"Dan/W4NTI" w4nti@get rid of this mindspring.com wrote in
hlink.net:


"Alun Palmer" wrote in message
...
Dave Heil wrote in
:

Alun Palmer wrote:

"Bill Sohl" wrote in
hlink.net:


"Larry Roll K3LT" wrote in message
...
In article , Alun
Palmer writes:

EI is the 7th country to abolish code testing by my reckoning

Ireland: Beautiful country, lovely people, but the same
dumbed-down hams! Not to worry, I'm sure us Yanks won't be far
behind! 73 de Larry, K3LT

Newsflash! - Singapore has abolished the code test. Now there are
eight.

Wow! That's quite a policy statement from a country with a little
more than 120 radio amateurs and it comes hot on the heels of the
big move by Ireland with its slightly more than 1,500 hams.

Dave K8MN


I just did a quick recount, and 9V is the 9th country, not the 8th.
They are Switzerland, the UK, Belgium, Germany, Austria, the
Netherlands, Norway, Ireland and Singapore.

The funny thing is the only no-coder I have yet heard on HF was
PE1RMZ. I know that this is a Dutch no-code call from the time I
worked PE1DUP through a UK repeater. It takes time to get on HF I
suppose. I was surprised that no-one appeared to have been ready in
advance.

You can try to pretend that 9V and EI don't matter, but look at the
bigger picture. You know where this will all end, and a d*mn good
thing it is too. If it wasn't for the bl**dy code test I would have
been licenced and on HF at 14.

I was licensed at 14 for HF. Why couldn't you do it?

Because I had trouble learning the bl**dy code

You handicaped?

Only if you include difficulty learning CW

Or just lazy?

Yeah buddy I sure would wait around for decades, feeling sorry for
myself, and joining NCI......sheesh.


I eventually passed code in 1993, but if it weren't for the *@#%^&! code
test I could have had an HF licence in 1971.