In article , "Carl R. Stevenson"
writes:

Back a few years ago, when the FCC issued its Report and Order
"restructuring" the ARS, the ONLY reason they gave for keeping
ANY Morse testing at that time was the requirement in S25.5 of
the ITU Radio Regs.

That was reaffirmed in their response to the Wormser-Adsit-Dinelli Petiton for
Reconsideration, too. I recall that the FCC said they thought code testing
"serves no regulatory purpose" other than meeting the treaty requirement.

Now that that is gone, all of the countries of the world are free to
drop Morse testing from their national rules.

The USA has to ratify the revised treaty first. Ink up the rubber stamps...

While I think it's a fairly good bet that the FCC WILL drop Morse
testing, frankly, I don't see the FCC acting on this in any sort of
"automatic"
or "self-initiated" way ...

Why not? They said the test is there for Reason X. Reason X no longer exists.
Bye-bye code test.

Of course there will be petitions all over the place just to make sure.

the status quo is 5 wpm for General and Extra.

Hard to see what all the fuss is about, really.

And, since there is currently no petition or open docket item at the FCC
proposing to make any such changes, letters and e-mails would, at this
point,
most likely be considered an unwarranted annoyance by the FCC staffers
who would have to deal with them.

The real problem is that FCC can't do anything about it until the treaty is
ratified anyway.

(and no matter what our respective
views on code/no-code, I don't think that ANY of us want the ARS
to be viewed as being a thorn in the FCC's side ...)

OK, fine. Then let's ALL not send any letters, emails, proposals or petitions
to the FCC about code testing from now on. We'll just wait until FCC initiates
something and asks for comments. Deal?

I remember a few years back when the ARRL got the amateur community
all fired up over "little LEOs trying to take the 2m band" ... the result
was
a firestorm of e-mails to the FCC that overloaded their servers and cause
them great difficulty in conducting normal business ... something that they
DEFINITELY did NOT appreciate!

So we should all just be quiet, huh?

I'm sure that the amateur community will get notice when this question
finally does come up at the FCC ... THAT will be the time to comment
(when they ASK for comments).

OK, fine. I promise not to bother FCC about the subject of code testing if
everyone else promises not to bother FCC about the subject of code testing.

Does everyone agree?

In the meantime, a major mail/e-mail
"blitz" on the FCC will almost certainly harm the standing of the ARS
as a whole at the FCC.

The thing to "blitz" the FCC about is Broadband over Power Line. They've only
got about 1800 comments - and we have over 685,000 hams.

Did anyone besides me comment to the FCC about it?

Or should I have kept quiet, so as not to annoy FCC? The way the NOI was
written, it seemed like BPL was the latest new golden technology. Sure seemed
like FCC liked it a lot.

73 de Jim, N2EY