Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse...
 

ARRL comes up with a new idea.

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2004/01/19/1/?nc=1

No code Techs get free upgrade to General.

Newbies get 100W on HF phone via 25 multiple-guess test.

CW (5 WPM) only required for Extra Class.

CW/data sub bands shrink.

Still too hard? Hey, just wait another year. They'll make it even easier.

Art Harris, N2AH
Extra Class since 1971

Harris wrote in news:cLXOb.5393
:

ARRL comes up with a new idea.

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2004/01/19/1/?nc=1

No code Techs get free upgrade to General.

Newbies get 100W on HF phone via 25 multiple-guess test.

CW (5 WPM) only required for Extra Class.

CW/data sub bands shrink.

Still too hard? Hey, just wait another year. They'll make it even easier.

Art Harris, N2AH
Extra Class since 1971


Sounds awful. Luckily, I think the FCC will just abolish Element 1, tidy up
a few loose ends, and leave it at that. Not a perfect licence system, but
better than the league's version.

On 19 Jan 2004 21:17:49 GMT, Alun wrote:

Harris wrote in news:cLXOb.5393
:

ARRL comes up with a new idea.

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2004/01/19/1/?nc=1

No code Techs get free upgrade to General.

Newbies get 100W on HF phone via 25 multiple-guess test.

CW (5 WPM) only required for Extra Class.

CW/data sub bands shrink.

Still too hard? Hey, just wait another year. They'll make it even easier.

Art Harris, N2AH
Extra Class since 1971


Sounds awful. Luckily, I think the FCC will just abolish Element 1, tidy up
a few loose ends, and leave it at that. Not a perfect licence system, but
better than the league's version.

That makes more sense to me, Alun - I don't see why the ARRL would
propose moving almost 400,000 people to a higher licence class just
because the ITU made morse code testing optional.

73, Leo

ARRL comes up with a new idea.

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2004/01/19/1/?nc=1

No code Techs get free upgrade to General.

Newbies get 100W on HF phone via 25 multiple-guess test.

CW (5 WPM) only required for Extra Class.

CW/data sub bands shrink.

Still too hard? Hey, just wait another year. They'll make it even easier.

Art Harris, N2AH
Extra Class since 1971

What did you expect, the ARRL could care less

"WA8ULX" wrote in message
...
ARRL comes up with a new idea.

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2004/01/19/1/?nc=1

No code Techs get free upgrade to General.

Newbies get 100W on HF phone via 25 multiple-guess test.

CW (5 WPM) only required for Extra Class.

CW/data sub bands shrink.

Still too hard? Hey, just wait another year. They'll make it even easier.

Art Harris, N2AH
Extra Class since 1971

What did you expect, the ARRL could care less

I am starting to believe you now Bruce.

Dan/W4NTI

I am starting to believe you now Bruce.

Dan/W4NTI


Dan its what I have been saying all along. I cant see how anyone in there right
mind could say the ARRL is trying to help Ham Radio.

In article ,
(WA8ULX) writes:


I am starting to believe you now Bruce.

Dan/W4NTI


Dan its what I have been saying all along. I cant see how anyone in there
right
mind could say the ARRL is trying to help Ham Radio.

Dan/Bruce:

The ARRL is obviously trying to help itself with their new proposal. I'm
convinced that it is their belief that the new proposal serves two critical
objectives:

1.) It gives away enough operating privileges to the know-nothing, do-nothing,
lazy, no-coder whiners to make them happy,

and, by keeping the 5 WPM code test for Extra,

2.) It hopefully won't offend the likes of the withered, feeble, FISTS-member
geezers who are daily trashing the CW subbands with their numbers games
and their sloppy, indecipherable sending with mal-adjusted bugs.

Don't expect the "Gang of Fifteen" to be very willing to listen to any of the
membership for adjustments to the proposal, particularly the notion of
increasing the Extra-class code speed to 12, 13, or 20 WPM.

73 de Larry, K3LT

Don't expect the "Gang of Fifteen" to be very willing to listen to any of the
membership for adjustments to the proposal, particularly the notion of
increasing the Extra-class code speed to 12, 13, or 20 WPM.

73 de Larry, K3LT

I dont expect anything from them, except more Dumbing Down

What really amazes me is you folks don't know what the real test is for
getting on HF!!!! You have to do it!!! That means really figuring out how
to put up the appropriate antenna, tuning it, tuning and running your rig
properly, ect. You can get all the answers correct on today's exam and
still fail in the real world.

In fact, there have been "hams" here locally that tried for over a year to
"get out" and learned more in that process than they ever learned by
memorizing today's exam questions.

I submit that these IMPROVEMENTS recommended by the ARRL are a good start
and will have more people LEARNING how to get on HF. A GOOD thing. The
bands are FAR less busy than they were 30 years ago. Unless we get more
people into this great hobby, it's gone...

And to really improve HF operations on ham radio...we must get rid of the
archaic mode divisions on each band. I would like to see us have the same
privileges as the rest of the world's amateurs enjoy....or are we not good
enough???

73,
Chuck...K1KW

Leo wrote:

That makes more sense to me, Alun - I don't see why the ARRL would
propose moving almost 400,000 people to a higher licence class just
because the ITU made morse code testing optional.

You can thank BPL for that. If we can't lick them on the
egress issue, we'll add multi-hundred-thousands of HF ops
to provide a plethora of additional ingress points and let
the BPL system ops assess their network reliability from that.

I don't think we'll be hearing any protests over this proposal
from Yaecomwood either.

Jim, K7JEB
Glendale, AZ