[CQ-Contest] Licensing Changes

[Cqtestk4xs at aol.com]

I have been watching this thread develop and would like to add a couple of 
cents worth of comments.

CW will always be around.  However, it's status clearly is changing.  Those 
of us who have been around when AM was more commonly used than SSB know how AM 
has become a quaint novelty item over the years.

CW is probably destined to the same fate.  Once the rule-making has changed, 
where is the incentive to learn the code?  Do you remember what a struggle it 
was learning the code?...How you wanted to quit several times?  Even now, most 
of the newcomers to the hobby have struggled to reach 5 wpm don't use the 
code.  The novice training grounds for increasing  code speed are barren 
wastelands.  To go from the agonizingly slow speed of 5 wpm to a conversational 15-20 
wpm is now almost impossible for the new guys.  Almost every new ham I meet 
says he learned the code just to get on SSB or FM.

Over the next few years don't be surprised to see the FCC increase the phone 
bands at some loss to the CW  allocations.  My prediction is 40 will be the 
first place it will take place, now that the WARC changes are coming.

This is no knock on CW.  When I took my test I had to pass 20 wpm at the FCC 
building in NYC and have done my share of CW work in the past.  The 
suggestions so far made on the relector are good and will help lessen the atrophy of CW. 
 However, all things change.  The status of CW is one of them.

Bill K4XS