Ryan, KC8PMX wrote:
2. Most public safety professionals (by which I mean law enforcement,
fire supression, EMS, and SAR personnel) know precisely this about the
radios they use on the job: Either it works or it doesn't. Either the
city cops can talk directly to the county sheriffs or they can't.
Change to a different radio? Sure...just get a new radio...see item
number (1) above for the problem with that.


Hmmm.... but if there ever was any career paths that the possibility of
needing to communicate in a non-voice manner those professions just may
be..... If a firefighter gets trapped in a building or cop has some type of
situation where he may not be able to speak or something, he may be able to
tap code out on the speaker.

So you recommend that all firefighters and policemen be required
to learn code for that one in 10 million incidences where this
might happen?

In article , Mike Coslo
writes:

So these hams look at the bandplans: "Wow! just look at 80 meters. Fully
half the bandplan is dedicated to stuff other than SSB! It's unfair that
they should have all that bandwidth." And a bandwidth grab begins......
Doesn't matter that there are still CW users out there. "And heck, they
are always bragging about how little bandwidth they use, so only give
them a minimum abount if anything."

Awwwww...sore losers? :-)

Once upon a time in hamland there was only SPARK...with a very very
few rich folks owning alternators. Nearly all were on MF and LF. Hams
said they were Mighty and all were Morsemen.

"Tubes" were for sissies with money. Bzzzp...bzzzp...bzzzp.

Along came nasty ol gubmint and said "Everyone on wavelengths
SHORTER than 200 meters!" Oh! The grousing and the grumbling
and curses and imprecations against gubmint! Bzzzp...bzzzp...bzzzp.

Then nasty ol gubmint said "SPARK is forbidden! No more SPARK!"
More curses, more grumbling, more imprecations! End of the world.
All those hams had to learn all about TUBES! Woe!

ADAPT or DIE. Get the picture?

LHA

In article , "Bill Sohl"
writes:

Strange that there are many things people do which are
long past relative to modern needs (archery, old cars,
etc.) without any testing needed to continue interest
in and to bring newcomers to the interest. IF morse
dies without testing then that's a sad commentary on
"how great it is" as promoted by PCTAs in this newsgroup.

Minor point, Bill...If morse dies without testing then that's a
sad commentary on HOW GREAT THE PCTAS ARE!"

:-)

LHA

In article m, "Dee D. Flint"
writes:

Actually the fact that other services don't use it very much is a strong
argument to require hams to learn it.

Idiocy.

This is the place to preserve the
skill in case of need and to prevent this capability from becoming a lost
art.

OK, so you want to keep the US ARS a living museum of morse.

Few do.

Are you an anthropologist?

Plus of course the fact that quite a few hams do use it.

OK, that means you want a welfare program to keep things the way
YOU want it.

Shrug.

LHA

On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 00:08:16 -0400, "Ryan, KC8PMX"
wrote:


2. Most public safety professionals (by which I mean law enforcement,
fire supression, EMS, and SAR personnel) know precisely this about the
radios they use on the job: Either it works or it doesn't. Either the
city cops can talk directly to the county sheriffs or they can't.
Change to a different radio? Sure...just get a new radio...see item
number (1) above for the problem with that.

Hmmm.... but if there ever was any career paths that the possibility of
needing to communicate in a non-voice manner those professions just may
be..... If a firefighter gets trapped in a building or cop has some type of
situation where he may not be able to speak or something, he may be able to
tap code out on the speaker.

Perhaps, but it wouldn't be all that likely that anyone hearing it
would recognize it as an attempt to communicate, let alone copy the
message...chances are the fire dispatcher isn't required to learn
Morse in order to qualify for the job.

Fortunately, there are other ways to accomplish the same task, that
being to alert other firefihters to the plight of the trapped
personnel. The fire department in Buffalo, NY equips members of its
interior teams with portable radios that have a "man down" button on
them. When said button is pressed (which isn't hard to do, it happens
very often by accident) it activates an alarm on the MDTs in the rigs.
The drill then is that all other comms stop at once and a headcount is
performed. It doesn't even have to be the MDT on the rig he or she is
assigned to - any MDT in range will initiate the alarm. Other
departments probably use that technology as well, I merely am aware of
this one since I live relatively near Buffalo.

73 DE John, KC2HMZ

On 14 Jul 2003 07:33:29 GMT, ospam (Larry Roll K3LT)
wrote:

In article , Radio Amateur KC2HMZ
writes:

So be it. In any case, the coming generation of New Age, Dumbed-Down,
No-Coder hams

That statement just convinced a few thousand people to try CW on its
own merits...NOT!

John:

No, it just gave them another in an already lengthy list of excuses to
be lazy and not give it a try. They could care less about what I think of
them -- or, should I say, if they were motivated to learn a useful
communications skill, nothing I say could stop them from trying.

aren't likely to seeking any kudos from me on their CW
skills.

They are, however, likely to seek refuge from your insulting rhetoric.

Oh, you mean the truth.

That remains to be seen. The next generation of hams hasn't joined our
ranks yet. However, if you're truly concerned about getting said hams
to try CW so as to preserve its status as a viable means of
communication in the ARS, you might consider wording your message in a
less offensive manner. That way you might actually reach someone with
your message. As it is, you virtually guarantee a negative reaction to
your words. You'll never convince anybody that way.

I would hope that any who learned the code and became proficient
with it's use on-the-air, would do so for their own personal gratification
and
to add that skill to their overall capability as a radio amateur.

I hope so too, Larry, because with your apparent attitude towards
fellow hams, they sure as heck aren't going to be leqarning it so they
can put your call in the logbook.

Or for any other reason.

Faced with the possibility of an uphill battle to preserve the
viability of CW in the ARS, you're surrendering and conceding defeat
even before the first shot has been fired?

Don't
worry -- our expectations of you are small.

Why don't you quit beating around the bush and just ask her whether or
not size really matters?

Because I couldn't care less about what Kim thinks about "size," or
anything else, for that matter. All she is interested in is defending her
lack of motivation to learn a useful communications skill like the
Morse code.

Which she shouldn't need to defend in the first place. It's a free
country, and she's in it.

73 DE John, KC2HMZ

On 14 Jul 2003 07:33:28 GMT, ospam (Larry Roll K3LT)
wrote:

In article , Radio Amateur KC2HMZ
writes:


You are not a
CW operator, so you are not even qualified to judge any "proof" offered.

You are not a cow, Larry, therefore you are not even qualified to
judge whether McDonald's or Wendy's makes better cheeseburgers.

There's an even better reason than that, John -- I don't eat cheeseburgers!

OK, roast beef sandwiches, then.

Those of us who are proficient CW operators with adequate on-the-air
experience have certainly had this fact proven to them to their
satisfaction,

Hitler had the collective guilt of Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, and
homosexuals proven to his satisfaction, too.

I see. I am now being compared to Hitler because I believe in code
testing. Typical NCTA argument -- and the kind of rhetoric that got me
started in this debate about 13 years ago.

My intention was to point out that Hitler was wrong, even though he
was thoroughly convinced he was correct. No other comparison was
intended. In retrospect, however, given the negative connotation folks
generally attach to the mention of Hitler (entirely deserved given his
contributions to human history), perhaps the choice of analogy was a
poor one. Lemme try again: At one point in history, humanity's most
learned scholars had it proven to their satisfaction that the Earth
was the center of the universe. That is, until Copernicus came along.

73 DE John, KC2HMZ

On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 21:29:12 -0500, "Kim W5TIT"
wrote:

Won't do him any good. Kim's married/taken and quite happy with her
mate, thank you very much.


GRIN. Yep 14 years now. Uh, well, those reasons to begin with, anyway.
The really number one reason is that I'm not that desperate for a man if it
means Larry Roll... ;)

Now it's my turn to say ROTFLMAO.

73 DE John, KC2HMZ

On 14 Jul 2003 07:33:25 GMT, ospam (Larry Roll K3LT)
wrote:

In article , "Dee D. Flint"
writes:

Elimination of the code requirement may actually cause a loss in the ham
ranks, if not in numbers at least in activity. The elimination will
probably coincide with the early part of the bottom of the current sunspot
cycle. People will upgrade and quite a few will be so disappointed at the
poor activity that they will become quite inactive on HF and this
disappointment could spill over and affect their activity on VHF/UHF.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

A very cogent observation, Dee. The irony is, at the low side of a
solar cycle, when the geomagnetic activity subsides along with the
solar flux, the use of CW permits communication even though there
isn't good enough propagation to pursue reliable SSB operation.
Therefore, the one thing that could keep them active on-the-air --
knowledge of the Morse code, won't be within their capability because
they had no incentive to learn it.

I think it's worth mentioning here that the solar flares that cause
the geomagnetic storms that degrade HF propagation also trigger a
significant increase in auroral activity in the higher latitudes. This
provides an opportunity for ops on six meters. I've observed the
phenomenon before. Your're in New York. You point your beam north and
you start hearing somebody in Florida. You figure you're hearing him
off the back of the beam and turn it south to bring up the signal,
only to have it disappear.

Much of this activity happens on CW. Voice signals get distorted a lot
due to the effects of all the ionization in the aurora itself.

73 DE John, KC2HMZ