On Fri, 1 Aug 2003, Alun Palmer wrote:
...
Others have pointed out that rule 301(e) was written that way to avoid
creating any new 'Tech+' licencees, but it looks as if invoking the
international rules created a sunset clause, whether intentionally or
otherwise.

AH! Someone who is now on the verge of understanding what that "wierd" thing I
said was. IT was a "sunset clause" and the change to S25.5 was the "sunset."

I don't really see how that throws anything into chaos. Right now no-
coders who operate on the Novice/Tech HF allocations can't readily be
detected for lack of any central records to prove that they are actually
no-coders. If the changes to s25.5 affect 97.301(e) so as to make it
permissible, then from the FCC perspective it makes an enforcement problem
go away!

It doesn't make it permissible. What it did is REVOKE the authority for those
Novices/Techs to operate on HF at all. The problem STILL GOES AWAY because NO
ONE has the privilege. The FCC doesn't have to worry about who's has a
Technician Plus legacy license, a renewed Technician (with code credit), or a
Technician with code credit in hand (that they don't know about) - it doesn't
matter; Technicians (and Novices) don't have any HF privileges anymore. "The
sun has set."

[This also explains why Tech Plussers received Technician licenses upon
renewal. The license class, and now its privilege, has been disposed of in a
very seripticious, systemic manner.]

Using the argument that Morse code testing has been abolished is quite
simply *wrong*.

No-one is saying it has been abolished for the General or the Extra