From: utzoo!decvax!cca!duntemann.wbst@sri-unix
Newsgroups: net.ham-radio
Title: More Thoughts on CW
Article-I.D.: sri-unix.4651
Posted: Mon Dec  6 13:28:08 1982
Received: Tue Dec  7 12:19:32 1982

C'mon, guys, truth is getting bent here a little bit.  I was in Japan on
Xerox business in October of 1981, and I worked some 2M FM.  It was always
busy as hell, but the operators were snappy and unfailingly polite,
both when speaking in Japanese to each other and in English to me.  Now, I
fled CB screaming into hamdom's sanity, and to call Japanese 2M a "CB band"
is hazardously close to slander.  There is absolutely no comparison.  We
here could, in fact, learn a thing or three about pushing traffic through a
repeater from those guys.

Secondly, this oft-repeated motif of CW saving the day when the dam
breaks and washes the town away or when the boat's going down and sombody
stepped on the mike or when the earthquake has toppled the power lines and
all you can do is solder D cells to a transistor and tap wires together,
I mean, Lordy, isn't that getting a little obtrusively Hollywood?
Since when does public service begin and end with disaster communications?
Does the world have to practically end before ham radio performs public
service?  I've done aa fair share of what I consider public service without
sitting in the middle of a hurricane.

Also, although I don't have any of my ham books at my elbow, I think there
is a little more in the Intents and Purposes section of
the Rules than simply Public Service.  We also have an
obligation to advance the state of the art.  The two go hand-in-hand.

Now, I asked this before but nobody picked it up.  So let me reiterate:

WHY do CW freaks always assume that a code-free license is a mortal attack
on pounding brass?  

NOBODY in this argument has yet advocated a reduction of CW-only band space.

NOBODY has advocated reducing the privileges of those who earned tickets
by learning CW.

So why in heaven's name has this issue generated so much heat?  The
code-free license advocates are putting forth a CHOICE.  The
CW defenders are insisting on a rigid, single path.  I smell a month-old
egg.

(*Lest folk get suspicious, let me point out that I still use CW when
it's appropriate.  I built the ARRL's "Third-World" 20M CW station and I
run it off solar cells on camping trips.  I'll be as ready as anybody
when a hurricane roars into Rochester NY. *)

73 and all that,

Jeff Duntemann  KB2JN