The AM Forum

I am 100% for keeping CW as a requirement for General and higher priveleges.

Here's why:

I was never a good CW op! The best I ever did was a shaky 20wpm, and it took me years to master 5 wpm as a youngster, and far too long to get my General at 13wpm. (I don't like cw.)

EVERYTHING SHOULD NOT BE MADE SIMPLIFIED AND EASY.

If you get something for nothing, what is it worth to you? Nothing, usually.

Doing so is a mistake of the highest order. Not just a mistake for ham radio, but a mistake in general.  There should be a reward for the effort which is comensurate with the effort put forth, imho.

CW obviously limits the "riff-raff" and fools by making it non-trivial for someone to memorize a book and take a test - or worse (and I have seen this happen) have someone else take the test for you.  This is clearly an important aspect to the CW part of the ham radio license requirements.

13 wpm is acheivable with a modest effort by almost everyone. 5 wpm is a "no-brainer".

NOW, the case being made that it will "open the doors" to ham radio for more people is a CANARD and a false claim! Yes, it will permit more physical bodies to transmit (in all likelyhood), but at the expense of a significant reduction in the QUALITY and STANDARD that those people represent. Sorry to say it, but true.

For something like Ham Radio, the personal investment in the license is a significant part of the VALUE of the LICENSE!!

The PROBLEM of not attracting NEW people to HAM RADIO is a GROSS FAILURE OF THE ARRL (as the representative body and organization) TO DO EVEN A POOR JOB in this regard!! This is where the responsibility lies, and precisely where the issue resides! Not in watering down the licensing requirements!

Let me give an example in point which fully illustrates the last point above:

In Japan, there is a board game called Go. Invented in China ~4,000 years ago, and played extensively in China, Japan and Korea, it exceeds Chess in complexity and beauty, based on a simple clever rule set and a larger board... but for years Japan led the world with the best players. (This game is played professionally, with major televised $$ championships) Since WWII Japan's dominance has erroded and slipped away. The number of young players coming up dropped to minimal levels in recent years. UNTIL! Until only a few years ago the professional Japanese Go organizations got together with some large companies, raised some money, hired some talent and made for TV.... a CHILDREN's "Cartoon"  Show! The effect was that youth Go classes soon swelled to overflowing.

Why? NOT BECAUSE the Anime showed Go to be an "easy game" to play or master, not because it showed it to be "simple" and mindless. Quite the opposite, it held the game up to be difficult, hard to master, and WORTHY of the effort. It showed failure! It showed that the activity was something worth doing for the sake of the activity itself!!

WHY HAS THE LEAGUE OR ANYONE ELSE NOT DONE ANYTHING EVEN VAGUELY LIKE THIS TO BRING HAM RADIO TO THE ATTENTION OF THE YOUTH OF AMERICA??

THIS is what needs to be done - not watering down the license provisions.

Let the people without motivation or desire have CB and the internet.
THIS IS HAM RADIO, something worth achieving and worth doing, worth putting in an effort.

(btw, the argument that computers, internet and TV have taken young people away from Ham Radio is only a partial truth. Those things are simply not the same as or a substitute for Ham Radio, nor do they have any of the characteristics that make Ham Radio special, unique, and exciting!)

This is what I think everyone should write about to the League and to the FCC (when the time comes.)

         _-_-bear WB2GCR

It's not a matter of watering down the license requirements.  The CW  as a requirement can be replaced with some  other proficiency criteria better suited to reflect todays technological  advances. CW had a place in decades gone by when it was still a viable and widely  used mode of communications.  But it no longer is.  On a resume it carries no weight. The military  has abandoned CW in favor of modern digital modes of  communication.  What inspiration is it for a young person eager to dig into technology when i have to tell him that the first step into ham radio is to start becoming proficient in a mode of communication that had gone out with the telegraph. He would probably waste far less time if he simply got hold of a cheap  PC computer, installed Linux on it, and jumped on line and start digging into and developing real applications amidst a vast world of  exciting relevant modern day technologies that lies in front of him and that will look good on his resume.  The ranks of ham operators is dwindling and requiring proficiency antiquated modes of communication is  not going to jolt it back to life.  ham radio needs new blood and new ideas if it is going to survive.   If proficiency of a particular mode is required why not replace CW with a requirement to demonstrate proficiency in a digital protocol ?? It would make more sense in this day and age.

ohh, boy.... :roll:

Didn't work too well keeping the 3878 and 3872 groups out.

Very well put Bear!...

Cw isn't an instant gratification thing... you have to work a little bit to learn it, the comparison to learning a musical instrument someone made is very appropriate...

Perhaps we should replace CW exams with questions on how to setup a winlink!  :roll:  yea right!  :badgrin:

Ham radio is NOT the internet, and I'm very thankful for that.

I think you've missed the point almost entirely.

Except to the extent that we agree that something is required - and has been for decades - to reverse the trend of thinning ranks.

It is important to note that when it comes time, and it may still yet, to communicate on a spark gap made from a power source, two wires and a coil, I can do that with CW - eh?

No one precluded the profiency in a "digital" technology here.

The reasons that your young protege was disinterested in CW include: A) nothing was presented to him that held it out as "valuable" in terms like: a movie/media/music star does it, or other hero/role model (ie. ZERO media/PR/life input)   B) It is easier to be lazy and dork around with a computer or Playstation.

This isn't to say that your protoge did not engage in any activities that required significant focus and effort - but I would suggest that it pays to look at what really are the internal motivating factors that makes young people do this, and apply that information to make Ham Radio have a "better profile".  (It's got a ZERO/NIL/NADA profile now, eh?)

The source of "inspiration" as I implied in my post comes from the perception of value, the actual or true value may or may be high or low. Since nothing is being done to create this perception at all, we get the default perception which is nothing, ergo, limited motivation. Highly limited.

Give me a budget and a film crew, an agreement to air it or show it appropriately and often enough, I can change that perception and inspire a whole lot of young people to learn CW... no problem, thanks.

CW is not the problem.
The age of CW is not a problem.
Modern technology is not the problem.
If CW is the price of admittance to the "club" then the question is reduced to who wants to join this club and why?
Answer that question first, and you can start to solve the problem from the end that requires the solution applied - not the bassackwards end of reduction of the license requirements.

           _-_-bear

Just like when building a station.

Nor the wonderful group of sidebanders that used to congregate on 3910!

Yep, ham radio could do with a better street rep. But I'm not sure a music video showing Brittney Spears operating an Icom 756 ProIII would make America's youth rush to get their ham tickets.

I would suggest that it pays to look at the end objective - what is it? To save ham radio from death by increasing new licensing numbers? To increase licensing numbers by X amount? (How much is *enough*"? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000?) To make young people love radio the way "we" do?

Actually, as long as the FCC doesn't do away with us, I'm OK with flat licensing numbers. 600,000 or whatever it is today is pretty impressive. We don't need 60 million.

And if a young person is interested in radio, swell. If not, you don't need to go on a "membership drive", or beg at airports like Moonies.

Guys, while I agree with the adage; that which is obtained too easily is valued too lightly, we also need to have relevance. It has been illustrated many times the CW requirement has not succeeded in creating utopia.  There was a period when I knew very little about 'good amateur practice' and was quite capable at CW. I think it better to know how to operate properly, be safe, and have some technical knowledge rather than copy CW at 5, 13, 20, or 25 WPM. . . .
How bout this. . . we are entering the digital age so should we require typing at, say, 50WPM for an extra class license? It peripherally applies but it's not really relevant and begs the question, Why? . . . same thing . . .
The FCC is far beyond establishing requirements to provide itself with things to do. Now, the ARRL . . . that might be a different story.


-ap

Actually those young people (and I work in the field and I meet quite a few of them) who are interested in computers and who "dork around" with them are anything but lazy and are the people who will be leading many of todays and tomorrows technological advances. These young people are learning many of todays leading edge skills and many of them are already developing software that has viable uses in industry and across the Internet and  will change the way we use computers and carry the technology through the 21st century and beyond.  Yeah, they may not be able to tap out code on a spark gap transmitter but they can sure develope some incredible software, that can do some pretty amazing things. In additon they are acquiring some excellent skills that will look pretty darned good on their resume when the time comes to find a job (although many of them have jobs already). They are anything buy lazy.



Well, when I tell a young kid who is hacking away at the Linux kernel, learning the new 64 bit architechture  and experimenting with 64 bit programming, various communications protoclols or contributing some new code to a DBMS project, writing embedded apps , etc and he asks me about ham radio and the first think I have to tell him is to start learning to pound the old brass key is can be a definate turn off wondering if ham technology didn;t die back in 1959.



This I highly doubt. Yes, you may inspire a limited curiocity in CW but overall I doubt it would be very large or last very long. Primarilly because of the reality, times have changed, technology has dramatically changed and CW simply does not have the practical application that it once had. One of the big inspirations for the development and growth of cw ops. in the old days was the military.which has pretty much abandoned cw today. Sure in many ways it sucks, I hate to see a nostalgic  mode like cw go by the wayside but reality is reality.  There is no practical reason to maintain CW as a REQUIREMENT for a ham radio license.  There are plenty  of more viable things future licensees can be tested on that would work just as well or better at separating the slackers from those who are genuinly interested and serious about ham radio, Meanwhile CW can and SHOULD remain a legal mode  for those who wish to use it.
 



Yes, and requirements often change. Much as the 13 and 20 spm code requirements were dropped and only a 5 wpm code requirement remains. Similarly the 5 wpm requirment can be dropped while still assuring reasonable criteria for getting a license.  No place is it etched in stome that a code requirment must remain forever. I

The operative word, my dear friends is limits! If you doubt that, just listen any day to the 27mHz. band and compare notes.

       _-_-bear

I doubt the only difference between hams and CBers is the CW requirement.

No-coders seem to follow the rules just fine on VHF.

Perhaps it's the anonymity that CB offers....?

I'm 100% for the operation of all legal modes...
just as long as they ain't operated on any frequency
my friends and I own.

Anyone who can learn to program proficiently, which is to learn a large range of essentially arbitrary names for command functions, and a computer language syntax to boot should have little difficulty with CW.

So we have firmly established (again) that ability is not an issue, motivation is.



Maybe the problem is with you and what you are saying to them??

I first worked with PDP-8s, PDP-11s and System 360 machines, including card punch programming - through modern machines. Don't think for a second that throwing out BS computer jargon changes anything about this issue or what computers are and are not.



This I highly doubt. Yes, you may inspire a limited curiocity in CW but overall I doubt it would be very large or last very long. Primarilly because of the reality, times have changed, technology has dramatically changed <snipped repetitive argument> [/quote]

That you doubt this shows a lack of a certain type of experience or understanding. It is possible to sell and glamorize almost anything, my friend.
 



No it is not - but this rule change is being touted as a SOLUTION to a specific problem. I am suggesting that it is NOT the SOLUTION to the problem, but an attempt to effect a peripheral symptom.  The underlying problem in my view is unrelated directly to a CW requirement or lack thereof.

    _-_-bear

PS. I point out as a matter of reference that Baseball is in essence rather much the same as it was a hundred years ago, as are all sorts of other things - need it be abandoned or changed beyond recognition?

How about Venice? Pave it over because Gondola are not a practical modern transportation means??

How about DIGITAL HF? DRMS is it? Is Ham Radio the SAME thing if there is no fading, no static crashes, no noise, no adjacent channel intermod, no ionispheric effects?? At what point does it become NOT Ham Radio anymore??

In large part the appeal of Ham Radio is that it is in part on many levels an ART - should we (especially those on AM ) in any way support the sterilization of Ham Radio?? I say not!

The CBers around here are more technically advanced than the dingleberries who insist on operating ssb you know where.
At least they can hook a D104 to a Tempo One without it sounding like a tin can.

Thanks...

I resemble that remark too...

;)

Good Morning Fellas,

 I had the wonderful opportunity here just last year and i think i mentioned it on here about a local ham coming to my place in need of help. He Pulled in the driveway and i walked out to meet him and he said "So your the Wild Card i've been hearing about" I wonder if you could help me. Well I was totally Lost for words, So come on in . Now he is one of our Much older members of the club and "old School Ham" But his hands are were not up to the challenge...

 Could you build this K-2 for me, man this was right after i bought the Spectrum Analyizer, and i was just honored to be in the presence of God ya know, so to speak, "Now we don't have to tell anybody about this"...I smiled...Sure Not a Problem...So i built it and trimmed it out, Dressed up the manual and fixed in Spectragraphs and IMD plots Notes for him...so on, you'd of thought i gave this man a new lease on life how happy he was..see that's the thing that needs to be stressed Technique Technology and Helping out.

 And today he's down on HF Pounding away just as happy as can be, My point here is "It's CW" Hammer away.. Have fun..it's the hobby of the thing...But we have to Upgrade the Regs, and overhaul the entry system it needs dressed up.

What Is needed in my opinion is a complete redress of the written exam it's 30 years passed technology.

Sorry guys, I don't quite understand why the main point is being lost here.

Well, my main point.

That is that the problem is that Ham Radio is not being adequately promoted and supported by the ARRL or any other organization.

The problem is not the existence of a CW requirement on the license test.

If you want more people involved in Ham Radio, Ham Radio needs to make an effort. Ham Radio is not likely to ever represent the same thing that it represented as a technology or communications medium in the decades past. So, no matter how much "new" technology is rolled into the mix the result is that the exciting, redeeming and interesting aspects of it are unrelated in the main to the specific technology being employed.

Furthermore, if you move Ham Radio toward the world of "perfect" digital communication, indeed there will be no difference between it and this forum or Skype or that program that talks to 2m repeaters (can't remember its name now)... which in the end will spell the ultimate death of Ham Radio.

So, the long term goal needs to be to recognize and identify the elements of Ham Radio that are unique to Ham Radio[/i] and emphasize them! That doesn't mean to NOT incorporate new technology.

CW is part of Ham Radio - it should be part of the TEST requirement in some way shape or form. The no-coders up till now have been limited in their licensed priveliges for good reason - they're have not shown proficiency in the full range of Ham Radio!

And, as I said before, anyone who uses the 5wpm CW requirement as an excuse to not become a Ham Radio operator isn't really interested in Ham Radio enough to put forth this minor effort.

Lowering the standards is not the solution to the problem of thinning ranks.

          _-_-bear

Amateur radio used to have the inherent ablity to attract newcomers of its own accord.  What happened?

That's because in 1959 there was little competition.
And, there were still not very many hams coming into the hobby...

Sort of like 6500lb cars and 18 cent a gallon gas...

Now there is competition, and what has the ARRL done differently since then?
Nothing.

If the ARRL was GM or Chrysler it'd be long out of business, eh?
And one of them almost was, and the other might still be...

No wonder, no surprise.

        _-_-bear

OK,

 Time Gentlemen, Time, free Time, time when you were a kid to do nothing and then.Wow Ham radio. i talk to these parents down at the ballfield and their kids are in everything under the sun, they have No free time to think.... I watch these parents driving their kids everywhere right into the ground they don't want to think... and the Schoolastic nuts kids taking college courses Push push push... i let my kids be Kids...they'll get going when it's time.

 Same with Adults today, everybody is working two and three jobs to get by No free time... to relax, we're not pushing Relax time today we're pushing the limits to produce...Produce at work, produce for home, Produce for College...it's endless...run, run, run...

 When ya don't have the time to think and relax and work in a hobby there is no hobby.

 I started a thread on Video to promote the Service on Public television i'm formulating an e-mail to stir some initiative at the league, i know where that will go, but it's Promotion, Why Not.

Okay.  I have a problem with "promotion".  

The best way to get people interested in something
is via attraction, not promotion.  You know:  "If
you build it, they will come."

The idea that someone needs to "promote" ham radio,
as though it were a brand of car or other commodity that
competes with other brands, runs counter
to the what I see us being all about.  

What is it that the ARRL or any other organization
 is supposed to promote exactly?   That we have more
fun per square head than model railroaders?  
That we're a service to our communities?  Hell,
most people donate money to the United Way or
throw a quarter in the Salvation Army kettle at
Xmas and figure they're doing their bit for service.

The best way to get people interested in anything
is to do it well and do it with a smile on your face.

If it's interesting and people look like they are having
fun, others are going to be curious to see what's
going on.  I'm afraid that's not what's happening.  
What we too often see and hear are snarling old
curmudgeons who put down newcomers and who
piss and whine about their hobby going down the
tubes.  

Yep.  Those are the kind of people I want
to spend my leisure time getting to know.

No one is going to do this for us.  If you want to see
more people involved in amateur radio,  be
a good rep for the hobby and have fun.  People are
drawn to happy people, not miserable grouches.
Not pointing fingers or accusing anyone here at all.
Most AMers are the exception, thank God.  Maybe that's
why we're seeing the interest here.

Anyway. My 2 cents.

When I was first licensed as a novice (WB1GYC) I knew about phone and thought it was interesting but I really thought of ham radio as primarily about CW.  I didn't try phone until around 1990.  I realize now of course that my view of ham radio as primarily a CW hobby wasn't an accurate perception but even so if I could only keep one mode, I'd have to say it would involve a key (probably a bug).  My vote would be to keep the CW requirements and keep the band plans as is (except maybe 80 where parts of the band are underutilized).

73 de W1XAW

It seems to me that the ARRL also has a similar misunderstanding about what "promotion" is and what it means, and what it does.

"If you build it they will come" is nonsense of the highest order. A very nice platitude indeed. Perhaps true in some specific and isolated instances, but not true as a generality.

More accurate is "if you advertise the piss out of it people will buy it." And then only if you do a good job advertising it, and the product has "legs."

The type of "word of mouth" effect that you hope will carry the hobby forward, is the only thing so far that has carried it! That's the crux of the problem!!

The sort of stupid, nearsighted, dry "public service announcement/documentary style" stuff that the League has produced in the past is about as attractive as paint drying, to be kind. That doesn't attract anything. Pleh.

People can't be attracted to something that they never normally come in contact with in daily life. If you don't see it, you don't know about it, it effectively does not exist!

Computers are in the schools and on TV every day, all the time.

I found out about Ham Radio mostly by direct CONTACT. At summer camp. They marched everyone into the ham shack at least once, on a rainy day!

No contact = no understanding = no interest = no new hams.
Period.

It's as simple as the local ham clubs and the League in concert DOING SOMETHING that creates an attraction and makes it interesting! Rather than the clubs sitting around drinking coffee, yakking, and doing club "business."  Doing nothing about this and nothing is being done to change anything about how we hams reach out to youngsters in our communties?? Is that what ham radio is "about"??

So, let's do nothing, moan, complain and then propose to lower the standards?? Because fewer people find an interest in the invisible hobby of ham radio?? That's the logic here? How about stop being invisible first??

         _-_-bear

Bear, I agree with the majority of what you said here but, at the same time I don't feel that eliminating the CW as a requirement is nessesarily lowering the standards.  We can still retain CW as a legal mode and I am sure people will use it.  However we can replace the outdated CW criteria with new criteria that will serve equally to assure some standards in the quality of operators.

I agree that most young people are relatively unaware of ham radio and exactly what it is. Computers are almost everywhere, ham radio stations are hard to come by.  We can all probably do more to  get the word out.  I have several neices and nephews who visit me regularly and yet they have only seen me operate my station about once and very breifly.  Why ?? because I spend a lot more time in front of the computer screen than operating the radio. Now in many ways I find most of the stuff I do on the computers far more interesting than radio. But still, there is no reason why I cannot operate my station more often and give them some exposure to the hobby. Who knows, perhaps any one of them might be inspired to get a license. We can probably all do more to mnake people aware of the hobby.  And I also feel that we should exploit the connection between the digital world and the radio world. Rather than drive wa wedge between the two and depict them as competing areas why not emphasise how the two work together ?  In addition to digital HF and DRM there are  countless areas in which the computers and the radios are interconnected. This can be a great inspiration especially for youngsters who already have a jump on the digital world. It is also quite impressive to see a signal received from the airwaves and then fed into a digital computer where it is decoded, processed and converted into an intelligible signal that can be copied and is relatively immune to noise, fades, static and other elements that plague standard analog modes.  And if we use open standards and protocils operators can even design and build their own software to transmit and receive voice, data, images, movies, etc. The possibilities are endless. I think exposure such as this will do a lot more to promoten the hobby than a CW requirement.

?

Guess I'll rest my case.  Good luck.

yeah, but which part  of the argument do you consider to be nonsense. The idea of keeping code as a requirment, the idea of eliminating it, the idea that it keeps riff raff offf the bands or the idea of stressing newer technology to inspire  a new generation of hams ?

It occurs to me we have no idea WHAT inspires the new generation of hams. It might be interesting for the ARRL to take a poll of hams under the age of 25 and see what attracted them to ham radio and what techologies/modes they are drawn to.

We all assume that the Internet and computers are their main area of interest, but that may not be entirely accurate.

I'm guessing that many get the hobby from exposure to their Dads, Grandads, or Uncles who are hams. I can also speculate that there's a certain percentage of young people who are QRP CW nuts (thus sinking the argument that CW is a significant barrier).

Several things off the ARRL web site about kids, education, and ham radio. But sometimes is just easier to piss and moan that nobody is doing anything.

ARRL Education:
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/tbp/index.html

http://www.arrl.org/FandES/tbp/ed-tech-program.pdf

http://www.arrl.org/FandES/newsletters/ARIC/

Boy Scouts:
http://www.remote.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/07/21/2/?nc=1

http://www.arrl.org/FandES/ead/#scout

Clubs:
http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/club/cc-stories/2004/0805/

http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/club/cc-stories/2004/0802/

At a local club in NJ:
http://www.nparc.org/school.htm[/color]

And my take on dropping the code requirement:

Dropping the code requirement is not a problem with me. We're five years into the 21th century. Change is good, change is natural. If CW, in the traditional way, means that much to you as a useful mode, you will embrace the need to learn it. I said, "screw it" years ago. I now send CW on a keyboard and read it on a screen. And any new prospective hams that come to the shack, see it done the 21th century way. Even though I was licensed in 58, I have embraced and encouraged change. Things don't get "stale" that way.

I couldn't have said it better.

This is most disturbing, I agree with Pete and John H. 'never thought I would say it.
I won't repeat my position, everyone knows it. I just thought the irony of the moment was sharable. . . . : )

I have had enough of message boards and regulation for a while. . . . off on a trip to CO . . . listen for me on 50.135 on 1/2 AM less carrier, 50.4 AM, and 7.285-95 AM . . .

73,
Art

There's hope for you yet. Hope you have a good trip.

(http://www.waldotheclown.com/images/Happy%20Person.gif)

Learning CW is not the ONLY measure of motivation.

Tougher written tests can easily take the place of cw in the effort to keep the riff raff out. If one ain't motivated to LEARN cw then he/she won't be motivated to LEARN that necessary to pass a written test.

Of course, we must make sure the test questions are NOT available on the web for memorization.

The CW Requirement to ham radio is like a buggy whip to driving requirements..

My Feelings exactly. To those who say CW requirement should be removed from the exam because it's old technology, outdated, then shouldn't we also remove questions related to amplitude modulation from the exam for the same reason?

I don't think the argument that cw is outdated is as true as saying that
"In this day Amateur Radio is Outdated"...
I probably have 15-25 people from ages 20 to 50 in my shack per month.
Most are college types, some professors etc...
Occasionally, some youngster under 20 will drop in...
They all pollitely oooo and ahhhh, then say: "Well, I had a real nice conversation with a person in Japan last night on the internet!"!!!



SO, we remain to make Amateur Radio what we want it to be.
Some into AM. some CW some SSB, etc...
Just that over time, the group of people  in society that want the easy way to their achievement have got their way. We see it at the University every year. Just when you think you had the worst class of students, you get the next group in! If it isnt connected to a keyboard, they don't have a clue how to use it....Something for nothing...the way of our future. Our engineering students cant solder two wires together if their life depented on it!

Just remember,
"It is supposed to be hard. It is the hard that makes it great. If it was easy, then eveybody would do it!" This was said about baseball...I probably quoted it wrong, but that is how I feel about cw, and ham radio...I don't want every one playing radio, just the people willing to put forth the effort to do the work. DO CHANGE THE RULES TO MAKE IT EASY FOR YOU... THAT IS THE CAPTAIN KIRK WAY!
so...

It just doesnt seem like anyone at the FCC or ARRL is listening  or willing to preserve the hobby...If you are over 60 years old, well, the hobby and cw will be here for the rest of your life...for someone like me,a bit younger, who likes cw, building and the such, well, I guess it is a good thing I have other hobbies!

73 steve
8tow

Don't worry. CW will still be part of the testing....as this portion of the revised FCC exam (which was leaked to me by a highly placed source) shows....

(http://www.members.aol.com/wb1gfh/test.jpeg)

Now that's funny!!!  :lol:  :lol:

I love the noise blanker question..

I would agree, that "beefing up" the written exams(after deleting
cw) would be the way to go, as they did in Great Britain,--but that`s
not likely to happen here, especially after the FCC just stated in the
recent NPRM that their job was not to ensure the "technical ability"
of the amateur service, but to insure that hams operate whithin the
"legal requirements".

From what I gather, from the FCC,--they do not want to get involved
any more than neccesary, with amateur service,--they would leave
the exam system to the ARRL, and we know what the trend has been
in the past few years in that area.
 
                                       73`s, K1MVP

What are you talking about???????????

All technical related questions should be removed and replaced with a full complement of rule and regulation type questions.

One of the answers to 13b should have been... "Ants on your paper"

Ok,--since the published question pool era, began a number of years
ago, where one could learn to recognize the answers on a "multiple guess test."-- (from the Dick Bash era)
My understanding is(or was) that the ARRL did publish the question
and answers,--if I am wrong, I stand corrected)

                                            73`s, K1MVP

 Well Bear I haveta agree with you on that. Even though the requirements were for 5 wpm when I studied,on some good advice from a few on this board and others I studied for 13 wpm. To me the code was the easiest part of any of the tests I took. No, I do not use CW but to me, it just seems that in this hobby it should be made a part of the requirement.I do not have the attitude of "Well if I had to do it so don't you".And by keeping it wont keep the riff raff out. There are plenty of 20-30 wpm goons out there. And by some of the "nets" I have come across,CW doesn't seem to be a filter for any of that. I dunno. Just my 2 cents.

As I remember (we're talking 37 years here) the questions in the ARRL license guides were "similar to " the actual questions.
I seem to remember a statement to that effect in the forward or something.

good question!

Cackle on, Chicken Little.

"Breaker Breaker 3885... caw mawn!!"

You got that right, Glenn!

I Remember about 20 years the league decided ham radio needed promotion. The best idea they could come  up with was the Archie /Ham Radio comic book. Things really took off after that.  :roll:

I tried to post some replies last time I was on, but my Mozilla decided otherwise, and crashed. Love my microshaft OS, I do.  :?

Anyhow, regarding what the ARRL does with the Boy Scouts and the like - it's all fine. Necessary, but clearly insufficient. If it was SUFFICIENT, there wouldn't be the proposed rule change with the alleged intent of increasing the number of licensed operators.

And why only the BOY Scouts, why not the Girl Scouts too?  :D

Imho, for as long as I can remember the ARRL efforts are dry, unappealing, and boring. As noted by many the hobby no longer is without competition and no longer has the "benefit" or "feature" of long distance communication to itself. Therefore the "pitch" needs to be changed and modernized, new approaches utilized.

My point, to repeat, is that the problem is NOT in the "difficulty" or "barrier" that CW presents. Rather the problem is with the insufficient and unimaginative and/or poorly planned efforts to promote the hobby - across the board. (poorly planned means the same thing as in an advertising campaign - if it doesn't create sales, it is poorly planned)

         _-_-bear

One example..........if I were on a boat and that boat were in trouble and my radio had no audio or conditions were bad......Im sure CW would probably get me some help. Keying the mic to send cw is better than wishing I had some sort of computer generated bullshit device that probably wouldnt work anyway........if u get my drift.

True Bill, but of course what you say depends on the operator knowing Morse code at a minimum basic 5 w.p.m.  The same holds true for most any emergency situation.  It is beyond me what the problem is among some of us with this minimal basic code requirement.  Getting rid of it is not going to swell our numbers, and keeping it is not going to prevent growth.  As Bear and others have suggested, a good ad campaign rooted in engaging P.R. will do more than dumping the code requirement to inspire reasonable growth in numbers.

Down under we got rid of the CW requirement years ago, it has made quite a change to the activity on HF, which had almost died off.

Personally, I am over 50 and, I am doing two courses and have a new micro to learn and am getting across GPIB and VXI programming, for work.
I dont have time to get involved inlearning CW it would do nothing for me.
 I also have arthritis in both hands so I use an electric driver.No chance of doing morse.

There is an argument that learing CW is satisfying and teaches disipline.
For me the same applies to learning macrami.

It is true that amateur radio is many different things to many people.
My local radio club club has many old timers that are into and good at CW,
  But this group generally take their rig back to the
 radio shop if it faults and their electronic theory is quite bad, they havent even meet micros yet.
 
There has been a lot of dumming down of the education system here, by leftist feminist teachers so much that the goverment is offering grants to males who want to become teachers (no one is touching it as they dont want to be cat meat). This has led to a lot of reward without effort values being formed. But the removal of morse was not seen as this - morse
was simply way past its use by date. None of the none morse calls have got into learning the code so its day has simply gone by.

We are dumbing down here in the U.S. also. Makes iteasier for the beltway bandits to run a $8T credit card balance.

Heck look at mr. dumb down himself at 1600 Pa.Ave.

we pay for oil twice. once to buy it then another time to protect ourselves
from the clowns who end up with oil money.

We feel sorry for all the poor people in the world,  we are kicking back so they can catch up.

That is our new conservative approach to things.

Love my country but fear for my Children's future

You win for best line of the year Frank!

Take the bux away and see just how much trouble they can buy.

With me it's more of Responsibility Issue, In taking  License to qualify as an All Mode Operator there was the responsibility to qualify in all mode, No Big Deal, at least to me, I qualified , i got licensed, i got the priviledges.

OK, Today it's a Grab all you can society, avoiding responsibilities,  I'll make a point, in Sundays paper there is an article about "Same Sex" Medical coverage. OK a College female prof was interviewed and her "Same Sex" Partner, Penn Colleges need to keep up with Harvard and UCLA, in live in Same Sex medical coverage.

I sat back in my chair, an thought.. Really...  OK, First off we're talking about "Live In" Partners, used to be sharing medical coverage required Partners to be married legal couple,,"I Know I'm old Fashioned" I'm like that...OK, Now we have a Special Name,, "Same Sex" and a Special case, "Live In".. OK, they get Medical coverage...Just like that..!!! Awesum I thought... I questioned myself...Do Opposite Sex Partners "Qualify" in a Live in Atmosphere..?

So,

Then,.... I thought "How" that could be "Used" to network, Ah Key word "Network"...Medical Coverage... for no other responsibility other than living together "We Can Have Free Medical"... Dig That...

No Responsibilities Dudes... No worries man... Same Same...

There we have it.  It's not "Special' enough, it's Not a Special case, it's Not worth the effort anymore....

Well, I generally don't operate CW. Have done maybe 10 CW contacts in 40 years of having a ticket.  Buit I still believe in some requirement, and 5 WPM is such a piece of cake, you would have to be brain dead to not be able to learn it to at least pass the element, just once.  I would rather see a lessening of the CW-ONLY portions of certain bands.  Perhaps the sub-bands could be parcelled by mode bandwidth.  No, I don't want to open the can of worms of DSB vs SSB.  But let's just say that a mode using perhaps 300 HZ compared to 3000 Hz......

One relevant question as to the flood of LID's that will descend upon us: How many NEW hams have joined us since the HF bands were opened up to 5 WPM?  Or, have we mostly seen upgrades by people who have radio in the blood anyway?  

Being a SCI-FI/ Adventure film fan, I have found it interesting that "Morse" code is used as the back up communication method in many films. Even the BBC detective show "Morse" had his name running in code, in the music of the theme song.

Funny how OOK is a "New" wireless data modulation mode.

I watched the CW vs. IM contest on The Tonight Show, but was dissapointed that there wasn't a short interview with the CW ops to talk up Ham Radio.  Is is PR?  Almost everyone I know outside of Ham Radio has no knowledge that virtually every astronaut is a Ham.

Right on the money Bill and Herb!... CW is the most basic form of communication and It's still useful, even today. I have helped quite a few people over the years learn the code... from all walks of life... Most of the folks I've helped have actually enjoyed learning the code...It was a challange, it was fun it was an acomplishment! even if they never planned to use it once they got their ticket.... I even taught my wife the code, she still remembers it today and never got her license, she thinks it's fun! as do many young people I've helped.

As others have said, removing the code requirement will do nothing positive for amateur radio. Why is there this need to change ham radio into a different hobby? because less people are getting their tickets? we need to "move with the times"?, connect ham radio with the internet? A big load of horse hockey!!

It aint broke.... don't fix it!!!
 

Here, here, right on the money OM.

Why?
Why futs with a good thing, something that works and works quite well.

I am an OO and also instructor for Tech/General/Advanced license class.
I can share that all too many of my past General students just memorized the answers; they did not really "learn" the theory.
Most, but not all, did the least they could to get by, and if CW was not present we'd have even more LIDS on HF.

I'll make a standing offer. I will support remove of code when the following happen:

1) Question and Answer Pool is not published.

2) Answers are not multiple choice.

3) At least three test questions involve drawing a schematic and block diagram of a receiver and transmitter.

4) Instant license revocation and castration occurs if the following utterances are made by licensee, “10-4” and “Personal Here is”.

Bruce,

I agree.

Except for your #4, that's the way it was when I passed my General and Advanced.  Extra was a different story, though I did squeak through the 20 wpm code test, with the multiple guess questions.

Concerning your #4.......Hhhmmmmm, not a bad idea  :lol: