good point...

amateur radio does need new blood to bring it forth from the
stoneage...

John

"beerbarrel" wrote in message
news
On 21 Jul 2005 11:09:03 -0700, "John S." wrote:



Cmdr Buzz Corey wrote:
John S. wrote:

John


Quote: 3.Based upon the petitions and comments, we propose to
amend
our amateur service rules to eliminate the requirement that
individuals
pass a telegraphy examination in order to qualify for any
amateur radio
operator license.

It is long long overdue, but welcome nonetheless. I hope that
it is in
time to turn around the trends that are so well known.


There are no trends and eleminating the CW requirement will make
little
if any difference.

Well, yes there are trends. Some people have actually taken the
time
to review the data before making a judgement on the health of the
hobby. The news is not good. Take a look at:
http://users.crosspaths.net/~wallio/LICENSE.html

I do agree that removing the morse code requirement will probably
have
little impact on long term registration. It is probably too little
too
late to reverse the trend of the hobby moving from grey to white
hair
as the age of active participants continues to increase. The hobby
is
almost a quaint anachronism to younger people who are aware of it.
There are so many viable alternatives that do not require tests and
licenses.



Yep, there are trends in anything, but I don't see a particularly
bad
one in ham radio. I would not base my conception of ham radio on
this
one analysis alone.

Read this line from that writer...

"But it is important to state that this says little about the health
of the Amateur Radio Service. Activity on the bands, level of
technology, experimentation, education, and emergency preparedness
are
just a few of the important factors demonstrating the real health of
the Amateur Radio Service."