On Mon, 21 Jul 2003 19:41:11 -0400, N2EY wrote:
In article ,
(Geoffrey S. Mendelson) writes:

In article , Mike Coslo wrote:

This cannot be, for no one wants to take anything away from Morse
code
users.

Why not, 8 years ago, the Arrl did a survey.

That's pretty close - 1996

They asked amateurs who had
passed a morse code exam if they EVER used morse code.

No, you are mistaken. On several counts.

They asked 1100 US hams, chosen at random. Of these, 100 were Novices
and 200 each Techs, Tech Pluses, Generals, Advanceds and Extras. So they
asked hams who had not taken a code test as well as hams who had.

The question was "How much do you operate Morse code?" and there were
only three possible answers: "Regularly", "Rarely" and "Never". No
definitions of what those terms mean, no questions on other modes, etc.
(After all, a ham who is not on the air at all never uses Morse code on
the air).

Two out of three
responded "no". I.e. 2/3's of the hams surveyed NEVER used morse code.

Wrong again!

35% answered "Never"
37% answered "Rarely"
27% answered "Regularly"
1% did not answer.

It is obvious that the question is so flawed as to be meaningless. For
example, how much Morse operation is "regular"?

It's only flawed for the purposes you're trying to put it to. Its original
purpose was to gauge the level of interest based on use of Morse. For that
purpose, it doesn't matter whether the respondent's use of Morse fits your
definition of "regularly" -- or mine -- it matters only whether it fits
the respondent's definition.

Most of the cavilling about survey questions comes from misunderstanding
the question's purpose and misuse of the results to try to "prove" things
that the survey wasn't addressing. If you want to sample opinion on a
topic, hire a reputable research firm to formulate and conduct a survey
that will elicit the facts you want. Trying to hammer an existing survey
into something that it wasn't designed to be is almost certain to lead to
skewed conclusions.

Note that the question doesn't specify HF operation, or ask if the ham
is active at all, if he/she is equipped for HF operation, etc. etc.

Of course in those days they spun it as "1 out 3 sometimes uses morse
code".

Wrong again!

64% (37+27) sometimes use Morse code, according to that survey. That's a
fact, not spin.

But as you point out, nobody really knows what "operate" means in this
case. For example, if a person's entire use of Morse code is to copy
repeater IDs, which they do by laboriously copying down the dots and
dashes and then looking up the letters in a table, is that "operation" of
Morse? The survey doesn't say.

So if it came to a vote you'd have a hard time keeping things as they
are.

Maybe.

Try this "survey": Actually listen to the CW/digital subbands and see
how much activity there really is. Try 40 meters below 7050 some
evening.

That's a much better way to get a feel for the true level of interest.
Signals on the air are a much better measure of what's popular in ham
radio than any survey results or any amount of Usenet bloviating.

Jon