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From: andy%aids-unix@sri-unix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ham-radio
Subject: No-code reprise (yet another longish diatribe)
Message-ID: <1960@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13-Jul-84 12:06:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.1960
Posted: Fri Jul 13 12:06:00 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Jul-84 02:25:48 EDT
Lines: 125

From:  Andy Cromarty <andy@aids-unix>

In no particular order:

	"Morse code proficiency and swimming (preferably "drownproofing")
	should be required for graduation from high school.  Make that
	elementary school!!"

Hear, hear! In fact, let's also have government requirements for
carrying an HT wherever we go, mandatory driver's licenses, demonstrable
tree-climbing ability, dog ownership, wearing of lifevests at all
times, and the indispensible facility of being able to open bottles of
Perrier with our teeth.  Surely the survival value must be obvious.  In
fact, if a radio transmitter and a case of Perrier floated along while I
was stranded on a small hot desert island, I can tell you without
hesitation which skill I would appreciate more.  

Or to put it another way: how many readers feel so intellectually
incapacitated that they need the government to identify for them, and
then require them to learn, life's important survival skills?  Raise
those hands high....

The point?  It's all too simple to fabricate examples of the utility,
even the survival value, of CW or any other skill.  Apart from their
occasional entertainment value, however, such constructions are largely
irrelevant to assessments of the value of the no-code license.  If a
survival skill, whether it's swimming or CW, is of self-evident value
to the learners, then they will learn it out of their own rational
self-interest.  In fact, whether or not they learn it should be taken
as a prima facie *definition* of what is in their own self-interest.
We all lead complex lives, and no one is better equipped than we are
ourselves to make the decision about what is the best investment of our
time and energy.  [Admittedly a personal belief, but how would you
go about generating a rigorous disproof for such a broad claim? :-) ]

By the way, has anyone noticed that you really only need to be able to
*send* CW -- and only at 2 wpm --  to transmit a distress signal, and
yet the FCC only tests for evidence of *receiving* capability?  And no
one has yet suggested that mastery of CW should be a legal requirement
for scanner devotees, airport controllers, taxicab drivers, broadcast
listeners, automotive radiotelephone owners, or marine pleasure craft
enthusiasts, even though many of them are required to have some sort of
FCC-granted license to operate and all are at least as likely to hear
our hypothetical distress signals as hams are.  Even the local fire
department, the police, and the  Red Cross, to whom frequencies are
allocated and licenses granted and who have an obvious interest in
supporting emergency communications, suffer no legal requirement to
demonstrate mastery of this mode.  Hence it is not our unique position
among spectral occupants as emergency communicators that, um, qualifies
us for a CW examination requirement; we have no such unique position.
...And I do read QST (and 73, and CQ) nearly cover-to-cover every
month, and I just don't see the "ham, lost at sea, finds salvation in
rusty CW skills" headlines people keep alluding to.  What I DO see is
dozens of stories like "John Doe saved the lives of 4 people in a
burning car wreck because he had the foresight to carry his 2-meter FM
handheld with him and knew the local repeater frequencies."  Something
is lacking in this mandatory "CW survival skill requirement" line of
reasoning. I propose that it is content.

    "Amateur Radio is the only *sucessful* 'self-policed' organization that I
    know of and the need to learn Morse code does weed out those who are not
    interested enough to be bothered with 'something they will never use'."

		and

        "Now that the argument is over as  far as the FCC is concerned  for
        (I am told) at least twelve years, we should all pitch in and  try
        to help and  encourage aspiring hams  to get past  the very  minor
        obstacle that the  code represents."

    "I've tried.  When I show my packet station to any of my friends,  they
    are always  impressed by  it, and  always  ask what  it takes  to  get
    licensed.  When I say they have to  learn morse code, that is the  end
    of  it."

I have had precisely the same experience.  I know of a number of people
who are interested in packet radio and emergency communications who are
actively deterred by the code requirement.  In light of this
experience, I find the "emergency communications value" argument
somewhat ironic.  Here is a body of sincere, competent individuals whom
I have personally heard say that they would like to get involved in
packet radio and emergency communications, but for whom the CW
requirement constitutes a sufficient impediment that they probably
won't do it.  I am personally offended by the frequently-heard smug
retort that such individuals "don't measure up" or "didn't really want
it".  Is this a hobby or a competition?  Why should they be expected to
demonstrate the same sort of loyalty to apparently arbitrary examination
requirements the ham radio service as self-selected old-timers?
After all, the ham radio service is working hard to exclude them, and
in as pompous and self-serving a fashion as possible.  For that matter,
the message you are reading at this moment is itself a testimony to the
observation that we hams can't even agree among ourselves as to whether
the code requirement is a good thing.  I suspect that there was more
than a little truth in the comment that many rather elitist hams really
don't want the ranks to grow.  (Crowds the bands, dontchaknow.)  I know
no better term for this than greed.

So what?  If none of those lazy slouches can cut the mustard, what's
the cost to ham radio?  Potentially immense.  A non-ham no-code license
is not excluded by the recent FCC no-code response, as I understand
their decision.  If a separate no-code radio service is established
that (unlike CB) does have a theory test as a part of the licensing
process, all those competent, sincere, interested potential hams will
gravitate towards the service that meets their needs without imposing
additional irrelevant (and perhaps capricious) requirements.  This will
include not only those who would never have become hams because of the
CW requirement, but also those who probably could have been coaxed into
learning CW well enough to pass the test and then forget it (which is
an accurate description of an awful lot of hams I know).  Further,
these people will not just be bodies to swell the ranks; they'll be the
people who are pushing the communications frontiers, the people who
have given ham radio its historical and (until recently) deserved
reputation as playing a significant role in advancing the state
of the communications art.  We'll very nearly be losing the wheat and
keeping the chaff, if you believe that ham radio exists in part to
advance communications.  (Everyone on this net better realize by now
that ham radio is about a decade BEHIND the state of the art in
"advanced" techniques such as packet.  After all, how do you think this
message reached your mailbox?  We're still playing catch-up at the
moment.)  Somehow there must be some larger and more meaningful set of
goals for ham radio than merely "keeping the CBers out"; what's the

***Sender closed connection***

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