"Carl R. Stevenson" wrote in message ...
"Ryan, KC8PMX" wrote in message
...
Now let's look at that phrase "pool of trained radio operators" Dee. The
vagueness of that can create some issues, such as what type of training???

To clarify any "vagueness" that may exist in some folks' minds ...

******
From the FCC's Report and Order in WT Docket No. 98-143:

(at para. 30)
"We are persuaded that because the amateur service is fundamentally a
technical service,
the emphasis on Morse code proficiency as a licensing requirement does not
comport with
the basis and purpose of the service. We note, moreover, that the design of
modern
communications systems, including personal communication services,
satellite, fiber optic,
and high definition television systems, are based on digital communication
technologies.
We also note that no communication system has been designed in many years
that depends
on hand-keyed telegraphy or the ability to receive messages in Morse code by
ear. In
contrast, modern communication systems are designed to be automated systems.
Given the
changes that have occurred in communications in the last fifty years, we
believe that reducing
the emphasis on telegraphy proficiency as a licensing requirement will allow
the amateur service
to, as it has in the past, attract technically inclined persons,
particularly the youth of our country,
and encourage them to learn and to prepare themselves in the areas where the
United States
needs expertise."

(and at para. 31)
"
We also find unconvincing the argument that telegraphy proficiency is one
way to keep amateur

radio operators ready to be of service in an emergency. In this regard, we
note that most

emergency communication today is performed using either voice, data, or
video modes. We

also note that most amateur radio operators who choose to provide emergency
communication

do so, according to the amateur radio press, using voice or digital modes of
communication, in

part, because information can be exchanged much faster using these other
modes of

communication. Further, we note that in traditional emergency services,
such as police, fire,

and rescue, there is no requirement that emergency service personnel hold
amateur radio licenses

or any other license that requires telegraphy proficiency. We conclude,
therefore, that telegraphy

proficiency is not a significant factor in determining an individual's
ability to provide or be prepared

to provide emergency communications."

******

So, you can see, in the FCC's own words, in their view, the "trained pool of
operators"
thing has essentially nothing to do with Morse, but, rather, with technical
and operating
skills in the modes that are PREDOMINANTLY used in comtemporary emergency
communications.

Being able to handle message traffic, would be an extremely important
detail
in training IMHO.

Much message traffic is handled via voice or digital modes ... those that
still
pass NTS traffic (or emergency traffic, for that matter) in CW almost
invariably
do so as a matter of personal preference, NOT out of necessity.

How many people can formulate a formal messagegram??
Even though I am one of those low-life codefree techs, I still can.

So can I ... but I have found that in real-world emergency communications
there is little demand for formal radiograms ...

Carl - wk3c

Carl,

I'm going to do something that you some might not expect me to do,
agree. I think that in the frenzy to defend CW testing, some have
tried many different angles. Not that these angles aren't correct wrt
CW itself, just not the retention of CW testing. This is where the use
of the FCC to defend the dropping of CW testing becomes almost
silly...because to be quite honest, the FCC really doesn't care all
that much about the ARS anyway and ANYTHING that'll ease the
administration over the same is more than welcome. So saying "we don't
have to do our homework because daddy says so" doesn't mean that the
homework is unimportant, it means that daddy doesn't care.

Sadly, many have lost sight of what this was really all about. Element
1 (Domestically, that is.) Rather than investing some time and effort
to satisfy a very basic requirement that is an extremely important
part of AR tradition, many chose to cry to daddy that their homework
was too hard and presented a "barrier" to their pursuits. Daddy will
be more than happy to oblige, for now he won't have to check the
homework. So let the rejoicing begin, but to a newcomer who came into
the fray unbiased...it appears to be one big celebration of
underachievement.

73 de Bert
WA2SI

Dave Heil wrote in message ...
Brian wrote:

Radio Amateur KC2HMZ wrote in message

...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.

John, though 6M is worth mentioning, it isn't HF and these guys don't
care. Its all about using fast CW on HF (to them). Brian

How do you manage to be wrong so often, Brian? I worked about forty
Europeans on 6m this past week. About half of those QSOs were made on
CW. About half of the CW QSOs were made using relatively slow speeds.
Those contacts were not made using Aurora. Had they been, all of the
QSOs would have been made using slow CW.

Were any of them French?

N2EY wrote:
"Carl R. Stevenson" wrote in message ...

"N2EY" wrote in message
...

In article , "Carl R. Stevenson"

there is nothing "magical" about Morse
and the insistence on using "wetware" instead of software to do the
decoding is an anomaly of ham radio.

And you say you're not against the use of the mode, just the test, Carl?

;-)

That's correct... I am NOT against the use of the mode.


Maybe. But the way you write about the mode makes me wonder. For
example, when you call those who use the mode "beepers" and other
disparaging names, a different image is projected by you.


Just pointing
out the fact that there are better modulation/coding techniques than OOK
Morse ...


Ah, see, there you go. "Better modulation/coding techniques than OOK
Morse", with no qualifiers as to how they are "better".

It's like saying that French is a "better" language than English, or
that football is a "better" sport than baseball. Many English speakers
and baseball fans are going to see such things as put-downs. Even if
you don't mean them to be.


that does NOT mean that I mind/care/object to others CHOOSING
to use OOK Morse ...


Yet you wrote:

"there is nothing "magical" about Morse and the insistence on using
"wetware" instead of software to do the decoding is an anomaly of ham
radio."

and

"This "do it the hard way, rather than the smart way" approach to
things
that is held by so many hams leads to stagation, backwardness, etc."

and

"can be done, with proper modulation and coding"

"How ridiculous!!!!!!!"

All in reference to some other hams' choice of Morse for EME work. On
frequencies for which there hasn't been a Morse test for over a dozen
years.


DON'T rely on cobbling together a Morse rig

from scraps and running it from a generator powered by a hamster
running

on a wheel.


only that I am disseminating some facts that the more
"hard-core" Morse enthusiasts don't like disseminated because they fly in
the face of the "Morse Myths" (like "Morse will get through were nothing
else will.")


There you go again. I'm about as hard-core a Morse enthusiast as you
will ever come across, yet have you ever seen me write "Morse will get
through were nothing else will" ? I don't think so.

What you may have seen me write is something like is "Sometimes Morse
will get through when nothing else available will" or "Sometimes Morse
will get through when analog voice modes won't" and other true
statements.


This "do it the hard way, rather than the smart way" approach to things
that is held by so many hams leads to stagation, backwardness, etc.

And you say you're not against the use of the mode, just the test, Carl?

;-)

See above ...


Yes. When you describe someone's choise of mode as "the hard way" and
"ridiculous!!!!!", it becomes difficult to accept that you don't
"mind/care/object to others CHOOSING to use OOK Morse ..."

For example, EME can be done, with proper modulation and coding
with much less power/antenna gain than with OOK Morse ...

Have you actually DONE it, Carl? Not just a paper design - an actual
station, and actual QSOs?

No, I personally haven't ... yet ... I've been working on other things. But
the fact that *I* haven't personally done it yet doesn't mean it's not
factual.


Yet you ridicule those who do it other ways. You say it can be done
"better", but you haven't done it, which doesn't do much for your
credibility among other hams, nor convince them of the rightness of
your methods.

The way to make your point is NOT to put down the "traditionalists",
but to lead the way by actually doing what you say is possible.
Imagine two stations with 100 watts output and single Yagis
conducting reliable EME. Imagine EME WAS between such stations.
Imagine articles in QST, QEX and other ham publications describing how
it's done and what great fun it is.

It's the difference between a positive attitude and a negative one.


(I am not so hung up on myself that "my way" and "what I've done" are the
ONLY ways that things can/should be done.)


Sure you are, Carl. For example, you insist that the only correct way
for the future of amateur radio is without any form of code testing,
regardless of what the majority wants. That's insisting on "your way".

As far as "what you've done", it's important to realize that most
people aren't going to want to spend their time and money doing
something the way you suggest
when you haven't done it yourself, *and* you call the way they do it
"ridiculous!!!!!".

Why does it bother you if some unnamed folks don't see things your way? If
you can do "better", go ahead.

What "bothers me" is that some folks deny the fact that there ARE better
ways than OOK Morse (apparently in an attempt to bolster their "real ham"
and "everyone MUST know Morse" viewpoints)


That's because your statement is too general. You don't define what
you mean by "better" in any way. And you don't seem to accept that
Morse is better in some ways, while other modes are better in other
ways.

If you can do "better", go ahead. Define how your way is "better",
then go do it. Otherwise it sounds like "don't do what I do, do what I
say"...

That's how things change in amateur radio - somebody actually goes out
and does
it, and shows the way.

Build and publicize a system that will let hams work EME inexpensively
with
small antennas, low power and easily-duplicated equipment/software.
Pretty soon
those unnamed "traditionalists" will be completely outnumbered.

Do it, write it up and submit it to QST, QEX, CQ, Worldradio,
etc. They will love it. Look at the amount of ink PSK-31 has gotten.

But somebody (G3PLX) had to actually make it work, first. Did he go
around saying Morse and Baudot and ASCII RTTY were "ridiculous"? I
don't think so.

73 de Jim, N2EY

Well done post Jim!

Carl, like it or not, your intense dislike of Morse code stands out
like a sore thumb, obvious to me and others.

Which is why, your protestations to the contrary, I believe you wish at
the *very* least, the complete marginalization of Morse code use.


- Mike KB3EIA -

Alun Palmer wrote:
"Carl R. Stevenson" wrote in
:


"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
...

Bill Sohl wrote:


Assuming your hypothetical...
IF the non-phone segment is being underused, then
the CW users will likly lose bandwidth. BUT, if the non-phone
segment is just as crowded with users, then there's
no valid argument for phone expansion. The burden will be on the
users of non-phone modes.


And right there you have it!

- Mike KB3EIA -


Mike,

Don't read Bill's comments above as "NCI Policy" or "NCI Goals/Agenda"
... that's
simply not the case.

Bill's just stating the obvious. (And since what CW fans refer to as
"the CW
bands" are actually the "non-SSB/phone, CW/narrowband digital modes
bands," the occupancy thereof that Bill refers to need not be solely
CW users, but users
of other digital modes as well.

Collectively, they (CW and digital users) need to "use it or lose it"
in a long-term,
practical sense (even ARRL says "use it or lose it" ... see Dave
Sumner's recent
column on the new channels near 5 MHz). That, I am sure, is what Bill
meant when he said "The burden will be on the users of non-phone
modes."

HOWEVER, phone band expansion is NOT an NCI agenda ... the ARRL has,
though, asked the FCC in the past to expand the phone bands by
"refarming" the Novice bands ... and, if the FCC were to see that
roughly half of our HF bands were grossly underutilized, they might, of
their own volition, decide to
do some "refarming" in the form of phone band expansion.

As I have said over and over, I would NOT favor/support phone band
expansion at the expense of the CW/digital portions of the bands.

Carl - wk3c



I would, though, but I have no connection with NCI

Bringing the phone subbands in line with other countries in Region 2 would
be sufficient

HAR! Funny I should come across this post immediately after telling
Carl that the whole thing isn't just about him.

There ya go!

- mike KB3EIA -

Dan/W4NTI wrote:


Not so in Alabama....we talk with a slur and a drawl. Something you Texans
can't quite get...you know with all that blue coat activity during the war
for Southern independence...hi.


Har! Reminds me of when I worked in the field for a cable tv mfgr. The
cable construction guy I worked with was from Talladega. When we met, we
spent most of our time wondering just what the hell the other guy said.

Deep, deep south drawl and whatever they speak in the middle of
Pennsylvania is a deadly combination, especially when after a summer of
12 hour days working with each other, we started to sound alike.

- Mike KB3EIA -

Dee D. Flint wrote:
"Radio Amateur KC2HMZ" wrote in message
...

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

[snip] 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



Copernicus still thought the earth was the center of the universe and he
came up with an elaborate mathematical system to explain the apparent motion
of the planets in the sky including the "retrograde" motion.

It was Galileo who showed that the earth was not the center when he spotted
the moons of Jupiter and determined that they orbited that body and not the
Earth.

And paid dearly for it! Amazing it was only a few years ago the church
admitted error...


- Mike KB3EIA -

"Bert Craig" wrote in message
om...

Carl,

I'm going to do something that you some might not expect me to do,
agree. I think that in the frenzy to defend CW testing, some have
tried many different angles. Not that these angles aren't correct wrt
CW itself, just not the retention of CW testing. This is where the use
of the FCC to defend the dropping of CW testing becomes almost
silly...because to be quite honest, the FCC really doesn't care all
that much about the ARS anyway and ANYTHING that'll ease the
administration over the same is more than welcome. So saying "we don't
have to do our homework because daddy says so" doesn't mean that the
homework is unimportant, it means that daddy doesn't care.

I don't agree with the analogy ... the FCC *does* care about the
Amateur Radio Service ... they just don't belive that requiring Morse
tests serves any legitimate regulatory purpose any more (other than
complying with requirements in the ITU Radio Regs that require(d)
Morse tests for folks whose licenses granted privs in the bands
below 30 MHz ... a requirement that has ceased to exist as of
July 05, 2003 ...) (Read the quotes from their R&O again ... it's
quite clear.)

Sadly, many have lost sight of what this was really all about. Element
1 (Domestically, that is.) Rather than investing some time and effort
to satisfy a very basic requirement that is an extremely important
part of AR tradition,

"Some time and effort" can vary widely across the spectrum of
individuals ... for some it can be easy, for others it's nearly impossible.
Just as some folks can't "carry a tune in a bucket" with respect to
singing ability, Morse involves a "mode-specific aptitude" that folks
possess (or don't) in widely varying degrees.

I really wish that folks would stop trying to lean on "tradition" ...
maintaining "tradition" is NOT a legitimate regulatory goal that
should drive the requirements for licensing, plain and simple.

As to how "important" Morse is ... YMMV ... to some it is
the "be all and end all" of ham radio ... to others it is of no
importance whatsoever ... from the FCC's decisions, it's
clear that, while there was a time when Morse was important,
that time ended long ago and the FCC no longer views Morse
as important in terms of licensing requirements.

Those who believe that Morse testing should remain a requirement
forever will, for the most part, probably never change their minds,
but they are increasingly becoming a minority. Furthermore, their
view, based more on "tradition" and "emotional attachment" thereto,
is not relevant in terms of what the license requirements should
reasonably be.

Carl - wk3c

Brian wrote:
Alun Palmer wrote in message . ..


Bringing the phone subbands in line with other countries in Region 2 would
be sufficient


Can't we all just get along?

Quiet Rodney! ;^)

- Mike KB3EIA -

"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
...

Carl, like it or not, your intense dislike of Morse code stands out
like a sore thumb, obvious to me and others.

Which is why, your protestations to the contrary, I believe you wish at
the *very* least, the complete marginalization of Morse code use.


- Mike KB3EIA -


Mike ... yes, I don't personally like Morse ... however, once again,
I have NO PROBLEM with those that DO, as long as they desist
from attempting to force it on everyone else and denigrating those
who don't like Morse and resist having it forced on them.

Honest ...

Carl - wk3c

"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
...

There are many ways to get rid of something you don't like.

First, (over and over again) we have said, quite honestly, that
we have no goal of eliminating the ability of hams to choose
voluntarily to use Morse, nor to restrict that ability. ALL that
we object to in terms of regulation is the REQUIREMENT
that everyone pass a Morse test to get a license with privs
in the 160-10m bands. (Yes, we object to those who insult
and denigrate those who agree with us, but that's a social
issue, not a regulatory one ...)

I see this a similar to blocking off the inlet to a lake, and watching
the fish die as it dries up.

This is a poor analogy ... you guys are really big on poor analogies.

Unlike blocking the inlet to a lake (preventing the inflow of water),
removing the Morse test requirement does NOT preclude ANYONE
who WANTS to from learning and using Morse.

Since Morse does take some effort to learn, there is no doubt that
less people will take the effort. There will most likely not be enough
new beepers to replace the old ones.

It's up to "the old beepers" to recruit new ones ... THAT is NOT a
legitimate government regulatory function.

As I said, I have no problem with folks using Morse ... but it's no
more my job than the government's to be YOUR recruiting force.
If you want "new beepers," YOU recruit them from those who
are willing ... but that would require some effort on your part,
wouldn't it? It's "easier" for you if the government forces folks
to learn Morse to get an HF license ... then you don't have to
"recruit on the merits," just skim off the ones who decide they
like Morse.

So which group REALLY is unwilling to put forth effort to achieve
a goal ... those who have no desire/intention of using Morse (using
Morse is, after all, not THEIR goal), or those who want a continuing
supply of Morse users, but aren't willing to put forth the effort to gain
"recruits" by working for it, rather than relying on a government life
support system to provide (at least some number of) "recruits" ?????

Next time you talk about folks "putting forth effort to achieve
a goal" think about that one. Maintaining a population of Morse
users is/seems to be YOUR goal ... it's not my job, nor the FCC's.

Do your own recruiting work! (and if you're unwilling, don't complain)

HOWEVER, phone band expansion is NOT an NCI agenda ... the ARRL has,
though, asked the FCC in the past to expand the phone bands by
"refarming"
the Novice bands ... and, if the FCC were to see that roughly half of
our HF
bands were grossly underutilized, they might, of their own volition,
decide
to
do some "refarming" in the form of phone band expansion.

As I have said over and over, I would NOT favor/support phone band
expansion
at the expense of the CW/digital portions of the bands.

But it isn't all about *you*

Then bitch about it to the folks who you think DO favor phone band expansion
and leave me (and NCI) out of that one ... it's not our agenda.

Carl - wk3c