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#7
February 18th 05, 06:10 PM
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Alun L. Palmer wrote: wrote in news:1108637750.922635.205620 @l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com: Alun L. Palmer wrote: "Alun L. Palmer" wrote in : wrote in news:1108578593.250795.201100 @g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com: Alun L. Palmer wrote: Yes, South Africa has abolished the code test! One more domino has fallen. How many countries does that make now, compared to those who still have it? It's getting a little difficult to keep track. However, I think at least the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Papua Niugini, Hong Kong and South Africa have abolished the code test so far. I think that of these only Austria and the Netherlands even retain an entry level licence that doesn't give HF privileges. That's only 17 countries, but I expect I may have missed some out. I make the combined ham population of the above something over 260,000 (possibly more than half of them no-coders), so probably a little less than half the number of hams in the US. 260,000/670,000 = about 38.9% Quite a bit less than half. However, there are well over 50,000 hams in Canada, which is also likely to abolish the code test very soon. Yep. But there are two big points about Canada: 1) The proposal would increase the written test level This is a biggie. Simply proposing to drop the code test is *not* the same thing as proposing to drop the code test *and* beef up the writtens. IIRC, one of the things proposed in Canada was to make the code test optional in that if you passed code you didn't need as high a grade on theory to get the license. If the nocodetest folks in the USA proposed options like those they might get a lot more support. But instead, we have folks like NCVEC telling us we must drop code *and* reduce the written still more. 2) Commentary to the Canadian proposal showed a clear majority favored the change. That's not the case in the USA, in any survey done to date, nor in the commentary to FCC. Another biggie. Don't forget that Japan, with a ham population of 1.2 Million (twice that of the US, out of maybe a fifth of your general population), has long had a no-code HF licence, albeit limited to 10 Watts. Check your numbers! Japan has over 3.1 million operator licenses - but they cost nothing and never expire, so that number is really the number of ham operator licenses issued since 1955, not the number of present-day hams. Japanese *station* licenses are a bit over 600,000 now, and have been dropping for a decade. The number of new JA licenses has also been dropping. See the AH0A website. I'm not sure how many Japanese hams have a no-code HF licence, Well over 95%. but they may even rival all the new ones so far put together, although the new guys can use more than 10 Watts! It's probably only a matter of time before Japan lets all of their hams use HF anyway. All Japanese hams have HF privileges *today*. Been that way for decades. But for all classes of ham license except 4th class, JA hams have a code test. And there's no move to change that yet. And for ten years JA ham license numbers have been dropping fast. *With* nocodetest HF. Even without the low power Japanese stations, the number of no-coders who have full HF privileges right now is probably about the same as the number of no-code Techs in the US. Close enough. And if there are already that number of no-code hams on HF without any incident, what is the problem with abolishing the code test here? The USA isn't Japan. Different society, different culture, different rules. It would be interesting to see what the JA 4th class *written* exam looks like. And as mentioned before, the number of JA station licenses and new operator licenses is way down. That's 18, I didn't count both Austria and Australia! OK. But it's still a small fraction of the number of hams and the number of countries. The big questions: Must all countries drop the code test because a few have decided to? Or can each country decide for itself. Each country can do as it chooses, but the trend is to abolish the code test. The trend in most countries is to ban or severely restrict individual ownership of firearms, too. Has the change caused lots of new growth in countries that have dropped code testing? No, but it's increased HF activity in those countries So all it's done is to permit *existing* hams to upgrade. But it *hasn't* brought in lots of new folks. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
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