[TowerTalk] The bad news

[Jim Jarvis]

Well folks....there's bad news, and there's not so bad news.

The BAD news is...my new house in suburbia has trees in places
that make towers and beams a shoehorn problem.  I have no idea
how to work around it, for now.

But the not so bad news?   Elimination of CW testing for all 
classes.  I can still copy 60wpm+, even with ears that many
years old...so I think I've got the right to say that the CW
requirement has held ham radio back, rather than helped it,
for the past 20 years or more.  

Is CW fun?  I think so, in a perverted sort of way.  Does it
have extended social value?  No more than racing sailboats
around buoys, if you get right down to it.  Although perhaps one
could conjur up a comm's scenario where only CW would get the
job done.  

However, the evidence is that narrowband digital  (psk31) will
copy at signal levels you cannot hear...making CW less than the
ultimate weak signal mode...although certainly simpler.  

IMHO,  The CW requirement has kept more good people OUT of the
hobby than it has kept good people IN.  Good riddance, and it's
about time.  

Now...about that tower problem....I need a shoehorn, an ma550
and 3 el SteppIR.  

Perhaps we'd better take the code rant elsewhere?

n2ea
jimjarvis at ieee.org