End of an Era: FCC to Drop Morse Testing for All Amateur License
Classes

NEWINGTON, CT, Dec 15, 2006 -- In an historic move, the FCC has acted
to drop the Morse code requirement for all Amateur Radio license
classes. The Commission today adopted, but hasn't yet released, the
long-awaited Report and Order (R&O) in WT Docket 05-235, the "Morse
code" proceeding. Also today, the FCC adopted an Order on
Reconsideration in WT Docket 04-140 -- the "omnibus" proceeding --
modifying the Amateur Radio rules in response to an ARRL request to
accommodate automatically controlled narrowband digital stations on 80
meters in the wake of rule changes that became effective today at
12:01 AM Eastern Time. The Commission said it will designate the 3585
to 3600 kHz frequency segment for such operations, although the
segment will remain available for CW, RTTY and data as it has been. In
a break from what's been the usual practice in Amateur Radio
proceedings, the FCC only issued a public notice at or about the close
of business today and not the actual Report & Order, so some details
-- including the effective dates of the two orders -- remain
uncertain. Currently, Amateur Radio applicants for General and higher
class licenses have to pass a 5 WPM Morse code test to operate on HF.
Today's R&O will eliminate that requirement all around.

"This change eliminates an unnecessary regulatory burden that may
discourage current Amateur Radio operators from advancing their skills
and participating more fully in the benefits of Amateur Radio," the
FCC said. The ARRL had asked the FCC to retain the 5 WPM for Amateur
Extra class applicants only. The FCC proposed earlier to drop the
requirement across the board, however, and it held to that decision in
today's R&O.

Perhaps more important, the FCC's action in WT Docket 05-235 appears
to put all Technician licensees on an equal footing: Once the R&O goes
into effect, holders of Technician class licenses will have equivalent
HF privileges, whether or not they've passed the 5 WPM Element 1 Morse
examination. The FCC said the R&O in the Morse code docket would
eliminate a disparity in the operating privileges for the Technician
and Technician Plus class licensees -- something the ARRL also has
asked the Commission to correct following the release of its July 2005
Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) in WT Docket 05-235.

"With today's elimination of the Morse code exam requirements, the FCC
concluded that the disparity between the operating privileges of
Technician class licensees and Technician Plus class licensees should
not be retained," the FCC said in its public notice. "Therefore, the
FCC, in today's action, afforded Technician and Technician Plus
licensees identical operating privileges."

Technician licensees without Element 1 credit (ie, Tech Plus
licensees) currently have operating privileges on all amateur
frequencies above 30 MHz. Tech Pluses or Technicians with Element 1
credit have limited HF privileges on 80, 40, 15 and 10 meters. Under
the Part 97 rules the Commission proposed last year in its NPRM in WT
Docket 05-235, current Technicians lacking Morse credit after the new
rules went into effect would have had to upgrade to General to earn
any HF privileges.

The wholesale elimination of a Morse code requirement for all license
classes ends a longstanding national and international regulatory
tradition in the requirements to gain access to Amateur Radio
frequencies below 30 MHz. The first no-code license in the US was the
Technician ticket, instituted in 1991. The question of whether or not
to drop the Morse requirement altogether has been the subject of
often-heated debate over the past several years, but the handwriting
has been on the wall -- especially since the FCC instituted an
across-the-board 5 WPM Morse requirement effective April 15, 2000, in
the most-recent major Amateur Radio licensing restructuring (WT Docket
98-143).

The FCC said today's R&O in WT Docket 05-235 comports with revisions
to the international Radio Regulations resulting from the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) World Radiocommunication
Conference 2003 (WRC-03). At that gathering, delegates agreed to
authorize each country to determine whether or not to require that
applicants demonstrate Morse code proficiency in order to qualify for
an Amateur Radio license with privileges on frequencies below 30 MHz.

The list of countries dropping the Morse requirement has been growing
steadily since WRC-03. A number of countries, including Canada, the UK
and several European nations, now no longer require applicants for an
Amateur Radio license to pass a Morse code test to gain HF operating
privileges. Following WRC-03, the FCC received several petitions for
rule making asking it to eliminate the Morse requirement in the US.

Typically, the effective date of an FCC Order is 30 days after it
appears in the Federal Register. If that's the case, the Morse
requirement and the revised 80-meter segment for automatically
controlled digital stations would likely not go into effect until late
January or early February 2007. That's not clear from the public
notice, however. The FCC can order its decision effective upon
release.

The ARRL will provide any additional information on these important
Part 97 rule revisions as it becomes available.

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/12/15/104/?nc=1

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_publi...C-269012A1.pdf