Here's why I am 100% FOR CW!!

[John Holotko]

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.
<SNIP>

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.

[Paul, K2ORC]

Nonsense of the highest order

?

Guess I'll rest my case.  Good luck.

[John Holotko]

"Nonsense of the highest order"?

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 ?

[W1GFH]

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).

[Pete, WA2CWA]

Quote the bear: 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"??

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.

[John Holotko]

Quote the bear: 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"??

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.

[

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.

[Art]

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

[Pete, WA2CWA]

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.

[WD8BIL]

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

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..

[Glenn K2KL]

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!

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?

[Steve W8TOW]

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

[W1GFH]

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?

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....

[Glenn K2KL]

Now that's funny!!!  :lol:  :lol:

I love the noise blanker question..

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?

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....

[K1MVP]

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

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..

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

[Pete, WA2CWA]

,--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???????????

[Pete, WA2CWA]

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!

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?

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

[Glenn K2KL]

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

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?

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....

[K1MVP]

,--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??

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

[Ed KB1HVS]

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


         _-_-bear WB2GCR

 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.

[WD8BIL]

My understanding is(or was) that the ARRL did publish the question
and answers,--if I am wrong, I stand corrected)

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!

[Herb K2VH]

Cackle on, Chicken Little.

[Glenn K2KL]

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

Cackle on, Chicken Little.

[Herb K2VH]

You got that right, Glenn!

[GEORGE/W2AMR]

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

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:

[WBear2GCR]

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?  

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