"Clint" rattlehead@computronDOTnet wrote in message ...
many people that are in or supports the doctrines of PCTA keeps
spouting "basics", and draws an anology to either handwriting...
and I say this; does this mean you could NEVER write cursive
if you were never taught print? could you NOT be taught
cursive directly without first being taught print? No.

OK, fine.

But why should any sort of manual writing skill be mandatory in a
world full of keyboards?

However, it's simply another skill that can be taught, and they
do, and that's fine.

Why?

Why not teach keyboarding from Day One? Our children will spend far
more time at keyboards than writing.

However, they do not look at CW the
same way; it's pass/fail, not merely a percentage of test
that needs to be passed.

If it were up to me, there would be several written tests (or the
written would be split up into separately-graded parts) as well as a
code test.

Do you think they would support a system where you had
to be tested on CW, if an only if you wanted to use CW
on the CW part of the bands? Heh, of COURSE not.

There are no CW-only parts of the HF/MF bands. None at all.

That is where thier anology fails. The art of CW needs
to be tested with a practical test if you are to use and
learn CW, but not necissarily ham radio. I would have
supported a system like that, where if you wanted to
operate CW on the lower half of the band you had to
be tested on if first, but of course, that was out of the
question.

Your opinion noted. Others have a different opinion.

They do not, however, likewise, first test people
on knowing how to build a double sideband carrier
transmission if they want to operate AM; they do
not require you to show how to get a microphone,
talk on it, and recieve the response on a speaker
if you want to use frequency modulated radiotelephone,
or single sideband carrier suppressed radiotelephone.

Perhaps they should.

But they DO want to force CW on people that don't
necissarily have any interest in operating it. "basics"
arguments fail; "selftrained skill" fails because everything
is a selftrained skill, why put the emphasis on an outdated
mode instead of testing selftrained skills on new, modern
modes of communication?

Then answer this question: Why should people who are not interested in
building or fixing their radios have to learn all that theory stuff
for the written tests? Why are all hams tested on all sorts of stuff
they are not interested in?

When I first started out in ham radio, all I wanted to do was join the
folks I heard on 75 meter AM. Yet in order to get the license, I had
to learn not only Morse Code, but all sorts of theory and regulatory
stuff that had absolutely nothing to do with 75 meter AM.

Why was I forced to learn all that?

73 de Jim, N2EY