From: an Old friend on Jan 1, 5:35 pm

wrote:
From: an_old_friend on Jan 1, 2:42 pm
wrote:
From: on Sat, Dec 31 2005 3:29 pm
wrote:
From: on Dec 30, 5:56 pm
wrote:


I disagree but only slightly. Don't forget that the ARRL
officers ARE the olde-tymers of morse code. Naturally they
would pressure for more privileges in what they liked or
could do best.

well my aphasia grabed the keyboard let me think i like pander to
people LIKE jim oh well

No problem to me in understanding you, Mark. :-)

but to your they are not the oT themselves they are the Young Men of
that group (in their 50's and 60's very much like the Comunist party in
the USSR near the end

Ahem...that's a bit drastic in comparison, but unfortunately apt.

shrug



I am reamain unconvined of this "need" after all if the rules said you
must qsy if you encouter govt sent morse with no code testing at all
since you could just qsy if you heard any morse at all

When it was the ONLY mode possible in radio, it made sense.

Morse code testing was in Judgement a very helpful tool of regulation
but we could have done without it if had wanted to

Not TECHNICALLY. The first "radio transmitters" used by hams
were the Spark jobbies. Easy enough to construct at the time
of the first U.S. radio regulating agency created in 1912.
A Spark transmitter - of the ham variety - could ONLY be
turned on or off. Since that was the way the landline
telegraph worked, morse code was adapted for radio.

There weren't many other ways to communicate with those
technically primitive "radios." ANY on-off code scheme
would have worked. "Morse" happened to be a then-mature
way to go so that was it.

I doubt that any ham in 1906 tried putting a "high-power"
carbon microphone in series with their antenna lead a la
Reggie Fessenden...even after Fessenden proved it could be
done. [no other AM broadcaster tried it for broadcasting
service...har!]

The vacuum tube was needed for "clean" CW generation. Once
those were more perfected, damped wave oscillation ("spark")
was declared forbidden for use. Rightly so since it took up
many, many Kilocycles of bandwidth that only a galena
crystal receiver could love. :-)

MAYBE the code test could have been dropped from amateur radio
licensing in 1934 when the FCC was created. Personally, I don't
think so from the political situation brewing in radio and all
of "electronic" communications through USA membership in the
CCITT. [the CCITT morphed into the ITU once the UN was born]

By 1960 the vast majority of message traffic around the world
was being done by TTY. [yes, Hans, the USN DID use morse on
ships] MAYBE the time was ripe then for a code-test-free
license. No, said the olde-tymers of that time, they were
(now generally retired) champions of morsemanship and weren't
about to let go. They "knew what was best for (their) ham
radio!"

By 1970 the code-test-free license was an even greater
possibility. Offshore-designed/built radios were showing up
on the ham market and the VHF-and-up HT was a practical piece
of radio goods. The olde-tyme morsemen were still adamant
and getting more stern. NO #$%^!!! code-test-free license
for ham radio, no sir! :-)

By 1980 the code-test-free license now had supporters, even a
few of the clearer-thinking olde-tyme morsemen (!)...but there
were many against this (shocking) revolution. That didn't come
to pass until 1990 and FCC 90-53...which resulted in the no-
code-test Tech class beginning in 1991.

The 1990s had the steamroller of streamlining going faster
and faster...and the result being, of course, recent history
in amateur regulations.