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July 20th 03, 03:39 PM

(N2EY) wrote in message ...
In article , "Phil Kane"
writes:

On Mon, 14 Jul 2003 22:38:20 GMT, Dee D. Flint wrote:

Actually the fact that other services don't use it very much is a strong
argument to require hams to learn it. This is the place to preserve the
skill in case of need and to prevent this capability from becoming a lost
art. Plus of course the fact that quite a few hams do use it.

The original reason for requiring CW/Morse proficiency of amateur
operators was to ensure that they would be able to read signals
directed at their station by government stations who came up on the
amateur's frequency to tell them to leave the air because they were
interfering with the governemnt (usually Navy) communications - WW-I
era stuff.

OK, fine.

Everything else was superfluous - the need for "trained operators"
for CW/Morse circuits went away after WW-II.

Then why did the Navy (at least) keep training them, and to high levels of
proficiency?

Civil aviation CW went
away right after that war, too. Marine CW persisted another 60
years or so, but amateur radio operators were never trained nor
recruited to be the "reserve force" for the merchant marine'd Radio
Officers.

But then why was the FCC so hot for more code testing in the 1960s? From the
1930s to the 1960s a ham could get full privs with a 13 wpm code test. Yes, the
Extra and its 20 wpm code test was reintroduced in 1951, but then FCC gave all
privs to Generals so nobody had to get an Extra for full privileges. And in
fact very few did - in 1967, at the dawn of incentive licensing, there were
maybe 4000 Extras out of about 250,000 US hams.

At one point (1965), FCC proposed four code tests - 5, 13, 16, and 20 wpm. When
the dust settled it took 20 per to get a full privileges. Why was FCC so hopped
up on code testing back then?

73 de Jim, N2EY

Jim, the FCC probably had some misguided ham employee pushing Morse.

Brian

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