On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 19:08:45 -0400, N2EY wrote:
Jon Bloom wrote in message
g...
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.

I disagree, Jon.

You refuse to accept that the survey wasn't intended to answer the
question you want answered.

Too much is left to the respondent's interpretation.

Too much for your purposes, yes.

A person can have a 'high level of interest' in Morse, yet rarely or
never operate, because of inactivity, equipment failure, etc. IOW a ham
who rarely or never operates at all must, by definition, rarely or never
operate Morse. A sizable percentage of those responding to the survey
were completely inactive on ANY mode, so they probably answered the
question "never".

And that's just one problem.

It's only a problem for you.

Does once a year count as "regularly"? Does one day a month CW and all
the rest 'phone constitute "rarely"?

That judgement is left up to the individual responding.

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.

As I understand it, the survey was trying to determine what position
ARRL should take WRT code testing at a WRC in the late 1990s (1997, I
think). So why do the questions beat about the bush so much? Why notjust
ask those surveyed what they think FCC should do, and how much they
operate CW?

Because it's not a plebiscite.

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.

2) The survey left itself wide open to all sorts of interpretations
because it was not well designed. The fact that the League payed a
professional does not mean they got a good survey.

The fact that the survey doesn't answer the questions you want answered
doesn't mean it's not a good survey, either.

But as you point out, nobody really knows what "operate" means in this
case.

Sure they do. It means to have QSOs using the mode.

To you. To everybody? Who knows?

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.

How many hams do you know do that?

I've known a few over the years. I guess these days most repeaters have
voice ID, though.

I don't know any. I do know lots of
hams who have 2-way QSOs on the amateur HF bands using CW, though.

Maybe a better example: If you just listen around the band are you
"operating?" I bet you would get less than complete consensus on that one.
If you listen a lot but rarely transmit, are you operating "regularly" or
"rarely"?

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.

Then why was that question in the 1996 survey?

I believe it was intended to provide background to the answers to the
other questions in the survey. Much of the usefulness of surveys comes
from crosstabbing of the results. The purpose of this survey was to sample
opinions on Morse testing, not to nail down the percentages of operating
time by mode. For the purposes of the survey, a simple indication of
activity, as gauged by the member's own characterization, was sufficient.
More would have been overkill and thus would have unneccesarily
complicated the survey, leading to lower response rates -- to no good
purpose.

If you listen to the HF/MF amateur bands, Morse/CW is second in
popularity only to SSB.

So if we already know that, what's the point of surveying -- to learn
something that we already know?

I strongly suggest that a well-constructed survey/poll of the entire
ARRL membership be conducted, and the results published in QST. Web
polls and small samples are not necessarily indicative of the views of
the membership. The last time such a survey was conducted was 1975. I
know, I responded to it.

My wife's first job was a part-time job at HQ opening the survey
responses. (She was four years old at the time, of course!)

The questions were extensive and the results published in QST. Why can't
this be done today? Make it a tear-out sheet in QST and have everyone
enter their member number to avoid dupes.

I have no idea whether that will happen -- it wouldn't if it were up to
me. I'd consider it a monumental waste of resources.

Whatever position ARRL takes on this issue will be very unpopular with a
large number of members and nonmembers alike, so it is important to be
able to back up that position with solid data. A valid survey of the
entire membership, backing up the ARRL position, can only serve to
improve ARRL's credibility with both the amateur community and FCC, and
increase support for the position chosen -- whatever it may be. Who
could fault ARRL for going with the majority opinion of its entire
membership?

All of those who disagree with the result, of course!

Too many amateurs, ARRL members or not, think that decisions are made in
"ivory tower isolation", and that their views are not considered
adequately when ARRL formulates a position.

Polls won't change that. Those who dislike the result will just claim the
poll questions were no good. (Oops!)

While such a survey will
not be free, it will be money well spent if the membership and amateur
radio community perceives that ARRL is truly responding to member
opinion and input.

There's a difference between taking people's views into account and taking
a direct vote. It's the difference between representative democracy and
direct democracy. (Say, were you a Perot voter by any chance?)

I don't quite understand why you think an all-inclusive vote should be
taken when you don't even think the voters are smart enough to decide
whether they operate CW "regularly" or "rarely"!

On the other hand, if you are willing to spend the money to do the
polling, please let us all know what results you get. If nothing else,
it'll make good fodder for rrap.

In fact, it may be advisable to survey every radio amateur in the US.
Such a survey might change the way the ARRL is viewed by nonmembers on
both sides of the issue.

People's minds are well made up on this issue, and nothing anyone does is
going to change that. Those who support Morse testing will be angry with
the ARRL if it comes out for elimination of the test no matter how that
decision was made. Those who favor elimination will be equally angry if
the ARRL supports continuation of testing. And those of us who think far
too much energy has already been wasted on this subject will groan yet
again if ARRL spends any more substantial resources on it.

Here are some suggested questions for the survey:
[snip]
That will all fit on one side of one sheet of paper. Return address on
the back. Fold it over, put a stamp on and send it in.

And then we hire the mail crew to open and the data-entry crew to enter
the responses from a half million 14-question survey responses. This is
your idea of money well spent?

Why not?

In my opinion, because it's a waste of resources -- time and money -- that
would be better devoted to tackling the problems Amateur Radio faces that
are important -- a list that does not, in my mind, include anything to do
with Morse testing.

Jon