From: utzoo!decvax!cca!Stephany.WBST@PARC-MAXC@sri-unix
Newsgroups: net.ham-radio
Title: Re: Too much
Article-I.D.: sri-unix.4498
Posted: Tue Nov 30 09:47:44 1982
Received: Wed Dec  1 08:38:23 1982

Pleased to meet you !  Glad you responded.

It was never intended that CW be condisdered a replacement for other methods of
modulation.  My letter made it clear  when all else fails  that CW can get
through.  It is the simplicity of Cw that makes it necessary as the final back up
system.  

Any system of communication is swell with me, and I really believe in the
progress of all forms.  However, when the chips are down, a knowledge of CW
often, and not in isolated incidents, means the difference between life and death.

The ethernet is a swell system and works well and fast as I sit in this dry office
with plenty of 120 volts power.  But what if I am on the road, in the wilderness
etc., ?  What if you were that guy on the boat going down with a smahed mike
on the CB rig ?  By the way, he sent his latitude and longitude not just an SOS.

Further more you have a distorted picture of just what radio is, let alone ham 
radio.  The first thing to learn is that radio (all forms) is not the world
communication system.  Cable is.  The fundamental communication of the world, 
now and will be for decades to come, is Cable.  Radio is reserved for
communication that cannot be sent over Cable (like the ethernet).  There is not
enough spectrum space avaiable for all the computer fans etc.,and Ham radio
should not be used to fullfill this need.  The light pipe will eventually be the
cable between home computer hobbyists.

Ham radio is still the forefront of the development of Radio communication.  All
modes of communication by radio with the single exception of Back scatter and
sattelite communcation, were developed by Hams.  Incidently, I see that the
military plan to use meteor trail communication as a backup in case the
communication sattelites get shot down.  This mode was discovered and
developed by Hams.

As far as the universallity of CW, it is still much easier to communicate with
people that do not speak English with Morse Code, having done both myself in
my 29 years as a Ham.  In fact, such contacts are common on CW and very
unusual on SSB.  As far as ASCII goes, remember, most hams outside the US have
no such equipment. 

The future of Ham radio belongs to those who prepare for the future.  A
knowlege of CW, as the final back up system, is manditory for good radio
operators, not  appliance operators.

I suggest that if there are so many geniuses (computer or otherwise) that, being
a genius, they would have no trouble at all in leaning Morse at only 5 WPM.

				Joe  N2XS    Spark Forever !!!

PS,  My I.Q.  is 155, I work on computers, and I leaned the code.  Maybe you
should program one of your computers to teach you the code.