On Mon, 13 Oct 2003 21:46:05 -0400, RDG wrote:

OM, hope to see you licensed soon. The code is no longer required for
the Technician license, which allows you to work most of the hamsats,
including ISS. 5 wpm code allows you to jump to the General class, which
includes all the HF frequencies as well. 10 wpm puts you at the Amateur
Extra level, which many still go to, although I won't go beyond my
General.

....In order:

1) 5wpm is *still* a waste of time. From my own scans of the HF bands,
very little code is heard these days. In fact, in December of last
year, just for ****s and grins I fired up the old Knight R100A - after
I reseated two tubes and the BFO XTAL *again* - and scanned the world.
I found exactly *one* CW QSO, and it didn't last very long. The Japs
dropped the code reqs years ago, and the rest of the world should
follow suit. If anything, code should be the delimiter between General
and Adv/AE levels.

2) General is 5?? Since when? AE is 10wpm? When the hell did it drop
down from the unachievable 20wpm?? If that's the case, what did
Advanced drop down to from the 13 it used to be?

The code is still a die-hard method of communicating, actively used in
moonbounce, but digital modes are what the satellite ops are using, along
with FM voice.

....Don't get me wrong: CW's a great thing to know how to do,
especially since it's the one sure-fire way of getting data past
post-atomic interference. But it's kept more people out of Ham radio
than the theory exams, and I've seen more than my share of examiners
who'll deliberately throw curveballs in their exams to make applicants
fail in hopes they'll go practice harder before trying again. That's
why some of the examiner friends I palled around with in the 80's
secretly gave applicants the option to either pass the code or pass
the General exam without a code test to get a Novice or Technician
license. Pretty much all of the applicants took the theory-only option
gladly.

....Now, as to why with friends like that I didn't go for the license
back then, it was a manner of principle - I want code reqs abolished,
period - and the fact that I didn't have any room whatsoever for any
rigs or antennas, and I *hate* working QRP ops :-P

OM

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