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cl wrote:
"robert casey" wrote in message ink.net... The biggest problem with most is "laziness". Maybe you never will use it again. There are many things you learn in life and may never use again, unless you plan to play on Jeopardy. Many people learned the skeletal system in health class, microorganisms in Biology class. It doesn't mean they use it now. Probably forgot it as soon as they graduated. Guess that explains Creationism. They either forgot or just never did get biology class. And get upset when science contradicts a trivial off topic section of the Bible. But there is hope that some people will "get it" and be able to do something with it. Of course the school or FCC has to pick and choose what the kids should try to learn. Spending less time on European medieval kings and more on Vietnam would make sense, as modern governments are no longer kings sitting around in castles getting bored and deciding to have wars for the fun of it. Well, today kings are called "dictators" anyway. Now to bring this back to ham radio, is requiring code worth the time prospective hams would have to spend on it, or maybe more theory should be asked for today? I seriously doubt that the FCC would increase code speed for extras. The medical wavier issue would crop up again, and the FCC found that to be a PITA. Besides it would be hard for the FCC to tell old extras from newer extras as IIRC they didn't keep track of who was who as old extras came up for renewal. I'm not so sure "more" theory is the answer either. Used to be, you HAD to know electronics when you went for the exams. NO ONE told you what was on the exams. Then some lazy ******* got some political pull and they started to dumb down the theory and put "ALL" possible questions and answers in a book - for someone to read and recall. Almost all standardized testing is done that way these days. Actually I don't know of any that isn't That isn't teaching anyone - anything. Any idiot can learn that way, to the extent needed. It doesn't do anything to reinforce it in their heads as to what to do with it after. IF they make it more theory, then they'll just make the "idiot" books cover it, and again, you'll have a bunch of people who learned A, B, C or D, not the real meat and potatoes of Electronics. I have never been able to see the difference between reading a book that contains the answers to questions, and reading a question pool. Both are entered into my memory the same way. Did you know the answers are often scrambled, that is that the letter answer on the test is not the letter answer in the pool? I've seen them come away and not know what a fuse does or some of simplest of schematic symbols they "should" know. I've been in the field for a long time, and there are some things that slip me once in a while. Do you help these folks when they make a newbie mistake? Give me a break. Those books today teach them NOTHING. They're nothing more than the sugar coating of it all. Just enough to get by and HOPE they plan to pursue it further on their own, which MOST - DO NOT. Again, due to LAZINESS. Wow! I've got a copy of the "Now You're Talking" book. A person would have to work pretty hard do learn nothing from that. You're right about the History though, not to lay so much on the past, but work on current affairs. Past is good, but often TOO much time is spent on it. That stuff is building blocks to some extent, history does have a propensity to repeat itself, so you can't "ignore" it as a whole, but spending say a week learning about King Arthur just doesn't get it. I recall our teacher trying to drill **** in our heads about Genghis Khan (sp?). I could give a **** less what he did. What I DID come to ignore and have a need for later in life, was that stuff covered in Health class. I ended up using it a few years out of school. I wished then I had paid more attention to it. So, I had to "relearn" most of it. Some things DO have their uses. As to code, actually, it isn't so bad to know - really. Morse code is VERY good to know. Good enough that it should continue to be a part of the test. Think about it. You have sign language for deaf. IF you plan to talk to a person who is deaf, you better learn it real fast. If you plan to travel - you may need to learn some foreign language, even though most can speak English now. Code "can" have benefits. We had 9 miners trapped about a year ago. They communicated that there were nine, by 9 raps on the pole stuck in the ground. Had someone in the ground and above ground knew code, a more detailed description could have been issued. It could have helped. Before they got the elevator in to get them, they had no idea what "physical" shape the guys were in or any pending dangers under the ground. Maybe you won't use code again once learned, but at some point, it may save a life with the user's intervention. If you're in an auto accident, down in a gully, you have a radio. The mic is broken, so you can't talk. You could key the radio with a key or something and send a message. Hopefully someone knowing code would hear it and be able to let others know. There are many reasons people can give to "not" learn code, but there are just as many as to it's benefits. If it saves only one life, it is worth it. Yup, one of so many reasons that Morse code is a good thing. Hams are all about communication, and communications in all manner of situations. I love the latest technology, but that technology is sometimes fragile. Sometimes life and death, health and welfare might just come down to two skilled operators who can make an old communications method on primitive equipment sing its simple yet powerful song. - Mike KB3EIA - |
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