On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 10:25:32 -0500, Dee Flint wrote:

Well that example proves the point that you don't know what you may need or
want in the future as secretaries are now going the way of the dodo bird in
large part. Almost all employees that have a need to do correspondence do
their own these days in any company that I have been in. The company I work
for right now let their last secretary go about four years ago.

Yeah - most of those who remain have now been retitled as "program
assistants". Some are decent administrators, and some are still
go-fers......

One exception is my daughter-in-law's mother. She's the secretary
to the senior named partner of the biggest law firm in the Pacific
Northwest, and still does the correspondence typing. Of course, her
boss is nearly 90 years old, but still sharp as a tack, I understand.

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

"Alun L. Palmer" wrote in message
.. .
"Dee Flint" wrote in news:8ZqdnafbrtJYe7zfRVn-
:


[snip]


They seem better prepared and more willing than many adults.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE




That's true. Perhaps you should propose a maximum age for ham radio
operators?

I like that one (smile). It would keep out a couple of bad eggs that I know
about. However, the problem is that we will all reach that "maximum age" if
the Lord is willing.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

"Alun L. Palmer" wrote:

When they do repeal the code test, we will all have to nag Len to get a
licence, as he will have no excuse

Len really has no excuse now. He has had the no code option available
to him for a long, long time now. He has told us on a number of
occasions that HF access has little importance and that all the action
is on the VHF/UHF bands. He could have been there for years with no
morse testing as an excuse. He hasn't overcome inertia.

When and if morse code testing is removed as part of the process in
getting an amateur radio license in the U.S., there are just a few "Len"
scenarios. Leonard could make good on his "Extra right out of the box"
if we redefine the word "right". Len could continue to do nothing about
obtaining an amateur radio license (my guess as a likely scenario). Len
might have to take up an entirely new self-appointment as advocate for
something else in which he is not involved. He might even take up a
different area of amateur radio in which to be a bystander. He is
already priming the pump in rec.radio.amateur.homebrew where he has
recently entertained the troops.

I understand that Len is already eyeing the British Monarchy as a target
for future rants. He has discoverd that the royals have rank, status,
privilege and TITLES. They have a church with a number of parishes
called Saint-something. They and their supports are conservative
traditionalists. The entire British Isles are loaded with lodge halls
repleat with rules for keeping out the riff-raff.

Dave K8MN

Dave Heil wrote in news:42220344.9E902FD4
@earthlink.net:

"Alun L. Palmer" wrote:

When they do repeal the code test, we will all have to nag Len to get a
licence, as he will have no excuse

Len really has no excuse now. He has had the no code option available
to him for a long, long time now. He has told us on a number of
occasions that HF access has little importance and that all the action
is on the VHF/UHF bands. He could have been there for years with no
morse testing as an excuse. He hasn't overcome inertia.

When and if morse code testing is removed as part of the process in
getting an amateur radio license in the U.S., there are just a few "Len"
scenarios. Leonard could make good on his "Extra right out of the box"
if we redefine the word "right". Len could continue to do nothing about
obtaining an amateur radio license (my guess as a likely scenario). Len
might have to take up an entirely new self-appointment as advocate for
something else in which he is not involved. He might even take up a
different area of amateur radio in which to be a bystander. He is
already priming the pump in rec.radio.amateur.homebrew where he has
recently entertained the troops.

I understand that Len is already eyeing the British Monarchy as a target
for future rants. He has discoverd that the royals have rank, status,
privilege and TITLES. They have a church with a number of parishes
called Saint-something. They and their supports are conservative
traditionalists. The entire British Isles are loaded with lodge halls
repleat with rules for keeping out the riff-raff.

Dave K8MN


I'm a VE. Is there some way we could arrange to send three VEs around to
his house when the code test is repealed? We would announce it in advance
of course, to comply with all the rules, on here naturally.

"Alun L. Palmer" wrote:

Dave Heil wrote in news:4221EBFE.2A406BF0
@earthlink.net:

bb wrote:

Dave Heil wrote:

You sound like the kind of guy who'd just open 'er up to any guy who
shows any interest at all in amateur radio. No tests. No
qualifications.

Actually, that would be Jim Miccolis, N2EY.

He is the one who proposed "No Test International."

Actually, you're just acting silly. Jim made no such proposal.

Dave K8MN


He did. Of coutse he was being a devil's advocate, but he was indeed the
one to suggest this.

It might have seemed that way to you. It isn't evidenced below. In
fact,
someone else suggested it:

__________________________________________________ ________________________
In article .net,
"Bill Sohl"

writes:
"N2EY" wrote in message
...
In article , "Clint"
rattlehead@computronDOTnet writes:

sending and receiving CW isn't a building block
to anything else.....

Yes, it is.

First, it's a building block to the use of the mode on the air.

Come on Jim. that's a self fullfilling argument.

It's a plain and simple fact.

My point, and I know
you know this, is that morse knowledge is not needed in any manner as
a foundation, stepping stone, or whatever to any body or radio
knowledge
or concepts.

It's not an *absolute* need. But it is a big help for amateurs who want
to
learn about radio. That's my point.

Although other
services have pretty much stopped using Morse Code, hams use it
extensivley,
and an amateur license is permission to operate an amateur station,
not a
station in another service. Note that the Morse Code tests are at a
very
basic level. They're entry-level, nothing more.

Are you afraid that without a code test, people will "pollute the HF
airwaves" with bad morse?

Nope, not at all.

Second, if someone wants to actually design and build radio
equipment,
having
skill in Morse Code permits them to use almost anything from very
simple
to
very sophisticated equipment to good advantage. Would you expect a
newcomer to
radio to build an SSB transceiver as a first project?

They can build whatever they want.

Doesn't answer the question.

If they want to start with a simple
morse
Xmitter then they will learn at least enough morse to be able to use
it.
If they don't self train themselves, the rig will be useless to them.
As
another
point of reference, when I was going for my AAS in electricl
technology we
built a 10 watt CW rig as part of the lab work. We tested it using a
dummy
load and no one had to know even one character of morse to do the lab
work.

And without Morse skill, that project had no practical use once the lab
was
over. With Morse skill, it could have been a very useful transmitter.

There's a big difference between a lab experiment that is done purely
as a
learning tool, and a practical project that not only helps someone
learn *and*
results in a useful radio device.

now, the electrical principals of what a CW
transmission is, and a knowledge test of that is a good idea, but
that's comparing apples and oranges.

Why should there be *any* written test on theory if all a person
wants to
do is
operate manufactured radios? If someone doesn't want to build a rig,
why
should
they have to memorize all those symbols, diagrams and formulas?

IF that's what you believe then go start NTI (No Theory Int'l).

I'm asking a question. *All* license requirements have to justify
themselves,
don't they? Or is that only true for Morse code tests?

I think most of the PCTA
is being disingenuous when they come up with "good reasons"
to keep CW testing alive;

Why?

Actually, they haven't scored even a single point in the arguments
made to the FCC now or in the past.

Has nothing to do with "disingenous".

I think the true deeper reason lies
somewhere in the "I had to do it so everybody should" relm,
as i've stated before.

You can think what you want, but you're mistaken on that account.

Exactly what is it that the PCTAs fear if there is NO morse test
at all?

I don't "fear" anything from code test removal. My *concern* is the
continuing
downward trend in requirements and qualifications.

73 de Jim, N2EY.
__________________________________________________ _______________________

It isn't here, though someone else mentions it:

__________________________________________________ _______________________



In article , Mike Coslo writes:
Actually as a point of interest, and maybe a little trolling, Just
WHY
should there be testing for a ham license?

Because we already know what happens with no testing.

Isn't limiting access to the Airwaves to only those who pass some
kind
of test Elitist?

Nope.

What of those who simply aren't smart enough to pass a test? are
they
not human and have rights?

Everyone has the right to take the test. Nobody has the right to a
guaranteed
pass on the test.

As for RF safety, I would point to the successful efforts of
Motorcycle
riders to abolish helmet rules. It should be the individual's
responsibility to decide if RF safety matters are important to him or
her.

Actually, that makes sense IF the effects can be contained to just the
person
making the decision. But that's rarely the case.

As for mode specific questions, they have no business asking me
about
modes of operation that I am not interested in.

I learned about televison screen aspect ratio and interlaced scanning
because
it was in the Extra study guide back when. I've never operated ATV.

No Test International could be born now!

Thoughts?

See my rant on replacing the code test with a Smith Chart test.

73 de Jim, N2EY
__________________________________________________ _______________________

I think that perhaps you're mistaken. Perhaps you can come up with a
statement by Jim advocating such.

Dave K8MN

"Alun L. Palmer" wrote:

Dave Heil wrote in news:42220344.9E902FD4
@earthlink.net:

"Alun L. Palmer" wrote:

When they do repeal the code test, we will all have to nag Len to get a
licence, as he will have no excuse

Len really has no excuse now. He has had the no code option available
to him for a long, long time now. He has told us on a number of
occasions that HF access has little importance and that all the action
is on the VHF/UHF bands. He could have been there for years with no
morse testing as an excuse. He hasn't overcome inertia.


I'm a VE. Is there some way we could arrange to send three VEs around to
his house when the code test is repealed? We would announce it in advance
of course, to comply with all the rules, on here naturally.

Brilliant! I don't see how much more convenient it could be.

Dave K8MN

From: "Alun L. Palmer" on Sun, Feb 27 2005 3:17 am
wrote in news:1109453914.521433.288070
:
From: "Alun L. Palmer" on Sat, Feb 26 2005 6:48 pm
Buck wrote in
:
On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 04:11:18 GMT, robert casey

wrote:

get Elemnt 1 abolished without going through this whole NPRM cycle.
We
all know what happened to that idea. BTW, where is Carl anyway?

Carl Stevenson has been very busy working with the IEEE 802
groups on wireless standards (among other things).

Please fill us in, Alun, what happened with that NPRM cycle?
Last I saw, NO NPRM had been released yet concerning test
element 1. The only one released was a general "housekeeping"
update of amateur radio regulations.

That's the thing, we are in that cycle, but still waiting for the NPRM
to
be issued. NCI hoped to short circuit this process, but failed.

NCI cannot have "failed" an NPRM that hasn't been released yet.

Actually it's been going on for at least 82 years that I know of,
but
WTH!

That would be since 1913.

Actually, both of us have the maths wrong. I meant 1927, but that's
only 78
years. 1913 would be 92 years. 1927 was the year that the ITU made the

international requirement for the code test.

The first U.S. radio regulating agency came into being in 1912.
There's been a small controvery in here about the first code
test for amateurs in here, others saying the code test began
a year after that agency was created.

2003 is the year in which the ITU revised most of S25, eliminating
the artificial requirement of morsemanship for an amateur radio
license having below-30-MHz privileges. That's a 76-year span
from 1927. Radio as a communications medium is only 108 years
old.

I don't think so. In 1913 amateur
radio was ALL about morse code. ARRL had its "president for
life" (H.P.Maxim) set to go but wasn't fully formed yet as an
actual local New England amateur radio club organization.
[ARRL was incorporated in 1914, two years after the first
U.S. radio regulating agency was created]

Not so. Not in 1927 anyway. There were a lot of people using phone
back
then. AM, of course.

In 1912, between 1909 (when the Radio Club of America started)
and 1912, morse code was about the ONLY way to communicate
on early radio. ARRL wasn't formed until 1914...as a local New
England radio club of 3 members...with Maxim as the leader who
thought it a neat idea to (virtually) "hack" the commercial telegram
services using their spark radios. :-)

In 1912 NOBODY was using the Reggie Fessenden AM system
of putting microphones in series with the antenna lead-in. :-)

I won't argue the CCITT "arguments" back in 1927. As you said,
the USA already had a morse code test then. The ARRL was
already 13 years old and on the ascendency, although NOT yet
the big "leader" in national amateur representation. Not yet
despite Maxim Going To Washington (!) to "restore ham radio"
from its WW1 shut-down. The Thomas H. White early USA
radio regulation history on the web has all of the early gory
details on that, several items the ARRL won't repeat about
themselves.

The various ITU conferences gradually rolled back the code requirement
to
below 1GHz in 1937, 420MHz in 1947, 144MHz in 1967, 30MHz in 1979 and
0 MHz
in 2003. Australia introduced a no code licence in 1952, the UK in
1963 and
the US not until 1991, after many other countries had done so. The FCC
did
attempt to promote a no-code licence in the 1970s, but gave up when
opposed
by the ARRL (yes, I do have that the right way around!).

I'm familiar with what the ARRL did on lobbying the FCC to make
the regulations "their way." :-)

Problem is, lots of League "Believers" get outraged whenever
someone points out their clay feet.

About 20 countries have removed the code test since 2003. Japan
already for
many years had HF for all licences including the no code 10 Watt 4th
class
licence, and Spain once in the past abolished the code test, but
brought it
back when their hams couldn't get reciprocal licences elsewhere.

Even in the US I know for a fact that the contoversy was very much
alive in
the '70s. But 1927 was the year it really began.

The turn-down of a no-code license by the FCC in the 1970s
pretty much quashed my interest in U.S. amateur radio (along
with thousands of others). The first personal computer kits of
1975-1976 steered my interests away from radio (also done
by thousands of others). That was the blazing of a new path
leading to the future, not the recreation of what others have done
in copying the pioneers of the airwaves back in the past.

1927 may have been the international year of controversy but
in the USA the code test has been there since the first U.S.
radio regulating agency...92 years of the 108-year-old
existance of radio.

Funny thing isn't it, ye olde tymmers in a relatively high tech hobby?
It's
a good thing spark isn't still legal!

If so, the ham magazines would have ads for computer controlled,
software-defined SPARK transceivers! :-) The olde-tymers
would be bragging up a storm of arcs and sparks, using knife
switches and using point-to-point wiring (all with flexible coils on
them) with polished woodcraft bases gleaming in candlelight.

If you check out the ARRL website you will see that QST is
starting a "new feature" of explaining what all those knobs on
the front panels are doing to the readership. Good grief, what
is a "high tech hobby" coming to?!?!?

It apparently has boiled down to the League's editors that most
of their membership are a bunch of technical ignorants who
never learned anything beyond being whoopee-wonderful
morsemen. Rather disgusting when they make like "superior"
beings because they passed a high-rate morse test once.

Wow, an extra license that even a 9-year-old can pass! Lots
of "incentive" to "join the amateur brotherhood" by learning
morse code (and be just like a 9-year-old).

It's worse when some insufferable, self-righteous "mama"
wants to "discipline children as parents do" in here.

wrote in news:1109527398.947541.9760
@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

From: "Alun L. Palmer" on Sun, Feb 27 2005 3:17 am
wrote in news:1109453914.521433.288070
:
From: "Alun L. Palmer" on Sat, Feb 26 2005 6:48 pm
Buck wrote in
m:
On Sat, 26 Feb 2005 04:11:18 GMT, robert casey
wrote:

get Elemnt 1 abolished without going through this whole NPRM cycle.
We all know what happened to that idea. BTW, where is Carl anyway?

Carl Stevenson has been very busy working with the IEEE 802
groups on wireless standards (among other things).

Please fill us in, Alun, what happened with that NPRM cycle?
Last I saw, NO NPRM had been released yet concerning test
element 1. The only one released was a general "housekeeping"
update of amateur radio regulations.

That's the thing, we are in that cycle, but still waiting for the NPRM
to be issued. NCI hoped to short circuit this process, but failed.

NCI cannot have "failed" an NPRM that hasn't been released yet.

They were trying to get administrative action, i.e. no petitions, no NPRM,
just have the FCC remove the requirement. Not surprisingly, they failed.
Now we have 19 petitions and a long wait for an NPRM


lots snipped

It's worse when some insufferable, self-righteous "mama"
wants to "discipline children as parents do" in here.




Alun

I have a GREAT IDEA

Lets give everyone EXTRA CLASS!!!!!

Yeah yeah yeah!

Tax breaks for buying HF radios....

Well that example proves the point that you don't know what you may need or
want in the future as secretaries are now going the way of the dodo bird in
large part. Almost all employees that have a need to do correspondence do
their own these days in any company that I have been in. The company I work
for right now let their last secretary go about four years ago.


And we all use word processor software to do that writing. Cut
and paste, fix spelling errors, rewrite something that was weak,
and such. Back in the olden days secretaries took care of
typing stuff onto paper without error. Today we write on computers,
edit and whatnot, and once we have it the way we want it, send
the file to the printer. One pretty much had to do that
via longhand on paper notepads that would then be given to
the secretary to type up. She would fix the spelling errors
and some of the grammar and hopefully not munge the concepts.
And if that did happen we'd have to get that part retyped.
Took forever.

There are technical writers who rewrite engineer writing
into something hopefully better written. But the engineer
has to review it to be sure that the meaning didn't get
munged.