comments are still open.

btw - I'm an engineer, and none of the tests were a deterrent for me.

73 de Jim, N2EY

w3rv