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#11
October 20th 05, 05:40 PM
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Docket Scorecard
Leo wrote:
On 15 Oct 2005 14:02:03 -0700, wrote: From: Leo on Oct 15, 9:36 am On 14 Oct 2005 15:02:32 -0700, wrote: Leo wrote: On 14 Oct 2005 12:39:50 -0700, wrote: From: on Oct 14, 9:20 am Bill Sohl wrote: wrote in message wrote: If the growth doesn't happen, it means the code test wasn't really a problem in the first place. Ahem...this is a "preconditioning" artificiality of "reasons." [akin to the "do you still beat your wife?" question] Precisely so - and, it is indicative of the assumption that code testing is currently under review because it is perceived as a "problem". This is, of course, not the case. It's exactly the case, Leo. "Growth in numbers" is not a raison d'etre for the elimination or retention of the code test. The lack of love and worship of morsemanship should be enough. Agreed - the review of the requirement is based entirely upon an change of requirements in an international treaty. No, it isn't. Not in the USA, anyway. The treaty changed more than 2 years ago, yet FCC did nothing at all about it. 18 petitions/proposals were filed by various groups and individuals. The NPRM is in response to those petitions/proposals and their comments. FCC could have simply dropped Element 1 in August of 2003. I was surprised that they didn't, particularly after there were at least two proposals to do just that. If the treaty change drove the FCC, they'd have simply issued a Memorandum Report and Order saying Element 1 was no longer a requirement. But they didn't. The regulators create the rules and regulations which control the hobby - it is up to the amateur community to promote it and drive growth. Growth in numbers is one of the reasons repeatedly cited by those asking for an end to code testing. Another view would be that it was a problem that is being fixed way too late to repair the damage. How could it have been any different? The code test was a treaty requirement that FCC would not violate. The testing was minimized in 1990 by the medical waiver petition, which effectively made all classes available for a 5 wpm code test and a doctor's note. *Any* doctor could write such a note, or sign one written by the ham asking for a waiver. All it had to say was that it was harder-than-usual for the ham in question to pass the code test. Amateur Radio was a very popular hobby back when you and I were kids - today, there are too many other far-more-glamorous things competing with it. When were you a kid, Leo? Ham radio is far more popular today than when I was a kid. There have indeed been massive changes in technology over the past half century. Instant communication on a global basis is available to almost everyone now, affordably and from virtually anywhere. So why should *anyone* get a ham license, test or no test? Sure, during natural disasters this capability is severely impacted - but in everyday life, amaueur radio can no longer compete for public interest as it once did. (why go through licensing and buy expensive radio equipment to talk with Uncle Bob in Peoria on ham radio, when you can call him up on Skype on the Internet with great audio and live colour full-motion video for free?) Exactly. So it's not the code test or written test at all, but other factors. I would think that the vast majority of the folks who are interested in the things that Amateur Radio offers are already a part of the hobby. Adding HF access might broaden the scope of those who did not gain access to HF via morse testing (for whatever reasons) - but to think for a moment that there are legions of wannabe hams who are waiting exitedly for morse testing to be abolished so that they can rush in and get on the air would be foolish. Yet that's what many anticodetest folks think and say. They aren't there. Looks like an agreement! Along with the common assumption that code testing is an impediment to new Amateur licensees (due to no access to HF without it), there is the companion assumption that licensing is also an impediment. The theory is that if licensing was removed (as it was with CB many years ago) that the floodgates would open and the bands would become overcrowded by the stampede of new amateur operators. This is, of course, nonsense - they aren't there either. Fifty years ago, perhaps - but not now. Fifty years ago there were maybe 150,000 US hams. Today there are over 650,000. Where did all that growth come from? Most of it happened in the 70s and 80s, btw. What many are concerned about is that the same problems that plague cb will also plague amateur radio if the license requirements are reduced too much. In the three years that I have held a license, I have met very few people who were interested at all in radio communications. That's been true for a long time - most people aren't interested in "radio for its own sake". Try this experiment - show a teenage kid an SSTV picture being received, and watch the reaction..... Depends on how it's presented. Why would anyone be impressed by SSTV after seeing the first pictures of astronauts on the moon's surface - in 1969, 36 years ago? We hams are becoming a rare breed as technology advances. Then what's the "new paradigm"? Eliminate all licensing? We've seen how well that worked... 73 de Jim, N2EY |
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