"Carl R. Stevenson" wrote in message ...
"N2EY" wrote in message
...
[triming down stuff that's been repeated in the thread]

To a certain extent. But the change had its downside, too. Ham radio used
to
get a lot of free publicity and recruitment in the form of SWLs hearing
hams on
AM. That pretty much ended with the switch to SSB. The number of new hams
slowed down (in part) because of that change.

So we need a new publicity mechanism ... I'd agree with that ...

Point is that there were downsides to the shift to SSB. From the end
of WW2 to 1963 (17 years) the number of US hams quadrupled. Then it
stopped dead and the numbers hung at about a quarter million for more
than 5 years in the '60s.

Oddly enough, growth started back up again when the incentive
licensing changes were enacted. Huh?

From plain RTTY to things like AMTOR, PACTOR, PSK31, etc.

Plain RTTY is still very much in use, thank you.

Yes, I know ... but that's a CHOICE, just as using CW or any other mode
is a choice.

AMTOR is pretty much dead, I am told.

Certainly not as popular as it once was, but I don't think it's entirely
"dead."

How many HF amateur AMTOR contacts have you or anyone you know made in
the past year?

Of course what really drove all that was PC/soundcard setups becoming
affordable.

Agreed ... multimode with a std SSB radio and PC ... cool stuff.

Sort of. But it's actually a patch job.

However,
still limited in some respects and we can do better with purpose-made
RF modems capable of more speed and other improvements.

"Purpose made RF modems"?? Why not call them data radios?

And I agree - a dig built specifically for data modes is the better
solution. Deal with the decoding right at the IF level, rather than
converting to audio and all that jazz.

But somebody's got to design and build the data radios. Who is going
to tie the bell on that cat?

One reason packet is stuck at 1200 baud all these years is because
going faster would require a purpose-built data radio. Ikensu isn't
going to do it unless there's a proven market, and the failure of 9600
to get much attention means they will wait some more.

It's up to the homebrewers to make it happen. But there are not many
of us homebrewers any more.

It wasn't lectures or laws that got hams to change, it was demonstrations
by other hams.

The point I'm trying to make is that there is a BIG difference between
wholesale abandonment of a mode (Spark - CW, AM - SSB)
or the outlawing of a mode (Spark) than there is in simply removing
the Morse test requirement.

Sure. Apples and oranges. So it's not a valid analogy.


Removing the Morse test requirement does not take away any operating
privs from anyone ... it does not disallow the choice to use Morse. It
simply removes a requirement that is extremely dissinteresting (and in some
cases difficult) for many people.

There's a BIG difference in the comparisons.

Sure. Apples and oranges. So it's not a valid analogy. Here's a better
comparison:

Was "incentive licensing" a mistake? It was very unpopular. Lots of
folks were against it. Said it would kill amateur radio. I remember
those times - they make this whole code-test thing look like afternoon
tea.

Nobody is proposing a regulatory change that will prohibit or in any way
restrict the USE of Morse ...

OH YES THEY ARE!!!!

Check this out from ARRL's coverage of the VEC gathering:

"Maia's proposal suggested upgrading all current Tech and Tech Plus
licensees
to General and allowing their use of all bands. Beginner licensees should
be
granted call signs from the NA-NZ#xxx call sign block, he said. Both Maia
and
Neustadter suggest ways to streamline the number of license classes. Maia
offered up the possibility of asking the FCC to eliminate the Morse
testing
requirement immediately, easing code exam format restrictions"

here it comes:

"and giving serious thought to dropping CW-only subbands as well."

The only CW-only subbands are on 6 and 2 meters. I don't think those are
the
subbands Freddy wants to drop. I think he means "CW/data subbands" - on
HF.

I think that Fred knows quite well that the only CW-only subbands are at
6m/2m.

Sure. And I think he means dropping the CW/data subbands on HF, not
those little pieces of 6 and 2.

Besides, that is ONE petition of a number that have been/will be filed.

Does NCVEC *ever* go against what Maia wants? Or are they his puppet?
Since NCVEC is not a representative organization, and is only involved
in testing, why are they getting into things like subbands?

While I will not divulge the detailed contents of the draft NCI petition
that is under Board review right now, I *will* guarantee you that it will NOT
propose any changes in band segmentation.

And that's a good thing.

all that's being asked for is to eliminate the
test requirement that even the FCC and the IARU admit are not in the
best interest of the future of ham radio.

That's what YOU propose. W5YI & Co. are already on the next page.

It's not fair to single out W5YI ... its the NCVECs ... including reps from
ARRL and all the other VECs ... one of whom used to be "top dog" in
amateur regulation at the FCC.

Does NCVEC *ever* go against what Maia wants? Or are they his puppet?

ARRL's rep did not vote at the NCVEC meeting on the "drop the code
test" petition. Current ARRL policy would have required that he vote
against, but since that policy is under review, the rep abstained. So
the NCVEC reports the petition "approved without opposition".

Nobody is being forced to do anything ... in fact, the
proposed/anticipated
change will STOP forcing folks to do something that many don't want to
do ...

So, the "None of these were forced on hams by regulatory change."
argument
doesn't hold water Jim.

Sure it does. The point being that none of the historic changes you cite
involved rules changes.

The elimination of spark did ...

No, it didn't. By the time it was outlawed, hams already had given it
up. The changeover went very fast, driven by the simple fact that a CW
station which cost X dollars would get much better results than a
spark station that cost X dollars. This also coincided with the moves
to the "short waves".

and my "None ... by regulatory change" was
meant to indicate that eliminating Morse testing will not force ANYTHING
on anyone by regulatory change.

OK.

Heck, you can buy a decent 2m transciever for $150 today
... something with performance, quality, reliability, and ergonomics
that the average ham couldn't duplicate for 3x that price when
buying parts in small quantities.

And it's a throwaway.

I would respectfully disagree ... the idea that "hams can't work
with SMT" is bogus ...

I agree!

the ARRL website has a lot of good info
on working with SMT ... and I've built a LOT of prototypes in
the lab by hand using SMT without special, expensive tools.
It just takes a different technique.

That's not what I'm talking about at all. My point is not about SMT,
it's about the fact that much of today's consumer electronics isn't
meant to be worked on. It's cheaper to just replace than to repair.
Lookit your PC - most of the "components" aren't resistors,
capacitors, transistors or ICs. The components in your PC are
subassemblies: drives and cards and premanufactured cables, power
supplies etc. A knowledgeable person can "build" a functioning PC from
a pile of "components" with just a screwdriver and good grounding
technique.

Does that mean I think homebrewing should roll over and die?
CERTAINLY NOT ...

But how will homebrewing survive? How many amateur radio HF or VHF
transceivers
have you designed and built, Carl? If it's not worth your time and effort,
how
can the rest of us be expected to do it?

Now that the WRC is over, my business travel schedule will be less
demanding (hard to work on home projects when you're away from
home for 5 weeks).

Sure. And that's life for most of us these days.

My first priority for the rest of the summer/early fall is to get up
at least one, preferably two, tower(s) and some better antennas
than what I have now for HF, plus a good set of VHF/UHF
antennas ...

Snow will be here soon. Hard to think about that in August, but it's
on the way.

Once that is done, or work stopped due to weather, I plan to
get down to brass tacks on designing/building some gear. It
will NOT be "conventional," but it will be designed to be amenable
to reduction to kit form for those who'd like to build their own.

It will be interesting to see what results.

the introduction of the no-code Tech license;

Which has not resulted in greatly increased longterm growth nor a
techno revolution.

If it weren't for the thousands of hams who have entered via the
no-code tech license, the ham population would be something
like 1/2 what it was in 1990 ...

You're saying that one of the reasons for dropping the code test is to
promote growth in the number of hams, and if we don't drop Element 1
we will have no growth. Thank you.

That presumes none of them would have gotten licensed if the rules hadn't
changed. That's not reasonable. You're saying that we'd be down to
~257,000 hams by now if not for the changes to the Tech.

I had intended to say 1/2 to 2/3 ... the 1/2 would be worst case ...

2/3 of 514,000 is 342,000. That's less than half of what we have now.
Sorry, those numbers don't add up.

Your prediction is based on the invalid assumption that if the Tech
had kept its code test we would have gotten no newcomers. Yet we had
almost exactly the same growth in the '90s as in the '80s.

We may soon see what the result of dropping Element 1 will be. I
predict we'll see an initial surge of new hams, then back to the same
slow growth as before.

Then where will the blame be placed?

73 de Jim, N2EY

WWHD