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Feb 23 is the No-code date
From: "an old friend" on Fri, Jan 19 2007 10:42 pm
wrote: From: Mike Coslo on Fri, Jan 19 2007 4:27 pm I too am a sad to see Morse code testing go away, espcially from a historical view, but I fear that some of the superior attitudes, and sometimes outright misrepresentation put forward by some hams regarding how much better a vetting process the old old system was is going to be a greater threat to the ARS than any code test elimination ever was. I really can't understand WHY some "vetting" process was needed. A hobby is an avocation, NOT an occupation. Survival of amateur radio never did depend on "how well anyone sent code" nor was the country in danger if some sent it badly...neither was it more secure if some could send it "perfectly." realy Len as I understand It was ONCE vital to the ARS in 1908 certainly but somewhere betwen that date and 1950 that ended Yes, it very definitely ended - insofar as REALITY of the times is concerned. I can't speak with life experience about 1908 but, in 1950 I was a Junior in High School and had already fooled around with "radio" in various forms, some WW2 surplus conversions, some homebuilt. 1950 is 56 years ago. :-) By 1950 many things in "radio" had happened. The military networks had converted to teleprinter for the vast bulk of long-distance communications on HF during WW2 and, with US military now all over the globe, a definite "Cold War" needed quicker comms. The public had gotten a taste of "on the scene" radio in 1940 with Edward R. Murrow's broadcasts from London DURING the "Blitz." Television broadcasting was exploding in scope and availability of TV receivers all over the nation. The US Army had already proved the viability of using the moon as a reflector of radio waves ("Project Diana" in 1946). US Public Safety radio services were busy converting to VHF FM voice for police, fire departments, ambulances, state patrols. AT&T was busy with the first trials of long-distance microwave relay of television and hundreds of voice circuits on a single microwave link. Single-channel SSB had come into reality courtesy of the new Strategic Air Command's need for reliable long-distance voice communications for their bombers...a different version of multi-voice- channel "SSB" in worldwide use since the 1930s. Metallurgists and physicists were busy trying to produce a new gadget called a "transistor" in quantity, having to invent all sorts of things needed to make them economically feasible. The experimenters in crystal growth were beginning to be successful in making large, pure, man-made crystals of quartz and those methods would also be used in making germanium and silicon ultra-pure later. FM audio broadcasting was expanding under new regulations and a US realignment of allocations above 30 MHz. Standardization of FM stereo broad- casts was still being worked out and the NTSC was being called together again to work out color TV broadcasting standards; the "fight" between CBS and RCA methods had come to an impasse (industry didn't really like either one). Radar was, of course, already proven and was expanding in civilian applications. Raytheon, in some lab trials with old S-Band magnetrons, discovered that one could heat foods with controlled microwave energy and the first of the "Radaranges" had been born (they would - foolishly? - sell that concept and brand name to Amana). Civil airways communications were close to standardizing worldwide on the US military pioneering of VHF communications and radionavigation systems...already given a baptism of fire with the Berlin Blockade of 1948 and the intense Allied air cargo supply effort to keep that city alive. Air to ground radiotelemetry was already being used during tests of new aircraft and was being adapted for missle testing and guidance (using mostly captured German V2 rockets). The old IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) L-band transponder system for aircraft of later WW2 was being improved and standardization for civilian applications being done by a newly-re-formed ARINC. The USN was busy pioneering TACAN at L-band and was having success with that (especially for carrier-based aircraft); TACAN would eventually be adopted for the military and a civilian form, DME (Distance Measuring Equipment) was being tested. Civilian radio- navigation testing of VOR (Very high frequency Omnidirectional Range) was successful, an easy- to-use directional navigation aid that would work in small general aviation aircraft. The maritime world wasn't happy with LORAN so some other systems were being tried out such as DECCA. The USN would eventually prove out the prototype that would become GPSS for the whole world. Up-and-coming UK science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke (an engineer on RAF work with radar-assisted landing in WW2) had already written up a three-satellite worldwide radio communications relay system in Wireless World magazine and lots of folks were beginning to have deep thoughts about that...no worries about "MUF" or other HF propagation quirks since it wouldn't depend on ionospheric bounce. In 1950 the ARRL was busy promoting the glory and majesty of the "epitome" of radio communications, on-off keying CW as "vital" to maintain a "pool of trained radio operators" in the USA via ham radio. Oh, and a very few smart amateur radio hobbyists (who were also engineers and educators at their day jobs) were trying to explain SSB theory in the pages of QST. There was great resistance to this new-fangled SSB in the rank and file of amateur brass pounders then, and apparently there still is... :-) Okay, so it is 57 years later. What do we have in the world of "radio?" Communication satellites are busy working 24/7, their equatorial orbit spaces already FILLED, supplying us with speed-of-light comms over carriers of TV, voice, data, and the part of the international backbone of the Internet. Land-based microwave radio relay is being replaced by fiber optic cable handling digitized anything at GigaHertz rates...under the oceans too. One in three Americans now has a cell phone, a little two- way radio tied into the telephone system, something never really envisioned in 1950 despite the early "walkie-talkies." Cell phones can now contain digital cameras and little calculators, play hours of digitally-recorded sound. All of that enabled by the enormous technology explosion of the solid- state ear beginning about 1960. Digital TV is now a reality, both broadcast as well as cable. We have stereo FM broadcast, even multi-channel audio with "storecast." "Shortwave" broadcasters are transmitting digital audio on HF, something pooh- poohed as "impossible" by certain "radio experts." The old 500 KHz worldwide maritime emergency frequency is all but dead, replaced by Inmarsat- relayed GMDSS...a system conceived and approved by the maritime community. No more dramatic morse messages from stricken ships, now its a quick, almost-anyone-can-use-it data message that will be picked up worldwide. GPS is, of course, a proven reality and many different models of receivers can be purchased at consumer electronics stores. The aviation community is considering replacing the 1955-standardized-worldwide civil airways radionavigation with GPS, possibly a hybrid using microwaves for the approach guidance. RFID is now a reality, able to track everything at store portals and, with implants, animals and people. Private boat owners can add HF SSB to their harbor and inland VHF radio equipment, many models, even some made entirely in the USA (SGC in Puget Sound), no big "test" needed. Almost every long-distance truck operator has at least one CB radio on board and that has been so for decades. Police and fire department personnel can carry VHF or UHF two-way radios on their person for instant communications. In some police departments their VHF and UHF radios have two-way data transmission capability via "computer" terminal equipment in patrol cars. WLANs (Wireless Local Area Networks) have been a reality for a decade, used in large offices and businesses spread over a large area, even in factories (with all their inherent RFI from motors, etc.). Homes can be networked wirelessly. Cordless telephones, once operating solely on 49 MHz, have expanded to the 5 GHz ISM band (once a seeming impossibility a half century prior) and with security through on-line digital encryption. Anyone watching team sports on TV can see the ubiquitous Motorola logo on headsets of coaches, little wireless two-way radios that are similar to the $50 per pair FRS and GMRS handie-talkies sold in consumer electronics stores. The US military has highly secure digital radios (low VHF range up through mid-UHF, almost jam- proof) for small-unit land comms (voice and/or data) and in relay with air and sea support; they've had that since 1989. The military has long had the 225-400 MHz band for AM airborne voice comms and has peripheral equipment to adapt it for secure digital voice and data. Of course, the military has had precision GPS since 1980 (they pioneered and paid for it). NASA has radio equipment for tracking and receiving data (including imagery) from very distant space probes and, in the late 1960s, enabled us to see the first humans set foot on the moon in real time, audio and video. Radio even relayed real- time biometric data from astronauts on their way to and from the moon. US submarines still use VLF radio to communicate while submerged, all using encrypted data (not morse code)...very slow speed data but also very secure and automatically recorded at the ship. In early 2007 the FCC will finally END the "need" to test for morse code skill to get any amateur radio license. They did this despite the insistence of olde-tymers that one "HAD" to test for morse in order to "qualify" to enter the "service" of US amateur radio. I'm not sure where and what these olde-tymers imagine US ham radio is, but they just don't realize the entire rest of the radio world has long since dropped morse code as any requirement for communications. Amateur radio has always been a HOBBY, nothing more, nothing less. Morsemanship "vital" to the nation? No way. Morsemanship "necessary" for emergency work? No way. Morsemanship "needed to provide a pool of trained radio operator for national defence?" No way. Morsemanship "necessary" for government licensing purposes? No way, even back in 1990. Morsemanship an absolute must for ham radio? No, that was always a figment of the old morsemen's imagination, implanted there by ancient tales of emotional glory of the distant PAST. It is excellent that the FCC is finally getting around to modernizing the US amateur radio regulations. |
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