Well stated Casey.
CW aside, as a VE I have been very surprised by those people who
"struggle" with (and even fail) the written portion of the test, even
though it has been made so incredibly easy now days with the VE program
and all the Q & A books available. It seems to me applicants should be
able to blow right through the exam and get a perfect score every time.
All of this "easy licensing" of the past many years has produced a lot
of hams that really don't know or understand the technical aspects of
the hobby at all. How many people out there can fix their own TEN TECs
or whatever? Technical competence is supposed to be a major part of
what makes up a ham. For those who don't think so I believe 11 meters
or the new "Family Communications Service" is the place for them and NOT
the ham bands.
Reid, K7YX
______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
Subject: RE: [TenTec] ARRL Proposal
Author: Casey Bahr at MSXGATE
To: <tentec@contesting.com>
Date: 7/23/98 8:39 AM
Duffy,
I have no intention of flaming you (despite your pleas to the contrary) ;)
You have to realize first that amateur radio has already been dumbed
down and it will only get worse. The current written exams are a joke
and even if they required you to pass a PhD level exam on astrophysics
to get a Tech license I can assure you that as long as they continue to
use a multiple-guess format and publish the Q&As to these exams
an elementary school child can pass them very easily with a simple
technique. Even without this technique (which I won't reveal as I don't
want to contribute to the folly of these tests any more), one could spend
about a week memorizing the answers and not retain a bit of the theory
or regulations.
I always get a kick out of folks like you who obviously have spent so
little time on the CW bands. You always cite the coarse behavior on
75 meters or such. If this exists on the CW bands I have yet to hear
it in thousands of QSOs, except from phone ops who try to jam CW ops.
And just because *you* don't use CW or see its value does that give
you the right to take away our bandspace and denigrate its use?
If you can suggest a better gatekeeper as you call it then I might
listen, but this current proposal has none, it lowers the bar, and even
you in the phone bands will pay the price. Why don't you try operating
on 11 meters for a month and see how you like it.
73,
Casey
> -----Original Message-----
> From: JDuffy@aol.com [SMTP:JDuffy@aol.com]
> Sent: Thursday, July 23, 1998 8:13 AM
> To: larrygibbs@ibm.net; tentec@contesting.com
> Subject: Re: [TenTec] ARRL Proposal
>
>
> Folks,
>
> This is not to start a flame war. But the facts are very simple. CW is
> becoming more and more an outdated method of communication. In fact, our
> emotions may have caused amateurs to hang onto this method longer than we
> needed to and may have kept us from advancing the communication art.
>
> CW does not keep the lids out. The language I have heard over the past
> five
> years on 75 and 20 meters is absolutely apalling (sp?). Everyone of these
> "amateurs" passed the code test.
>
> Its time to move on. Why haven't amateurs started working on digital
> voice
> communication? Why have our other digital methods failed to grow and
> develop
> (packet, pactor, etc.)? The folks on the internet are not using CW. They
> have no interest in CW. Is there a place for CW? Sure, but should a
> morse
> code test be the gatekeeper to amateur radio? Not anymore IMHO.
>
> Getting rid of CW should not be dumbing down of amateur radio. Our
> testing
> has to be updated to reflect advances in communication technology. We as
> amateurs should work at advancing communications, not trying to hang on to
> the
> past. Notice there are no questions on our current exams on spark-gap
> methods
> of communication? Yet I'll bet you can find some old-timers that loved it
> and
> think it was a bad idea to get rid of it.
>
> Now let the flames begin!
>
> Regards,
>
> Duffy - WB8NUT
>
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