Len Anderson wrote:

In article , John Kasupski
writes:

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 19:39:23 GMT, Dave Heil
wrote:

Wow! Talk about speculation! How about it, lurking, never-posting
readers of r.r.a.p? Let us know if you support the self-appointed
advocate for morse code test removal of the group. Tell us if you
believe his method is effective. Let us hear if you have been swayed by
his posts.

Hello John. :-)

The heavenly fodder wishes to both troll and make nasty to another
in his "asking of questions."


When you ask questions, is it trolling or "making nasty"? You've
already admitted to deliberately "making nasty", haven't you?

I'm polling, not trolling.

To take the three questions in order...

1. Yes, I support the contention that the code test should be removed.

I say Good on You!

2. No, I do not believe that his method is effective. However, I also
basically believe that no other method would be any more effective
than his, which is one of the reasons why I'm mainly a lurker here and
rarely post.

"Effective," e-schmective...

Da heavenly fodder hasn't come close to being effective in doing
anything but reinforcing his image of the prussian offizier busy
mouthing the party line of the Church of St. Hiram.

He said that he didn't believe your method was effective, Len.

3. No, I have not been swayed by his posts. In fact, I already
believed it was time to do away with code testing back in the
mid-1970's, which was twenty years before I ever discovered this
newsgroup and its various inhabitants.

The same for me but a bit earlier....like two decades before.

Back when I volunteered for U.S. Army duty, I really believed
that "radio expertise" required morsemanship skills. Lucking
out in being assigned to a large Army HF communications
station - and finding out they did NOT use a bit of morse code
anywhere on HF - I learned better. [that was in the 1950s]

Perhaps an oddity, the OIC (Officer in Charge) of ADA trans-
mitters, Capt. William Boss (apt surname) was a ham and the
maintenance NCOIC had both radiotelephone and radiotelegraph
commercial operator licenses in addition to an amateur radio
license.

Oh, yes, such "isn't about ham radio, is it" as some say,
especially those who have never served their country in the
military or, if they did, never did any REAL communications
duty at a large HF station. [the Angle of Dearth is one of those]

War stories of military days seem to fall into two categories in
he Fanciful, non-detailed braggadoccio or sea-going "radio
room adventures." Nothing wrong with the latter as far as I'm
concerned, but they seldom have 30+ high-power HF transmitters
working at the same time on a ship, not even on a carrier.

A half-dozen teleprinters in a large radio room with steel walls,
deck, and overhead do indeed make a racket as Jim Hampton
wrote. Wait until you get 200+ teleprinters working in a medium-
sized torn-tape relay room. Now, THAT is NOISE...and that is
how it was on the 2nd floor of the Chuo Kogyo Control for Army
station ADA...and ADA was only the 3rd largest Army station at
the time. :-)

That was a half century ago in my experience. Since then, I've
never encountered any civilian, commercial, or government/military
station that used or required morse code mode communications...
other than some amateurs and a few ships. A decade ago, the
major communications modes for ships was voice, by VHF or
SSB, or by data-teleprinter.

The pro-code-test-advocates (PCTA) seem to think that morseman-
ship is soooooo necessary that the FCC *must* test for it in order
to get a ham license for use below 30 MHz. Well, it may BE a
necessity...all those morsemen need to have playmates on their
little reserved slices of ham bands...their sandboxes aren't full yet
and more and more have signed off permanently. :-)

He said he hadn't been swayed by your posts, Len. Did you treat him to
the several paragraphs of blather for a reason?

John has posted here quite a number of times so he hardly counts as a
lurker. He has previously made his views on morse testing known. If we
discount him, we're left with an army of.....hmmmm...precisely.....uh...
no lurkers who have spoken up to say that they support your methods or
that they've been swayed by your posts. If we do decide to count John,
he states that he does not support your methods and that he has not been
swayed by your posts.

The lack of response from lurkers seems to indicate that there are not
an many people reading and not commenting as you believe.

Dave K8MN