In article , "Dee D. Flint"
writes:

"Dwight Stewart" wrote in message
k.net...
"N2EY" wrote:
The removal of the Morse Code test from the Technician
class license has not resulted in a technical revolution in
amateur radio from newly-licensed "technically qualified"
amateurs. (snip)

I didn't know the Technician license was supposed to lead to a technical
revolution in anything, Jim. Instead, I thought they were just supposed to
participate in the same activities most other Amateur Radio operators are
participating in. Why the unique expectation for Technician license
holders
alone?

Those who pushed for the Tech no code license loudly and repeatedly claimed
that it would lead to a major influx of technically bright hams that would
lead to significant technical advances in ham radio since it was supposedly
code keeping them out.

Just who made such a statement in 1990 or before?

Well that influx of technical types didn't happen.

Over 200 thousand NO-CODE-TEST Technician licenses happened
since 1991.

You seem to be saying that every one of them "isn't technical."

Tsk, tsk...

Unfortunately, the Technician licensees following that change are saddled
with an expectation that they themselves did not create.

"Saddled" with what?

They shoulder the
burden of expectations created by those who would not have to fulfill them.

WHAT "burden of expectations?"

In the last four decades of US amateur radio the MAJOR TECHNOLOGICAL
ADVANCES in the state of the amateur radio technological art have been
made by COMMERCIAL people designing and making radios for amateur
radio.

The narrow bandpass filters that made SSB filter-method transceivers
possible used basic designs intended for commercial and military radio.
The Collins Radio mechanical filters were intended originally for landline-
microwave radio relay equipment.

The introduction of SSB to US amateur radio was made possible largely
by Collins Radio receiving a design-development contract from USAF for
the Strategic Air Command. That "proved" that single-channel SSB
transceivers were practical.

The frequency-control of amateur radio transceivers is due to adaptation
of commercial and military designs of PLL synthesizers and, later, to
designs of Direct Digital Synthesis sub-systems once microprocessors
were available and low enough in cost.

You are probably too young to have experienced the very COARSE and
sometimes inaccurate frequency control in transceivers of four decades
ago...and the "crystal calibrators" used to spot-check "bandspread"
and "main" tuning dials at 100 KHz increments...and when amateur
transmitters needed individual quartz crystals to insure stability on HF
bands.

The "TOR" in such RTTY/Data systems using PACTOR, AMTOR, etc.
means "Teleprinter Over Radio" and was developed primarily for
commercial users. The various "TORs" are the mainstay today of
maritime shipping communications.

The modern computer you are using in here does (or should) reach
throughput rates up to 56 KBPS in a band-limited space of just 3 KHz
bandwidth (the telephone line). That wasn't invented or innovated in
amateur radio by some morse code user.

Microprocessors and microcontrollers are at the heart of nearly EVERY
MF-HF-VHF-UHF amateur radio receiver/transmitter/transceiver. Those
can trace back to about 1973 and the first Intel microprocessor chip or
the competitors appearing shortly thereafter.

The in-line, on-line antenna bridge-detector to enable automatic tuning
known as the "Bruene Detector" came about from the T-192 transmitter
designed and built for a USMC contract by Collins Radio...in 1955. All
of the automatic antenna tuners of today can trace their ancestry directly
to that practical, working implementation of 48 years ago.

Single-channel FM transceivers at VHF and higher owe much to the
pioneering of Motorola done just prior to the US entry into World War 2.
Both AM and FM mobile radios were pioneered by various commercial
concerns and several metropolitan police departments just before WW2.

The fact that quartz crystal units became relatively cheap for amateur
purchasing just after WW2 was a result of the 2nd highest priority in
war production (behind the Manhattan Project) when the US total
production averaged a MILLION quartz crystals a MONTH. US military
contracts spurred the development of "artificial" (man-done) growth of
quartz crystal blanks which came about just after WW2.

What have been the "advances" for on-off morse codings? The electronic
keyer? An adaptation of already-known basic digital circuits to create
the controllable dot and dash times. More "sophisticated" keyers used
conventional keyboards and computer components and software to
enable writing to be transmitted by on-off keying methods. Hardly an
"advance in technology."

The brick-wall DSP filters touted by a few morsemen owes its existance
again to military efforts and development for SONAR...and later adaption
of that to telephony circuits and general communications.

Whether or not one believes in code testing, it highlights some of the
inherent flaws in the argument that code keeps technical types out of ham
radio.

Those who love the PAST, the "good old days," and the simplicity of
primitive technology of a century ago might be attracted to a radio
service requiring a demonstrated morse code test. Morse code was
first used in 1844, almost 160 years ago.

Ordinary mortals who have adapted to the new millenium are very well
acquainted with men traveling to the moon and those men being televised
live from a quarter million miles away walking on its surface. We are all
used to global communications satellites in-use for two decades, FAX
transmission of documents and images from the home (or a corner chain
store at a shopping center), color television for over three decades and,
for some, digital television with superb picture quality. Popular as well
as
classic music through CDs has already reached epic market heights and
the MPEG-based DVD has replaced the magnetic videotape. Anyone can
buy a pair of FRS handheld radios at consumer stores for less than $50,
absolutely no license required. Cordless phones are available now at
5 GHz carrier frequencies, something unheard-of or even expected three
decades ago. One in three Americans is a cellular telephone subscriber
and has the capability of dialing directly to any other direct dial
telephone
in the world from anywhere within a cell site's antenna reach.

Do you REALLY expect that morse code offers a "challenge" let alone
interest in emulating a century-past primitive radio communications
means?!? Incredible!

LHA