"Dwight Stewart" wrote in message
news

Actually, once code testing is gone, the pro-testing crowd is not going
to
have much to say.

Do you honestly think so? I disagree.... at least for a stretch of time,
anyway.
It IS human nature, depending on each man's capacity and staying power,
that is, outright fortitude, to eventually back off when they see that they
have
lost or are paddling up stream... and the time this takes, as I said,
depends
on the nature of each person's character... So, in the long run, I agree
with you;
they'll drop off in staggered two's and three's and dozens.. but for a while
it'll be pretty nasty and, quite frankly, since the issue will be over I
wouldn't see
much point in continueing to debate them. You only think they're getting
vicious and nasty NOW, just wait until they find thier security blanket has
been taken from them in the name of "grow up, you're not a child anymore".

Sadly, the pro-coders don't even seem to realize that all this is their
own doing - their own behavior is responsible for their declining numbers
(and perhaps, to some extent, even the removal of code testing). After
talking to some of the pro-coders in this newsgroup, very few new
operators
are exactly inspired to continue talking to them (on the CW frequencies or
elsewhere). By driving new operators away, they have insured their own
decreasing numbers. And those decreasing numbers have seriously undermined
support for code testing.

And on that point i'll agree with you totally, 100%. Within this newsgroup,
as you
said, they not only do NOT inspire any sort of good will feeling or give
forth
the same warm fuzzy glow feeling that the new hams found or thought to have
found when they entered the community. One even posted "i'm appalled",
saying
he/she felt that what was SUPPOSE to have been a community of "friendly and
cooperative hams" had quite it's fair share of conflicting personalities and
ideology. It's very sad. If the old gaurd hasn't understood or seen by now
that
the mentality of "you're a child and stupid, you need to do what we say"
(and,
in so many words, this is exactly what the collective thinking of the PCTA
has
been) isn't going to attract new hams, then they also don't realize the
fundamental
error that is resident within them, and that is THIS... a continued agenda
such
that they uphold will do far more to destroy ham radio than any change in
testing requirements OR indirect problems (such as the current BPL
controversy)
will EVER do. If you don't believe me, just look at grey haired old white
men's
clubs and what is happening to them, the ones that ARE left that is.

I have tried my darndest do continue to post, for the benifit of the
undecideds
and the new hams that don't quite know where thier ideological compass
points
to in this hobby yet that the problem isn't the mode of operation itself. I
have
even stated that my first many QSL cards were covering contacts made in
CW. The newbies and undecides see now that the problem resides in the
PCTA, for the PCTA will not argue the true debate but attempt to spin
and twist it into something different... like many who support an erroneous
idea, they attemp at ever turn in the road to turn the argument on it's
axis and aim the very people instead of the issue. My honest feeling,
due to my personal beliefs about human beings and thier psychology,
is that the newbies will react (and have been doing so) toward this in a
negative way (as far as the PCTA crowd's interests) and, in so many
bloated but passionate words I have repeated just what you have.

The PCTA have themselves to blame.

My $.02 worth

Clint
KB5ZHT

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