NO CODE?

[N5LRZ]

And your point is?http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[KA8NCR]

What we believe. We want to make a few points crystal clear:

1. NCI is not opposed to manual Morse code operation. But CW is just another mode and should not be afforded any special priority over others. It is available to those who wish to use it. Morse proficiency should not be required for those who do not wish to use the mode.



Just like phone, it's available to those who want to use it. CW isn't given any special priority, except of course that most repeaters still ID with it, as is the h/s of amateur satellites. No, it's still not an important mode.

2.
Manual radiotelegraphy communications has been superceded by more modern, reliable, accurate, faster and efficient means of communication.


They seem to not understand that understanding CW is a gateway to learning these other modes. If you can't, or will not, learn how to create a simple carrier with something as elementary as a crystal controlled oscillator, then how do these people expect an amateur to understand single-sideband suppressed carrier?

I find it difficult to accept that you can teach something that the student can not use.


3. Requiring manual telegraphy proficiency is not compatible with the radio amateur's mandated objective of contributing to the advancement of the radio art.


On the contrary, see the reply to #2. I'd sure as heck would have loved to have grasped differential calculus without having to learn algebra, trig and analytic geometry. And let's not get into that pesky Pathagorean theorem. Why would I need to learn that, we do not build pyramids anymore.

What they are saying, in essence, is we want to be considered as advancing the radio art, but we can't be bothered with understanding simple things like a carrier or how to convey information with it.


4. No evidence exists that Morse proficiency is an indicator of a desirable, motivated or better qualified operator.


Desirable? No.
Motivated? Absolutely. The acid test of someone's dedication to something is to give them a task that is difficult, or seems patently absurd to learn.
Better qualified? What is the motivation to contribute or support the hobby if the license can be achieved by mailing in a coupon and three box-tops from Lucky Charms?



The Morse code requirement serves as an advancement barrier to many otherwise qualified individuals.


I really like this argument. Please explain to me how a 9 year old girl can pass her extra exam, but otherwise qualified and competent individuals can not. I won't get into the numbers of others who have visual or hearing handicaps that have somehow managed to get their ticket.


6. The value of Morse code communications in the Amateur Service is primarily recreational in nature and manual telegraphy proficiency should no longer be a compulsory licensing requirement for any class of Amateur Radio license.


This brings me to a rather disturbing trend. Again, amateurs are ostensibily thinking about what is good for the hobby, as opposed to the good the hobby provides. We're supposed to be a trained pool of radio operators, and arguably the largest and possibly only cohesive pool of CW operators available.

It's not a far of a stretch to imagine a natural or man-made situation that renders "more modern, reliable, accurate, faster and efficient means of communication" useless. Unprecidented solar disturbance, large-scale nuclear EMP, something that makes receiving all but the faintest of signals nearly impossible. CW would be the only short-term method of communication. Just like the government leaned on the Navaho nation in times of need, amateurs would be pressed into a very important role.

Is this a likely scenario? Probably not. But it's possible, and
our no-code friends fail to realize that CW proficiency is an asset that keeps us swimming in billions of dollars of free spectrum.

Not to be totally dismissive, we already do have no-code license classes and it's part of the incentive licensing that if you want to work HF, you get off your backside and learn code. It may be time to examine limited HF no-code operation as was done with novices and voice communications on 10 meters.

However, total elimination of the code requirement for all HF privileges is in my opinion, a dilution of the value and purpose of the hobby. I'm sure we can strike a balance between the internal needs of the hobby (growth and competence of operators) and what purposes we serve.

[KG4RUL]

With the ITU recommendation for the dropping of the requirement for code proficiency, it is only a matter of time before this is adopted by the U.S.

Once this happens, CW will still be a viable form of communications and it's use should be encouraged. #This could be accomplished by providing license endorsements, at various speed levels. #These endorsements would confer upon the holders rights to operate in CW only portions of all bands.

Along with the removal of the code requirement and the adoption of CW endorsements and frequency allocations, the requirements for technical and operational knowledge, in the testing for all license levels, would be greatly increased.

The net result would be more and better qualified Hams at all license levels, along with a continuing cadre of dedicated CW operators.

A WIN-WIN situation!

Dennis - KG4RUL #http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[W5ATX]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (KG4RUL @ Nov. 17 2002,13:35)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Along with the removal of the code requirement and the adoption of CW endorsements and frequency allocations, the requirements for technical and operational knowledge, in the testing for all license levels, would be greatly increased.

The net result would be more and better qualified Hams at all license levels, along with a continuing cadre of dedicated CW operators.

A WIN-WIN situation!

Dennis - KG4RUL #:)[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
I recall very clearly, this is exactly what we were told would happen if no-code went through. The written exams were to be much more comprehensive and would assure qualified hams would be the result even with the dropping of the code requirement. ARRL sold us that one for several years. In fact, that's why I changed my feeling and decided to support no-code.

Hmmmmm . . . what happened?

KG4RUL, it'd be nice, but it's not going to happen. Ham radio will just continue to get dumbed down more and more in response to not only the crybabies who want something for nothing, but the general attitude of the &quot;I want it now&quot; generation. Pretty soon, licenses WILL mean nothing.

&quot;What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly.&quot; (Thomas Paine)

73,
Chris

[ae4fa]

K9STH - K9STH

Glen, please, for the love of God . . .

73, Bob

[k6ncx]

There ain't a thing that can be said on this subject, pro, con, or sideways, that hasn't already been said repeatedly on QRZ and on the air, and said both better than you or I could say it and incedibly badly, incoherently.

[N7CPC]

GLEN!!!!!!! SHOOT ME....PUT ME OUT OF THIS USELESS,WORN OUT, WHAT MORE IS THERE TO BE SAID ABOUT IT THREAD'S MISERY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

73 de Craig........N7CPC

[KC9ANQ]

sorry i have been off the PC for awhile and i found the link thought it was more info i apologize so i took the link off the moderator should delete the post if they feel

[K9STH]

I did put a thread about code &quot;out of its misery&quot; yesterday, before it really got started. This one hasn't degraded into what the other one started out as, but I certainly hope that it quietly dies on its own. However, according to the &quot;rules&quot;, I can't just lock down or delete a thread just because this is probably the 50th time the subject has come up in the past year, or so!

You don't have to read it, but, unfortunately, I do!

Glen, K9STH
One of the QRZ.com moderators

[kd7eze]

3. Requiring manual telegraphy proficiency is not compatible with the radio amateur's mandated objective of contributing to the advancement of the radio art.

4. No evidence exists that Morse proficiency is an indicator of a desirable, motivated or better qualified operator.


You can't argue these facts
http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

'73 de KD7EZE/5

[kg6nus]

while im for nocode at least for genral myself, actually you can argue 3. as someone already said, it's simply a basic understanding of how a simple mode works which leads to other digital modes and such. but quite frankly that should be for the extra class.

simple fix, make the general harder with nocode, make the extra require 15 wpm code. and in the meantime remove the 160m and 80m bands from the general. this way people with general will have PLENTY of room to optionally get used to using cw(i mean come on, other than repeater id's no one uses cw on vhf/uhf in my area so except for using the computer to learn code, i dont exactly have a chance to make any cw contacts) and then have plenty of tiem to learn code and have access to the 160m and 80m bands when they feel like it.

it'll off people a reason to upgrade past tech if they dont want to learn code and give them a chance to get further into the hobby which leads to learning, and will give generals an incentive to upgrade to extra with plenty of practice with code at faster than 5wpm than just using software which quite frankly is mindnumblingly dull

heck, maybe even make 40m extra only as well. generals have almost as many priveledges as extras as it is with no real reason to want to ever bother upgrading, and whether some of you ham veterans want to realize it or not, not everyone wants to learn code. or heck, even if they pass the 5wpm who says they're gonna ever use it? i learned it when i was like 8 playing with walkie talkies looking at the sticker that had it on there, and i was probably close to 5wpm, do i remember it now? not a chance, too many beers ago. and even if i took the time to learn it again jsut to pass the 5wpm to get my general, who knows whether or not im gonna remember it after that? and no, it isnt like riding a bike

my idea would give incentive to upgrade licenses without entirely eliminating the code requirement, and help lessen the amount of people that just get a tech ticket, buy an ht, and get bored with it after 3 months, and if that wasnt the cas,e with the hundreds of tech hams in my city alone, the 4 repeaters we have wouldnt be dead silent so often, and thats only 4 out of 40 or so i can hit with a 5w ht in my house that are ALL pretty much dead quiet except during commute and some other bried periods.

of course is anyone with any say so going to even consider it? pfft, not a chance simply because im not a a 50 year diamond arrl member with 5,000 qsl cards sitting in a box in my shack next to dozens of pieces of radio equipment with a 100 foot antenna mast in my hard equipped with an element for every band under the sun. i doubt it'll ever be mentioned again outside this thread, let alone get to the people who make decisions

[KB9YKY]

NUS says noone in his area uses cw on vhf/uhf? That would seem very odd considering the shear number of hams in his area. Contest results cetainly indicate otherwise. Also when bands are open, there seems to be plenty of cw activity in 6 land. Maybe the reason that he is unaware of the activity is because he spends his time listening to the repeater/FM subbands? Or lack of a reasonable antenna system?

[KB9YKY]

What EZE calls &quot;fact&quot; sounds more like silliness. To claim, as fact, that being proficient at being able to communicate more securely, being able to cover greater distances with even minimal antennas and at lower power output, and without need for computers, interfaces,etc. does not indicate a more competent operator sounds of nothing but silliness. The only FACT is= cw is the most efficent, and most reliable, form of communication, other than communicating with someone face to face. That is the only fact of the matter, period. Thus, those that are motivated to be proficient at it's use are indeed more competent operators.

[KA8NCR]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (kd7eze @ Nov. 18 2002,07:37)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">You can't argue these facts
http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

'73 de KD7EZE/5[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">
3. Requiring manual telegraphy proficiency is not compatible with the radio amateur's mandated objective of contributing to the advancement of the radio art.
[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>

Exactly how can you advance the radio art when you fail to understand the most rudimentary concepts?

Well?


</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">
4. No evidence exists that Morse proficiency is an indicator of a desirable, motivated or better qualified operator.
[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>


I covered this in my previous post. I invite you to read it.

[WB2WIK]

KG6NUS, I see you're in the East Bay area, but if you ever visit So. Cal, you're invited to drop by and work some 6 meter CW from here. It's quite active, and the only way to work some countries on six, where there are just no voice operators currently. I frequently work JA's (Japan) on six meter CW, simply because unless the band's very wide open, they're too weak to hear on SSB -- and the accents make it very difficult to understand them when they're at the noise level. CW is a great &quot;equalizer,&quot; since nobody has an accent.

As for the statement regarding Morse not being an indicator of a better operator, that was called a &quot;fact.&quot; I'd love to know how this ridiculous statement became &quot;fact,&quot; when in fact, it's not true at all. The best amateur operators in the world are successful contesters who frequently make 10,000+ contacts in 48 hours, single-handedly, averaging close to 10 contacts per minute on any mode they choose to work, and making very few mistakes. Of those capable of doing this, nearly 100% use CW (in addition to phone and other modes), and that is extremely well documented by tabulated data published in QST, CQ and elsewhere. That's the fact.

WB2WIK/6

[N7CPC]

.............yawn.............

[kg6nus]

YKY, you obviously didnt read my entire post. yes, there's lots of technician class hams here, and barely anyone uses it except during contests, whoopdeedoo as far as im concerned. like i said, obviously there's a lot of people getting licensed, buying an ht, getting bored with it after a few months and then never picking it up again.

seems a lot of people are forgetting how much radios cost sometimes, and how there's a lot of people without the time/patience to homebrew their own tranciever.

i like many other people will NOT spend 600-1000 dollars for a base station radio just so i can use cw on 6m to maybe upgrade my license later in hobby i might not feel like participating in that often. and that's just a radio, another couple hundred for a tuner, hundred for a rotor, etc, etc.

If you just got say... licensed in operating a rowboat in your area, and you enjoy rowing it on your local lake, and if you want you could take it to the coast and row around with it and enjoyed it, you just found yourself a hobby. now your rowboat was cheap, and it didnt take much effort to get licensed. now suddenly to upgrade to operating a motorboat you need to pass a hands on exam on a motorboat doing things related to using a motorboat. you cant use a motorboat on the lake you like, and you dont feel like going to the coast constantly to ask to ride along in someone elses motorboat to get experience. so you dont really have a huge indicator of whether or not you'd like using a motorboat at sea, you live next to lake ontario, and you dont feel like spending 5 grand for a motorboat to use out on a coast every once in a blue moon because you're limited to using it only up to 50 feet from shore. Not to mention that after you upgrade to using a motorboat license at sea, you have no reason to go past that because you're limited to 50 feet from the coast of another country, when the next level allows you to get within that last 50 feet. which is enough to yell at the guy sittin on shore and have a short conversation with someone who cant yell very well without actually getting off the boat and being in another country.

sure, that may sound utterly ridiculous, but if you realize that the cost of a radio can be th ecost of a small boat sometimes, and yes as far as &quot;pools of bands&quot; that licensees can use that's pretty accurate.

people dont like hanging around at other peoples homes on other peoples time to use other peoples equipment. and we all know the cost of radios isnt dropping anytime soon. i've also seen plenty of people complain about a lack of reason to upgrade licenses, well what could possibly be added to extra to make it moer appealing? more bands? pfft. general would have to lose something, and not just a portion of a something, a whole something or three.

WIK, i'd take you up on your offer, but unless you wanna accomodate me between 6-9 am and after 5 while im also cooking dinner, watching the news while sippin a beer, see? and this is without taking into consideration that i live some 300 odd miles away from you.

in short: rigs cost too much to buy one for such a small range of usage when you arent licensed to even use the rest of the bands the rig can use except to rx, to upgrade your license and then end up having a rig you might not want to use in a year because you got fed up with spending an exborbetant amount of money and dont bother to upgrade your license so now the only reason you're looking for another ham is to sell your radio.

not everyone getitng a tech ticket inherited their dads radios that they used to sit in their dads shack on his knee and talk to people around the world on when they were a kid. plenty of you guys say us younger people are the future of ham radio, which we are, and that isnt what most of us grew up with. if that wasnt the case the average age of the 'younger' hams i see in recent pictures wouldnt be late 30's - early 40's aside from a few boyscouts which quite frankly not many kids get involved in anymore either incase you guys havent noticed. i think there was all of 5-10 scouts in my overcrowded elementary school, and that was 15 years ago, from what i heard out of my younger brother who was in the same elementary school 7 years ago there were even less.

you guys just gotta realize that younger people arent inheriting ham radio or growing up with it in the numbers they used to in the same proportion to the rest of the population here in the us

[K9STH]

For NUS:

I can easily obtain equipment that allows for operation with around 100 watts on 80 through 10 meters for less than what the average 2 meter HT costs. It won't be the &quot;latest and greatest&quot; in terms of &quot;bells and whistles&quot;, but it will perform as well, if not better, than a lot of the equipment that costs several times more.

I can also obtain equipment that works quite well on VHF for around the same money.

The basic thing is that you are opposed to having to learn the International Morse code which, until the last decade, or so, was a definite requirement for obtaining any amateur radio license. Now, you can operate above 30 MHz without having to have a knowlege of the code (this is in compliance with international treaties). If all you have is a portable (by the way &quot;HT&quot; and &quot;handitalkie&quot; are registered trademarks of Motorola, the term &quot;portable&quot; is generic) and you soon tire of working through the local repeater, then you have 4 options:

The first is to drop out. The second is to continue to operate using your portable. The third is to obtain some better equipment for VHF work. And the fourth is to learn the International Morse code.

By doing the fourth, you can immediately gain access to the 80, 40, 15, and 10 meter CW bands that are also available to Novice class licensees, and you also gain 200 KHz of SSB phone on 10 meters. Then, you can upgrade your license class to gain even more HF operating privileges.

This code / no-code subject comes up every few weeks on QRZ.com. There is nothing that is being &quot;said&quot; that hasn't been &quot;said&quot; before, numerous times before. All that happens is that a very few individuals on both sides of the question start getting hostile towards each other. Finally, they resort to personal attacks and then I have to come in and lock down the thread. Next, a few weeks later, things start up again.

I have received serveral requests that I terminate the discussion. However, until it eventually drops to the depth of personal attacks, it is the policy of QRZ.com to let the thread remain. The only question is as to just when the personal attacks start and I have to shut things down.

Glen, K9STH
One of the QRZ.com moderators

[ae4fa]

Gee, Glen, that sound almost like an invitation.

73, Bob

[K9STH]

For FA:

Unfortunately, if the personal attacks are bad enough, there is also the penalty of banning from the site! Thus, it is definitely a &quot;two edged sword&quot;!

Glen, K9STH

[kg6nus]

STH, as with my anaology, it isnt that hard to go get a used motorboat either. it still isnt free, nor does everyone like a beat up 50 year old piece of electronics in their livingroom if you can manage to get something dirt cheap. no, im not opposed to learning international morse code for obtaining a license, im opposed to it for obtaining all but an extra class license. and simply raising the speed requirement for the extra class.

you dont seem to have focused on anything that i've said other than &quot;no morse code&quot; as if i meant remove it entirely. would anyone care to give their thoughts on the rest of it? like i dunno, incentives to upgrade licenses instead of just the old &quot;bah, you just dont wanna learn code&quot; spiel which isnt the truth. i wanna learn it at my own pace. by that I mean I want to upgrade my license from tech when I want to, I want to spend boatloads of cash on equipment when I want to.

1. drop out after getting bored
2. spend loads of cash for equipment just so i can use code on 6m, upgrade my license, maybe get bored, and want to sell my gear.
3. try to point out to people the rest of my post instead of just the relatively small part they keep focusing on and making untrue statements

STH, WIK, i'd like to see what you guys have to think about the rest of what i said, and then comment on the no code for general afterwards. you guys seem to know your stuff, if you guys only got a nickel i got pennies if you need some change to throw your 2 cents into the pot here

edit: btw, just like i said earlier, seems no one even bothered to look past &quot;eliminate code&quot; simply because i'm not a 50 year arrl diamond member

[K9STH]

For NUS:

Frankly, the equipment that can be obtained for under $250 is as good looking, if not better looking, than a lot of the newer equipment! By the way, you are not going to get much in the way of 50 year old equipment for that kind of money these days! A few years ago, probably, but definitely not today! The old boat anchor stuff is definitely going for a premium.

Take a look at the Heath SB-101 for appearance. It looks pretty good, not too large, single box plus speaker. The power supply can be easily hidden, or it installs in the SB-600 speaker. The Heath SB-301 receiver / SB-401 transmitter look a lot like the SB-101 but have the power supplies built in. They will transceive and work &quot;split&quot; at the &quot;flip&quot; of a switch. Add the SB-600 speaker and you have a fairly compact, nice looking station. I have often seen them go for under $125 per box.

Of course, we are not talking Collins, but the Drake 4-Line equipment can be had often for under $300. Again, it isn't bad looking at all. It is smaller than the Heath! However, you do have a separate power supply, but that includes the speaker.

There are various Hallicrafters transceivers that are not that big (I'm not talking about the HT-32 transmitter / SX-101 receiver combination) and look pretty good as well. You can often find these for under $300.

Thus, your argument about &quot;looks&quot; doesn't hold water.

Then, the United States is signatory to international communications treaties THAT REQUIRE a working knowlege of the International Morse code for any amateur operation on frequencies below 30 MHz. Whether or not this requirement goes away at the next World Administrative Radio Conference (WARC) that remains to be seen. The number of countries wanting to retain the code requirement is growing, including a lot of the eastern European nations (including Russia). Thus, since the United States doesn't usually go against these international agreements, you may be &quot;stuck&quot; with the code requirement for another couple of decades!

Until the international requirements are eliminated, the discussion about allowing the General class license to become &quot;no code&quot; is moot! The FCC has already reduced the requirement to virtually the absolute minimum with the 5 wpm requirement. Frankly, I have not had one person who could not master 5 wpm (and I have taught code to hundreds over the years) with any application of effort at all. There may be someone, somewhere, who just can't learn code. But, I haven't run into him/her in 43 years of teaching code. The fastest that I have ever had someone learn was from not knowing a thing to at least 10 wpm in less than an hour! The average is about 4 to 5 weeks with a once-a-week class and that individual practicing on his/her own at least two 15 minute periods a day. The slowest was about 8 weeks to make a solid 5 wpm (which means being able to copy at least 7 wpm if &quot;pushed&quot;).

As for being like riding a bicycle, this is true. Although you claim to have forgotten the code completely, sit down and start copying some of the slow speed contacts on 80 or 40 meters. If you &quot;forget&quot; about the fact that you don't want to remember, you will! My youngest daughter, who never did get a license, started learning code back when she was about 15 (her then boyfriend's father was an amateur and he was learning code with her - she &quot;broke up&quot; with him after a little while and lost interest in obtaining a license). Today, 10 years later, if I start saying things like &quot;dit dah&quot;, she will stop a moment and say &quot;A&quot;. Sure, she has to take a minute and think, but somewhere in the back of her mind she still knows the alphabet.

Thus, all the code / no code discussions do is to incite tempers of a very few persons who post on these threads. Nothing will be done until after the next WARC. If international treaties say to do away with the code requirement, then I believe that the FCC will eliminate the requirement. If the international treaties say to keep the requirement, then you are going to have to knuckle down and pass the requirement if you want to operate below 30 MHz. It is that simple! You are going to have to wait a couple of years to see how the next WARC comes out. Then, if countries are given the option of retaining the code requirement, you can make your argument. Until then, you are just &quot;spinning your wheels&quot;!

Glen, K9STH

[kg6nus]

once again, myself passing code or waiting to not have to pass it isnt the issue here, i wish you'd stop stating it that way. i never said i dont want to remember, at this point i have to so i can get my general.

yes looks are still an issue, i hate to tell you, but not everyone likes the look of that stuff in their living room. not everyone has a shack, and it's a lot easier to get by with something that looks like a modern piece of electronics that would fit in and not look so out of across the room from a home theater receiver. remember, im talking young people here. do you think everyone's xyl is gonna put up with that in say, an apartment? no room for a shack there. so that's one prime example of 'looks' making a difference. if yu must know i moveed back into my parents house when i turned 18, simply becase myself and roomates could not afford $1900 a month rent for an apartment and eat anything more than ramen. if i had been living with my girlfriend(now ex, thankfully, long story for a different time tho) she wouldnt have gone for the computers and everything else we had lying about, and we had no room to hide any of it. we had computers in both bedrooms, one in the living room, and half the time one in the dining area that we used as extra space for computer gear. my mom was always shocked out how cluttered the place was with computers and cables everywhere whenever she dropped by. would radio equipment be any different? pfft. no. not every ham, especially quite a few younger ones are capable of affording a shack, or have a room to spare to keep it out of sight. and whether or not it's 50 years old, or 20 years old, looks alone can cause problems.

and even if you get a tranceiver for $300, you're still looking at a sizeably chunk of change for any younger person ocne you take into account a mic, a keyer, a tuner, maybe an amp, an antenna mast, an antenna rotor, building an antenna. people dont have the spare/time money to throw into this like a lot of people seem to think everyone does. the bulk of my friends are busy struggling with car payments and rent/utilities or are busy with work and other hobbies they're already involved in and dont have the time/money to do this on the side. which is the group of users you guys should really be aiming at to recruit. but you cant just tell them to drop what they're doing and throw money at it all at once.

i did not realize that to allow no-code(which i am not for on every level) would require WARC to make some changes. however even in the event that WARC does make changes, my idea from the start was still different than &quot;no-code&quot; as it would require code for the extra class to be able to gain access to the 160m, 80m, and 40m bands. which would be an incentive to upgrade from general, which at the current point in time there is almost none.

[K9STH]

The &quot;beauty&quot; of the older equipment is that no tuner is normally required (wide range pi-networks will load a &quot;wet noodle&quot;), they work very well with a $10 key from anywhere and a $10 microphone from Radio Shack (even cheaper if you put together your own). The power level is as much as 75 percent of the amateur radio population is now running, so you don't need a linear amplifier.

That leaves the antenna. You can build your own for the cost of the wire plus a few feet of coaxial cable (again from Radio Shack if you don't have anywhere else to get it). Total cost for a 5 band antenna can easily be under $25, much less than you will spend on a good mobile antenna for your portable, and that antenna will work quite well.

If you don't like looking at the unit, it is very simple to make some sort of cover (cost less than $1). Besides, most of the younger set has his/her own bedroom. Many amateurs have set up in a closet. Just close the door when you finish operating. When I was first married and living in the &quot;upstairs&quot; of an upstairs / downstairs duplex, my shack was in an &quot;eaves&quot; closet off of the bedroom. I couldn't stand up, but there was plenty of room sitting down.

As for cost: If the costs are reasonable, virtually anyone can get the money. Like I said before, for what the average portable 2 meter rig costs I can put together a good looking, well performing, station without any problems at all.

Don't tell me about being a &quot;poor&quot; (in terms of money) student. When I was in high school and was first licensed, my parents didn't have any extra money to give me. What I got I earned by working part-time repairing the AC/DC AM radios for a TV shop located about 5 blocks from my house. I got about $1 for each radio that I repaired (the shop only charged like $2.00 to $2.50 plus parts back then - 1959). Thus, the owner &quot;split&quot; the proceeds with me and furnished all of the test equipment. Within a year, I had, for the time, a pretty good station (Heath DX-100 transmitter and Hallicrafters S-85 receiver). All of my antennas, including my 15 meter beam, were home brew. The 15 meter beam was up in the air on the end of a single section of waterpipe (21 feet) and was turned by the &quot;armstrong&quot; method (in other words, by hand!). The equipment wasn't new when I bought it, but it was still &quot;current production&quot; and did the job.

Most students can earn a few dollars at a time. If they save their money, it will not be that long before they can earn enough for a good rig. Again, it may be a few years old, but it will do the job.

Your opinions as to just what the equipment should look like are, of course, your opinion. I will defend your right to that opinion. But, what you consider to be appropriate &quot;looks&quot; is not what everyone else thinks should be how things should &quot;look&quot;. Frankly, I consider a lot of the &quot;modern&quot; electronic equipment to be pretty &quot;ugly&quot; in its physical design. I also think a lot of the &quot;art nuveau&quot; designs of the 1930s and 1940s to be ugly as well! There is one person who posts on QRZ.com who thinks that every piece of equipment is ugly and needs to be in a console that can be closed whenever not in use. Hey, if that is what he wants, then &quot;so be it&quot;!

At one time I owned the very console that Collins Radio used in all of their advertisements for the S-Line. Long story how I got it, but it came from a retired Collins employee who was moving from the area. It was a beautiful piece of furniture. But, for other than casual ragchewing, it was not comfortable to operate from. Thus, I sold it off after a few months.

My wife allows my garage ham shack and an AM shack in my home office. The other rooms in the house are &quot;off limits&quot; to operating amateur radio equipment. However, I also have a large antique / vintage radio collection, and my wife just happens to like a few (very few!) radios that sit among other collectibles on shelves in various rooms (as well as 3 console radios, 1 in the main entry way - her 2nd favorite radio, and 2 in the dining room including her favorite that is the size of, and is built to resemble, a harpsicord - very unusual cabinet for a common radio from about 1930). The rest of the collection is relegated to the garage.

Thus, you are &quot;assuming&quot; a lot. Your personal situation and likes/dislikes are just that, your personal situation and likes/dislikes. I believe that the vast majority of people (including parents and spouses) are a bit more &quot;forgiving&quot; in terms of &quot;style&quot; and placement of equipment. Most would not really like a rig sitting in the middle of the dining room table, but installed on a shelf in a closet would be something else as would a rig sitting on the desk in a students bedroom be acceptable in most situations.

If all that you want is your 2 meter portable, that is completely up to you. If you want more, then you can obtain more and at a very affordable cost.

Glen, K9STH

[kg6nus]

ok, we agree looksof units are my opinion. you cant say im the only one with that opinion

back to being poor paying ridiculously high rent and not having room. it took 3 people in a 3 bedroom apartment to cover the rent, utilities, have actual food to eat, and support the hobbies we already had. the 3 of us were each into computers, and one of my roomates was into nitro rc cars. there wasnt a spare closet. there was a kitchen (cant put electronics in there), a living room/dining area that had furniture, tv, computers, bookshelves, 2 bedrooms with small closets (loaded with computer parts, clothes, dungeons and dragons books) with beds in these rooms, computer desks, drawers for clothes. there was simply no room except the livingroom/dining area which was already loaded with enough stuff. why were the 3 of us in a 2 bedroom apartment and moved out when the rent went up to $1900 a month? because we couldnt afford a house for $1700 a month when we moved into the apartment

and if it's just you, a wife, and a kid or two?( i know someone in this situation, in an apartment) you dont have room to spare. and your xyl may or may not appreciate huge mounds of pretty funky looking radio gear piled up in the corner of a living room.

if you can get a house cheap, fine. if you have an attic, fine. if you can get yourself a duplex and have an odd closet here or there, fine. a lot of people dont have that.

and looks aside, you still havent even commented on my licensing suggestion aside from pointing out that they cant elimtie code from general unless WARC allows it. and the prime reason for this for the third tiem now seems to be nothing more than the fact that i havent been a ham for 50 years.

and also, you mentioned you had a decent setup in a year. people like buy now/pay now or buy now/pay off later. that's a year long investment of time and money just to find out whether or not someone likes or doesnt like something. this isnt like we're talking about a guy in his 20's with a japanese car that one month gets rims, next month gets a paintjob, month after that gets a turbocharger etc etc. people dont like buying stuff to let sit till they buy the rest.

edit:
one thing you might want to note. i recall you mentioning how you were a kid in the 50's working. now unless you did this when you were 5, you gotta be in your 60's, correct? now i dont know your career, or whether or not you may even be retired. but just how many people in their late teens/20's to you interact with on a regular basis? aside from being a teacher/professor, except for some rare instances, i think it's prettyhard to imagine you going otu to see a movie with a buncha guys in their 20's, going to jack in the box afterwards, then going to a club. or even for the less outwardly social types, sitting around in someone's house playing dungeons and dragons till dawn.(when i played DnD one of our regular dm's was in his 50's, so im not saying it's impossible, just very, VERY unlikely) and im almsot positive you dont go to a themepark in the middle of summer to leer at the women wearing hardly anything WHILE you're hanging out with a group of younger people(seen plenty of old guys doin the same thing) even if you were a parent and had kids living in your house still in their 20's, you're probably waiting for them to move the heck out, not hang out with them and chit chat regularly.

ham radio in general needs younger people in it. you arent one of them. and most people these days arent going to pick up a hobby because someone in their 50's-60's tells them it's fun and rewarding, nor are they going to bother with it even if they do give it a shot because all the rules and regulations are only proposed by people in their 50's-60's and older since they wont get acknowledged unless they had an ht in their baby crib and were an eagle scout

[kd7eze]

&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt; YAWN &gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;

[KB9YKY]

NUS, why did you say that there is no cw activity on vhf/uhf in your area, then turn around and say that you don't even have the capability to know what kind of activity is out there because you feel that amateur radio equipment is too expensive for kids to afford? If you are unable to listen for cw, or ssb, activity= it means that you do not have any idea whatsoever as to what is out there. As for crying about not &quot;inheriting&quot; any equipment, well boo-hoo, kid. Not many of us had it given to us either. Most start out with what they can afford and save to upgrade/add to as we go along. For those on very limited resources/finances, all the more reason to use cw= low power and the most modest of antennas give more &quot;bang for the buck&quot; than any other mode.

[K9STH]

For NUS:

We are not getting anywhere! Frankly, in most of the country an apartment doesn't rent for $1900! Yes, there are places, but I live in a &quot;fairly&quot; nice neighborhood (do you happen to know a guy named Roger Staubach, the former quarter-back of the Dallas Cowboys? He used to live 4 blocks from me the entire time he played for the team. It was only after he retired and Marianne - his wife - wanted a bigger house that he moved), 2 blocks from a major country-club, in one of the best, if not the best school districts in the State of Texas (Plano Independent School District), etc. There have been some very upscale apartments built just north of Renner Road (the major street just north of me), the most expensive in the area. The rent at those starts at $795 and the most is $1695, this is today, not a few years ago. Those have been in the neighborhood for less than 2 years. Two of my three daughters rented apartments within a few miles of my house. The most that either one paid was $425 per month. Those were VERY nice apartment complexes.

I won't be 60 for another year and several months. I did say 1959 when I was repairing radios at $1.00 each. That made me 15 when I was at this particular job.

As I said before, until the final decision is made on the knowledge of the International Morse code, any discussion on what to do IF this requirement is eliminated is moot. Now, just in case you don't know what &quot;moot&quot; means, the following is from my Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary: moot: deprived of practical significance: made abstract or purely academic. Therefore, it is futile to discuss what &quot;may&quot; happen before the actual conditions become known. Thus, I won't take the time to discuss &quot;what ifs&quot;. If you want to do so, then great! I don't have the time nor the &quot;inkling&quot; to do so.

You do outline a very good example of the &quot;me first&quot;, instant gratification mentality of a significant minority of the population in the United States today. This includes a portion of the &quot;baby boomer&quot; population as well as their children. They have to have it &quot;now&quot; no matter what the cost. Buy it on credit, use it and then throw it away. If they can afford it, fine. If not, . . . . . . There are a lot of people who are not just trying to &quot;keep up with the Jones family&quot;, but who are trying to be the Jones family, no matter how deep in debt they have to go. The recent downturn in the stock market and the loss of jobs in the telecommunications sector have hit these persons very hard. The number of foreclosures on houses is &quot;way up&quot; all over the country. This area, being the &quot;telecom corridor&quot; has been especially hard hit. There are plenty of the &quot;me first&quot; generation who are now in deep &quot;do do&quot; because of their spend, spend, buy it on credit activities.

I don't normally go to Six Flags with a bunch of twenty-something people, although I would go with my grandchildren. But, I definitely have not &quot;lost touch&quot; with that generation. I have three daughters, ranging from 25 to 35 (well, my eldest will be 35 tomorrow). All three of them are married, all three of them have very nice houses, my middle daughter has three children the others do not have any. My middle daughter lives in Orange County, California, the youngest lives in the Atlanta, Georgia, area, and the eldest is still in the Dallas / Fort Worth area. Frankly, none of them are of the &quot;me first&quot; mentality. They definitely like &quot;nice&quot; things, however, they buy the items when they can afford them. But, there definitely are a number of people who, like you apparently are, of this &quot;instant gratification&quot; mentality. You have to have it, now! If you can afford it, great! If you can't, then you are in the very situation that you describe.

Like others have said, you don't have to start out with the most expensive, latest and greatest equipment. Amateur radio is what you put into it. No one is going to guarantee you anything. If you operate with a &quot;chip on your shoulder&quot;, then you will have problems. If all you want is 2 meter FM repeater operation, then all you are going to get is 2 meter FM operation. If you want to expand your horizons, then do the work that is required, and that, right now, includes learning of the International Morse code. Don't expect someone to hand everything to you on a silver platter! That just doesn't happen in the real world!

By the way, the older equipment that I have been suggesting is basically the same size as a lot of the newer equipment and thus you don't have a &quot;lump&quot; of equipment sitting in the middle of the room. Since I have acquired a lot of &quot;boat anchor&quot; equipment, there are some pretty good &quot;lumps&quot; of equipment in my shacks. But, that is my personal choice. I could operate using only two boxes (I don't like transceivers in general) and those are relatively small. In fact, if I restricted my operations to 10 meters, then I do have a small Uniden HR-2510 that is smaller than a cigar box. However, I don't restrict my operations and I like having the older equipment around. I have quite a number of items that are decades older than I am. Again, this is my personal preference. You definitely do not agree. Whether or not this is due to being jealous, whether or not it is due to just liking everything small, whether or not it is due to your financial situation. That is your business. I don't know, and, frankly, I could care less!

Glen, K9STH

[KA8NCR]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (kd7eze @ Nov. 19 2002,07:16)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt; YAWN &gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Please give this man a pair of scissors.

Someone has apparently duct-taped him to a chair and he's being forced to read this thread.

[WB2WIK]

KG6NUS, why did you get a ham license in the first place?

Reading all this, I'd think if you spent as much time looking for a higher-paying job as you spend here on the 'net finding fault with everything, you'd easily afford any kind of ham station you'd like.

I spend lots of time, at age 51, introducing this hobby to kids and contribute all my old gear to the local Scouts organization, who distributes it on a rotating basis to Scouts interested in the hobby. Lots of youngsters are still entering this hobby, at least around here. At least half of all the applicants at the local VE sessions are kids.

The amateur radio courses I teach, and have taught, include code and must include code in order for a new student to register and attend. Regardless of law, my personal practice is that nobody attending my classes goes directly for a Technician ticket. 90% of them, once licensed, do become active on the air and pursue many aspects of the hobby, not just chatting on VHF-FM. Those are the ones who will pass their enthusiasm along to others and sustain the hobby.

WB2WIK/6

[K9STH]

There is one thing that is so obvious that everyone, especially me, has been overlooking: #You can purchase some very nice amateur radio equipment for what the average computer costs. #Many people upgrade their computers every two or three years (if not before). #If they have the money for the computer, then they also have the money for amateur radio equipment. #It is just a matter of choice! #Thus, unless you are using a borrowed computer, one at work, or one at a local library (or similar place), then you are among the over 95 percent of people who use computers that have one &quot;at home&quot;. #As such, you have made your choice in terms of priorities. #No one is criticizing your choice. #But, you should also not criticize how someone else spends their money or what priority they place on things.

Also, the D n D playthings don't come that cheap as well! I suspect that the main thing involved in NUS's financial troubles is more of a priority thing rather than anything else.

Glen, K9STH

[WB2WIK]

As one who has worked every day except for brief vacations since my 14th birthday, 37 years ago, it's difficult for me to empathize with a lot of people who didn't.

In high school, I had an after-school job from 5 to 9 every evening and all day Saturday, for all four years. In college, I had two jobs and worked 40 hours weekly, plus attended college full-time, all year, with no vacations.

It paid off.

But I must admit I don't know how to play Dungeons &amp; Dragons, and would undoubtedly immediately lose to anyone who did.

WB2WIK/6

[kg6nus]

yes, dnd is so expensive to keep a $20 players guide around on a book shelf and $10 worth of dice on a bookshelf? it isnt like warhammer 40k where you need to spend $500 on models to play. not to mention you dont seem to understand that i said i USED to have financial troubles. dod i say i have them now? no, i said i had them back when i lived in an apartment with 2 other roomates. at least you finally quit trying to say i dont want to take the time to re-learn code

no, i do not have a tranceiver capable of receiving cw and ssb. however, did i ever say i havent spoken to people with such equipment? no. except for contests there's little to none. lots of digital however apparently

STH, i never criticized what people prioritize for spending money on. you did, not me.

you guys just dont get it. how many of you who keep criticizing me and keep completely missing my point are in your late teens? how about your 20's? do you hang out with people in these age groups? how is it you have so much experience with how people prioritize things?

i see you uys claim young people are the future of ham radio, yet when a younger person tries to make a statement you cant do anything but ignore the points he's trying to make and find fault with every other sentence

no, i wasnt trying to find fault here sth, i was trying to make a point, that once again, you missed. you've spent a lot more time finding fault with my posts making me have to defend myself on topics that dont have anything to do with the main point i was trying to get across.

WIK, you spend time with scouts? introducing ham radio to scouts? guys, barely anyone is/was a scout these days. and if you consider introducing ham radio to scouts 'introducing it to a younger crowd of people' you're almost being discriminatory. take a look at the average scout troop and you'll see what i mean. and no, im not talking about skin color or religion here.

you guys need to make up your minds. either find fault with anything a younger person says completely ignoring the point they were trying to get across, while doing to best to make them look like an idiot in the process without remembering half the facts yourself, and never claim to try to get yong people involved again.

or realize you guys are old, you dont hang out with younger people outside of an organization such as the boy scouts, and when someone makes a suggestion about licensing, comment on that instead of their finacial situation you dont have a clue about.

or have you guys dragged this out so far you couldnt find my original point about licensing if you wanted to without throwing a fit about the words &quot;no-code&quot; being in my post again?

and another thing STH, you claimed that code, no-code arguements tend to flare tempers and such. that isnt even what this has been about. all you've managed to do is bash the younger guy who didnt have an HT in his crib, join the boyscouts, and inherit a bunch of gear or hang out with his grandfather in a shack.

afetr this i find it shocking that so many of you people think the reason ham radio is dying is because the occasional slob gets his picture taken and ends up in a magazie wearing dirty jeans and a stained white tshirt with food in his beard and so forth. there's a guy like that for EVERY hobby. the reason ham radio is dying is because too many old guys think they know how younger people think and refuse to listen.

there, i said it, you guys are old. wouldnt shock me if 90% of the users here at least in their 40's. you people need to face facts. you dont hang out with young people, and if you do it's some kids in scouts, not young people with jobs and lives who dont want to spend $200 on a receiver then let it colelct dust for 6 months because if they wanted to just hear people talk, they could buy an am/fm radio for $20 and listen to the crazy people on talk radio stations.

yes, people these days spend $1500 on a computer, but do you buy a case one month, a motherboard the next, the cpu the month after that? or even the entire computer one month and then a monitor the next? no one does that, you claim ham radio is just a choice of hobbies same as computers are, but you expect people to make their purchasing decisions in a completely different manner. yes, im setting money aside for my own base hf base station when i upgrade my license, i dont know why any of you ever thought different. probably because you keep assuming im speakily solely for myself when im trying to speak for pretty much an entire generation here that you guys really dont understand much about

[kg6nus]

and no one else seems to have noticed, but this is obviously nothing more than a generation gap issue here.

[ae4fa]

I have adopted several astute observations to help me understand a world much changed from the one in which I grew up.

The one that seems to fit here is:

&quot;Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.&quot;

73, Bob

[9V1VV]

I have recently become a ham after once working on ships as an R/O. I missed the Morse and the satisfaction of a QSO with a skilled operator. But that's my story. What about my 15 year old son? Ironically, he seems to think that Amateur Radio is on the way out because it would be quite easy to get licensed if there were no CW requirement. Then you have SSB and the digital modes. But he can talk on his PC using iParty and other programs with friends (girls) on the other side of the world already. And as for PSK-31? It's like ICQ ! What's the point. Ham radio will die in twenty years.

[K9STH]

NUS:

The more you write, the more you reveal of your character. With that I will let everyone make his/her own assesment of the comments that have been made.

Glen, K9STH

[kg6nus]

ae4fa, im curious as to just who you're referring to as being stupid here. other hams here including myself being stubborn, sure. stupid? no.

9v1vv, while that's very true at this point in time, you cant help but notice that aside from the internet, the image of the average radio operator being in his 60's sitting at a radio with his finger on a paddle chatting with someone halfway around the world about well... old people stuff doesnt exactly encourage many people to participate. im not saying you have to make ham radio &quot;xtreme&quot; or anything, but the old man on the mountain with a 150 foot antenna tower outside the window and maybe his 5 year old grandson on his lap is a stigma that doesnt exactly encourage future growth in anything.

you also have to look at the fact that wireless communications in general are on an upswing in terms of popularity. it may not specifically be ham radio itself, but wireless in general IS popular and even as far as the internet goes, not everyone can get or afford high speed internat access at home yet. the fact that roughly only 15-20% of the us population has high speed internet access at home is an obvious sign of this

[KA8NCR]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (9V1VV @ Nov. 19 2002,19:53)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I have recently become a ham after once working on ships as an R/O. I missed the Morse and the satisfaction of a QSO with a skilled operator. But that's my story. What about my 15 year old son? Ironically, he seems to think that Amateur Radio is on the way out because it would be #quite easy to get licensed if there were no CW requirement. Then you have SSB and the digital modes. But he can talk on his PC using iParty and other programs with friends (girls) on the other side of the world already. And as for PSK-31? It's like ICQ ! What's the point. Ham radio will die in twenty years.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
I find it hard to believe your son would be interested in the digital modes.

PSK/RTTY and other keyboard chat modes are pretty cool. What separates it from ICQ, among other things, is that I share a common interest in radio with the party on the other end (on ICQ, it's usually someone looking for sex).

For most bit-heads, the digital modes in amateur radio are quite uninteresting. They've hung around in chat rooms long before ICQ, keyboard to keyboard chatting is passe. They'd gladly pass a code test if amateur radio had some real networking capabilities. Unfortunately, there's nothing of any substance so the hobby is unappealing and they spend their time creating 802.11 hot-spots.

[K9STH]

NUS:

The problem is that, if you look back on your various posts in this thread, that you have contradicted yourself several times. You complained about not having the funds for purchasing additional equipment. Next you say that you don't have financial problems anymore. Then, you say that people your age want immediate gratification, that they don't want to have to save for something worthwhile. Next, you say that you are saving for additional equipment.

You say in one message that people don't have the money to purchase amateur radio equipment, then talk about putting out $1500 for computer equipment since they don't want it piecemeal! You say that there is a need for younger people in amateur radio (I agree wholeheartedly with this), but then you criticize working with the Boy Scouts of America.

You write about a $1900 a month apartment filled with computer equipment, but have to eat ramen noodles! You write about playing Dungeons and Dragons and listening to pop music. Hey, I don't have any problems with this, but a lot of people are doing something more constructive. Basically, you are not talking about anything except for personal choices that you have made in the past and are making today. Those are your business and your business alone!

What you are doing in this thread is not showing a generation gap, but you have gotten several people to enter into a discussion with you about the subject of amateur radio and the International Morse code. You keep going off on tangents, changing parameters, showing a definite bias towards certain groups and organizations, etc. Frankly, I believe that you are definitely enjoying the attention that you have been getting. You refuse to accept the fact that there is no need to discuss your proposal on the General Class license until the next WARC decides what is to be done with the knowledge of code.

Thus, I find that trying to have a meaningful discussion with you is not possible! No matter what someone says, you go off in another direction. As long as this discussion doesn't get personal, I will definitely leave it open. However, unless somethig really meaningful comes about, I think that I will just sit back and monitor!

Glen, K9STH

[N0PU]

STH:

It is ever thus... Youth, with its lack of experience, believes it can see all... We did when we were young, we simply weren't so vocal about it... We were told &quot;'tis better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open your mouth and prove it&quot; [loose quote, begging my pardon from the originator]

As I have gotten older the one thing I have learned above all else is how much I don't know. And the more I learn, the more I know I don't know.

When I started school, I learned the numbers, and thought I had the world by the tail. Then I found out there was addition... oh, oh, how new horizons opened before my eyes. Then subtraction, and multiplication and division. And then I began to study Algebra and heard about a thing called calculus, and by the time I got to calculating the error rate on differential equations, I didn't WANT to know there was more.... but there was, and is, and ever shall be...

The less our experience in this world, the narrower our viewpoint, and the harder it is to see why the OFs think the way they do... Thus you are correct... 'tis not an arguement you can win... nor is it one of educational benefit... sorry to say...

However, I must add, you gave it a valient try, and lasted far longer than would have I....

Very 73
and thank you, sir, for caring

Harry Kholer N0PU

[9V1VV]

&quot;What's the point. Ham radio will die in twenty years&quot;

NUS, NCR..

Thanks for your input.
The above quote was by my son, btw, which I should have made clear..

I believe Ham radio will evolve and adapt as everything must. The emphasis on digital electronics in schools and universities these days has unfortunately led to a dearth of engineers (and hams) who understand the fundamentals of wireless. Amplification, modulation, oscillation, and attentuation are terms unfamiliar to the modern telecoms engineer (I am generalising a little). Formula for a parallel resonant tuned circuit? Not a hope.
Radios now are black boxes off the shelf. Plug and play.
The old magic has gone. BUT...my son is prone to exaggeration like his father. He is also starting to learn Morse. He is fascinated by my ancient two-transistor reflex receiver with home wound coils. Hours of fun.

I can't force my son to take an interest in the things I did at his age, but just hope that he picks up the itch to &quot;find out&quot;. The future looks good. Ham Radio will not be dead in 20 years, but different. That's the way it should be.

Apologies for rambling.
73,
Old man at top of mountain with white beard and brass morse key.

[kg6nus]

STH, now you've jsut plain hit a nerve

why cant you get this through your head?

$1900 a month rent in apartment full of computer crap = PAST. closet full of DnD m,aps and books = PAST. those are not the present. i never said they were, never claimed they were even recent.

where did i cotnradict myself? give me ONE example where i made a contradiction in which i was referring to specifically myself in both instances instead of trying to represent an entire generation of people you dont seem to get. cant do it, can you?

im not trying to go off on tangents or change parameters. im trying to do my damndest to point out that YOU are old and I am not. im not saying being old is a bad thing. however i am saying that you dont seem to have a clue how the average person my age takes things. and i've tried giving you exampels yet you reply to them as if im suddenly talking about my own finacial issues, when the entire point is that i was not. i go off in another direction because you didnt seem to understand the point i was tryign to make weith the previous example, or the example before that, or the example before that. and whenever i have blatantly pointed out that there's a generation gap at work here, what ahev you done? you ignore it. didnt even try to analyze it, take it into consideration when you made your reply, you just simply flatout ignored it.

N0PU: you want a better analogy to use to explain the more you know the less you realzie you know real fast? if all the knowledge you know represents a circle, and the circumfrence of the sircle is the knowledge you dont know, the more you know, the larger the circumfrence goes, etc etc. easy to visualize. however i never claimed to know all, i dont want to know all. im tryign to point out that there's a major difference between how you were in your 20's and how people think now. STH jsut refuses to see that and keeps dragging a word or two of mine here or there into a huge monsterous post in which i guess he expects me to have to defend myself. so instead i try gettign it back on track and he refuses to acknowledge it. in fact the only great epiphony that all of STH's ignoring my actual point has caused, is that the fcc cant change the code requirement unless warc drops it. however whoopdeedoo i already knew an organization was responsible i just didnt know they were called &quot;warc&quot; and STH used this fact to do nothing but find a fault in every other sentence of mine while sidestepping around my actual idea which you might find way back on page 2 of this thread

N0PU:
btw, check your messages

[wb4zoh]

I just can't resist this one; 30 years as a ham and 34 years married to the same woman (how she put up with me, I don't know) trying all those years to get her to become a ham and meeting failure each and every time.

Last year on our 35th anniversary - poof! - &quot;I've signed up to take the 10 week Technician classes and I want you to get me a HT when I receive my callsign. She attended faithfully all classes, passed her exam, now is KG4QXO and very active in the local radio club.

When I finally felt it was safe to ask, why not learn the code and continue to upgrade, her reply was simple: &quot;I do not want to.&quot; I've tried various tactics: hold my breath until I turn blue, wash dishes for a year, do the laundry, and other tempting choices. It's now a ritual for other friends and myself to come up with additional things for me to do or reasons for her to learn the code. Again, the reply: &quot;I don't want to.&quot;

It's possible that I should feel fortunate that she became a ham because she WANTED to and requirments agreed with her wants.

I also add that way back when I was WN4ZOH studying for my General and Advanced, it was my wife who became my mentor in math and theory. It came to me as a surprise that she quit being a physics and advanced math major after 3 years - not enough challenge - went onto a degree in psychology. Recently, she looked at the Q&amp;A for the current Extra and commented at how simple the math and theory was. Ah ha! Yet another opening for me to ask THE question - Yes, I got the same reply - &quot;I don't want to.&quot;

[KB9YKY]

NUS, you have contradicted yourself again. You now cry that your bad financial times, while living with the other kids in the $1900 per month apartment, was not &quot;recent past&quot;. Then carry on how nobody can get that through their heads. Well, at your young age it would not be possible for your learning experience with the apartment to be anything other than a recent event. Hang in there kid, you will be amazed someday, when you reach the ripe old age of 40, at what you think you know all about doesn't amount to much of anything in the real world. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[K9STH]

Samuel Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain, is attributed with making the following quote (or something similar in nature): #&quot;When I was 16, I thought my father the stupidist man on Earth. #By the time I was 21, I was amazed at how much the old man had learned in the past 5 years!&quot;

My youngest daughter, when she was 15, was one of these &quot;wear only black&quot;, let everyone do their &quot;own&quot; thing no matter what, VERY liberal in her thinking. #At 17 she got her first job, working behind the &quot;deli&quot; counter at a super-market (that job lasted only 2 weeks , she got tired of how the general public treated her - like &quot;dirt&quot;). #Then, through her high school (the job counted for school credit), she got an after school job with Nortel. #After graduation from high school, Nortel &quot;broke&quot; with tradition and hired her full time (she went to junior college at night). #At age 20, they made her a &quot;deal that she couldn't refuse&quot; to go to Atlanta, Georgia ($25 per hour, 50 hour minimum - including overtime pay - per week, plus a generous &quot;per diem&quot;). #She was making well over $1700 per week at age 21! #After this assignment was done (it was to be for a year), she became one of the regional vice-president's personal assistants. #Finally, with the downsizing of Nortel (basically, the Atlanta office has been closed down), she was laid off earlier this year, the same day that my next-door neighbor, who had been with Nortel for over 39 years was laid off. #She got married the end of July 2002, has a VERY nice house, calls her mother several times a week, and is a very good, active, citizen of her community. She turned 25 last July! #So, at least in my experience, there is hope for the younger generation!

Glen, K9STH

[WB2GOF]

All I can say is that with age, often comes maturity (not guaranteed, however)...

[WB2WIK]

KG6NUS, if you're trying to represent a whole generation, run for office.

You're not cutting it here, and with your evident attitude, won't cut it anywhere else, either.

WB2WIK/6

[N0PU]

NUS:

What you don't understand about me is that I believe in a very structured Amateur Radio program.

I believe that the old Novice, tech, general, (maybe advanced), and extra program should be reinstituted.

I believe that the entry to novice should be simple rules test and 5WPM code...just like it used to be...

and I think tech should be an advanced technical/rules test. holding the 5wpm.

I think the tests should progressively get harder and harder technically but by the time you made general you should KNOW the rules. And by the time you became extra you would have the equivelent of a two year degree in electronics.

I think that entry to general should be 10 wpm, and extra 15 wpm.

I really believe this should be. However it is not.

BTW: should this ever happen, I believe there should be no grandfathering. 5wpm extras drop to tech. etc.

I know this would send me right back to tech. and back to experimenting in VHF, but that is ok...It would increase the overall quality of the Ham Community. And what is good for the Ham community as a whole is the right thing to do, it matters not how it affects me personally.

I believe in quality before quantity.
As I remember it, the quality of the Ham in the 50s and 60s was higher. Their attitude more giving and less taking. There was pride in being a Ham.

I believe that the code makes the diff, and it can still be seen today. Most Hams who go to CW and include it in their modes of operation have, in general, more patience, more desire to learn, and somehow I preceive they have a better grasp of the overall picture of Ham Radio.

IMHO, it is not the code in itself that makes the diff. It is the personal resolve within the individual to master the code that makes the diff. It could be some other task with the same demanding quality that could be used as the filter, and it IS a filter, but that filter needs to be applied for the good of the service.

If these tests were reinstated we wouldn't have extra class licencees in here asking how to build a dipole: Or how to program their radio: or any number of other elementry questions that even a novice of yesteryear would have known.

However, thing are what they are, and I will continue to try and help those that want to learn. And learning is what it is all about. It just happens to be a very FUN way to learn.

Very 73
Harry Kholer N0PU

[kg6nus]

YKY, excuse me if my idea of something being not recent is something that occured almost a decade ago. more than enough time to be in a different financial situation now than i was then.

STH, that's called luck. i dont care how you want to sugar coat it, that's all it was. if you actually think that happens often, no wonder our economy is so screwed up

WIK, if i ran for anything i'd probably get the exact same attitude out of old people just not getting the point and then trying to beat around the bush, and then attacking me for not wanting to play along

N0PU, thank you for actually commenting on what i was talking about and not making a 5 paragraph post on how everyone shouldnt care what radio equipment looks like or whatever

[K9STH]

NUS:

As for my daughter, it definitely was not luck. She took the time to learn a very specific computer program that no one else was interested in (there were at least a 100 technicians, engineers, computer programmers, etc. who also had the same opportunity here at the United States HQ of Nortel - international HQ is in Canada - but were not interested). This particular program was the backbone of Nortel's installation and performance verfication of the Sprint PCS (personal communications system) cellular telephone equivalent system (2 GHz frequency range) that was being installed all over the continental United States. When the first Sprint system was completed (in the Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana area) the next large system installations were to be in Georgia, Alabama, and the &quot;Carolinas&quot;. They needed her expertise and didn't have time to attempt to find someone else who was interested in the computer program that could be trained within a relatively short period of time.

She learned this program when she was 18 and the only computer experience that she had was &quot;office&quot; types of programs like Microsoft Word. She would get calls in the middle of the night (she was just out of high school and was still living at home) from engineers who had &quot;screwed up&quot; entries or who just couldn't make the proper entry. Often she could take care of this over the telephone, but sometimes she would have to go in and correct the problem. Fortunately, the office was under a mile from our house (you can see the building from our yard, front and back).

Then, she also taught herself various office types of programs, especially the entire Microsoft Office suite. She didn't even finish junior college (didn't have time when she was working for Nortel). Wendy is now seriously thinking of completing her college degree just for the purpose of having a degree (it may help her in the future even with all of her experience). She survived 11 layoffs at Nortel, until, finally, over 95 percent of the Atlanta office was terminated. Her husband is among the 5 percent still employed out of that office. He is under 30 and is in great demand by Nortel customers, thus, since he brings in many times his pay rate (and he is well paid!), the company really can't afford to terminate him. Besides, he can't be all that bad since he graduated 30 years to the week from the same college as I did (Georgia Tech)!

The fact that both my daughter and her husband are successful is not a matter of &quot;luck&quot;, but is a matter of making the effort to learn and apply knowledge. They don't bemoan the fact that someone else might be getting the &quot;breaks&quot;, they take it upon themselves to learn and apply what needs to be applied to be successful. This holds true no matter what your age or occupation just happens to be. If you learn and apply that knowledge, then you WILL be successful in what you do. If you don't then the chances are at least 99 percent that you will not be successful. Yes, there is the occasional person who just &quot;lucks out&quot;. But, for everyone of those, there are at least 9,999 people who are successful from how they perform.

Now, success is not always measured in financial rewards (although being financially successful is very helpful!), but there are people out there who are looking for personal achievements (being successful in whatever endeavor they want to be successful in), not necessarily the maximum monentary gain. This is often hard for some people to understand. But, money is not everything!

Since you apparently think that success is a matter of luck, inheritance, etc. (from your actual comments on this thread, not my interpretation!), and seemingly not from hard work, taking chances, be willing to work on the &quot;cutting edge&quot; but also be willing to work as part of a team, I can only hope that you soon gain a realistic view of the real world. At that time, maybe you can then again move from your parent's house (you did state that you have moved back in with them!) and &quot;make it in the world&quot; again!

I did not criticize your actions. I did point out that your present and past situation(s) are the result of choices that you have made. I did point out that your opinions are just that, your opinions. They may, or may not, represent the opinions of the majority of persons under the age of 30 (I doubt that they do represent even a significant minority). However, your basic attitude is typical of a significant percentage of people in your age group, especially those in their early 20s (not the majority, but definitely a large number in the minority). I would be willing to bet that in the next 10 years that your attitude, opinion, and view point change and become much more close to that of the people with whom you have been disagreeing with on this site. However, that is part of the maturing factor. Some people mature faster than others. Thus, it is really a &quot;wait and see&quot;. You will gradually temper your views, not all at once, but definitely over a period of time.

By the way, this &quot;generation gap&quot; thing has been going on for millenium, there are quotations by Socrates that exhibit the same type of disagreements! Thus, even though you just might think that your ideas are new, they have been expressed in almost exactly the same fashion by others over thousands of years!

Glen, K9STH

[kg6nus]

if any of my statements had been repeated again and again over thousands of years(which i find hard to believe a statement about the fcc's current licensing of ham radio would have been made 150 years ago, let alone thousands) then why did you yourself react the way you did? or was it just the thousands of years of young people making statements and getting rude responses from older people that influenced you?

and yes, that's still luck. if it werent luck just about anyone who worked their butts off in the telecommunications and/or tech industry wouldnt be worrying about ever getting laid off. the fact that she was laid off just shows you that's luck of the draw. esepcially if she was as important to the company as you claim she was. i live in good old silcon valley, home of the tech industry, etc etc. however you can ask just about anyone who at any point in time in the past 5-6 years if the fact that they still have or got their job was due to luck or not. the majority of them are gonna tell you luck. simply because here, there ARE 50 other perfectly qualified people to do the job one person who gets hired to do, that just dont have the luck to get picked for it.

and there you go again, 6 paragraphs on something unrelated to anything really being discussed in this thread, except to do nothing else but try to make me look wrong.

and if you honestly think becoming a passive complacent normal person is what constitutes &quot;maturity&quot; i think something along the way of your own aging has twisted your thinking. and it isnt &quot;maturity&quot;. it's probably getting fed up with other people's crap and just leaving a lot faster is what you seem to be expecting of me. but as n0pu said, even he wouldnt have made the same effort as i have in his youth to try and get people to understand a few simple statements and refuse to play along with the tangents you guys keep going off on. i mean honestly, what did those 6 paragraphs about your daughters career have to do with code requirements for licensing? i could have sworn thats what this thread and my initial comments were about

[K9STH]

I give up!

Even if there are 1000 applicants for a job, 99.99 percent of the time the job is going to go to the person that the employer believes will do the best job for the money. #There are all sorts of things that are looked at including experience. #But, there are other things as well. #Frankly, &quot;luck&quot; plays no part in virtually every employment situation. #Ocassionally, maybe! #But in general, a definite no! #Again, if you think that you have to be &quot;lucky&quot; to get a job, then you are off in &quot;La La Land&quot; or else you are not qualified!

By the way, you are the one who keeps going off on tangents! #Then, when someone &quot;calls&quot; you on this, you go off on another tangent!

When even the Vice-President's job is no longer at a location, the need for his assistants usually goes away as well! #That is why my daughter was finally laid off (as well as over 90 percent of the employees of Nortel world wide!).

What I have tried to do is to use personal examples, which I know to be true rather than some abstract situation, as examples to disprove your arguments. I used my youngest daughter since she falls right in the middle of the age range that you keep talking about. What she (and for that matter all 3 of my daughters have accomplished) is due to her own efforts, luck had nothing to do with it!

As I said before, you enjoy this type of discussion. #No matter what, even if everyone were to suddenly agree with you, you would go off on another tangent. #Thus, as I said at the beginning of this particular post: #I give up! #No more! #You really don't win anything except to show that you are &quot;always right&quot;, even when you are not. #But, hopefully letting this particular thread die a peaceful death, I will say no more!

Glen, K9STH

[kg6nus]

it isnt a matter of people agreeing with me. you could disagree with me till the cows come home and i wouldnt care, just as long as you got my point in the process. something YOU never acknowledged doing. plain and simple

[n7wsb]

As someone who has been in and out of work ever since the economy went into the toilet 2 years ago I can tell you that luck probably does have a lot to do with getting hired - so does having good hair. Especially if (as was the case for many jobs I applied for) the secretary is the one screening applications. Having a pretty coloured resume helps too (seriously - print it on off-white paper)

Employers often make bad hiring decisions. Ever work at #a place where a co-worker or someone you knew was a complete idiot at his/her job? Imagine - someone at some point hired that person based on his/her resume - or because they were a friend of a friend or whatever. Ever read the newspapers about someone &quot;going postal&quot;? - Someone hired that guy.

Hair also probably plays more of a role then most people think. Ever see an executive that had bad hair? Most executives are really bad at their jobs, but most all have good hair. Take the CEO of HP - ever since she took the reigns the company has lost value, layed off employees (thats not the HP way btw), closed product lines (I really liked their calculators), and generally been a disservice to stock holders - but she has good hair.

[kg6nus]

woohoo, finally not alone in something here

[K6UEY]

HOGWASH !!!!
And thats from some one who is old enough and experienced enough to be proud to have made it to &quot;OF&quot;

[kg6nus]

with as many topcis as people have managed to drudge up, just what in particular are you calling hogwash?

[W8FAX]

Who's the DX http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif?http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif?http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif

[KB9YKY]

Young NUS, you keep getting sillier and sillier http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif Now you try to claim that your little problems occured a &quot;decade ago&quot;. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Kid, you have only been licensed for about 3 weeks http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif Do your parents put up with your tangents at the supper table?

[kg6nus]

once again failure to read a statement and understand it without twisting words into fiction. and what does how long i've been licensed have to do with that? nor am i suddenly claiming they happened years ago out of the blue, i did that in the first place.

since i guess you find those remarks of yours cute, did the attendants in the rest home forget to give you your pills again before they wheeled you over to the 486 they had donated to them 4 years ago in the lobby running aol 3.0 on a 14.4 winmodem?

[KB9YKY]

Yes, yes, young NUS, they forgot to give all us ancient old geezers in our 40's our pills out here at the old folks home http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif And yes, young NUSsy, my poor old 486 won't play &quot;dungeons and dragons&quot; at your speed http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif Booo-hooo-hoo. I guess I'll have to go to Wal-Mart when my Social Security retirement check comes so that I can pick up a new super-dooper computer. I would hate not to be in style. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[kg6nus]

yea, all you ancient old geezers in your 40's on a midlife crisis trip that sound like a kid on a palyground. thankfully you dont represent a group of anything except jackasses

makes me curious as to why this thread wasnt locked ages ago as STH said it would be if it degenerated into a bunch of rude personal remarks. oh yea, because he started it, duh. what am i thinking.

well whatever, im done with this thread. with some exceptions, it's simply turned into a bunch of grumpy old men trying to say whatever they can to make me look wrong(dnd on a computer? i was talking books and dice, at least try to get something as basic as that straight, but that's just another example of people twisting facts into fiction for no reason other than self glorification) and then once they realize that simply trying to make me look wrong isnt going to get me to back down, they resort to purely personal, and quite immature attacks after complaining about maturity and growing up the entire time.

or wait, if i do this
http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif
am i a big grown up man now that fits into the crowd?

thankfully there's enough other people here that have shown that tghe forum here isnt anything except a bunch of old men with a chip on their shoulder to anyone that might not be suffering from male pattern baldness, because while there arent many idiots, they sure as hell stand out

[K6UEY]

After all that who could possibly say our Educational System is failing or that the young people have a bad attitude ??

[KB9YKY]

The kid is probably a liberal arts major. http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[K9STH]

So far, the only person who is getting &quot;personal&quot; is NUS!

Questioning one's choices and priorities on a rational basis is not getting &quot;personal&quot; even though NUS seems to think that it is when someone is not agreeing with his position. Referring to people as being members of certain equinine genera is getting personal!

Now as for one's major: I know some technical persons who are just as biased as those with a liberal arts background, and I know some liberal arts educated people who are just as logical in their approach as the technically minded. Thus, the assumption that NUS is a liberal arts major may not be correct. However, one thing is very obvious: NUS has some very strong opinions and he is not, at this time, willing to relent on any of his positions. This is his right under the Constitution of the United States of America and I will defend this no matter how I feel about his individual beliefs. The unfortunate thing is that when one contradicts themselves time after time, that they greatly reduce their creditibility with the &quot;masses&quot;. It is even more unfortunate when one does not realize (or admit if they do realize it) that they are contradicting themselves time after time!

As I said before, if this particular thread does degenerate into a series of personal attacks, then I will lock it down. Until then, it is still &quot;open season&quot;!

Glen, K9STH

[WB2GOF]

Well his spelling and grammar are simply atrocious. I have read this entire thread twice now, and it is still unclear to me what NUS is trying to say. So, slowly now (for us old farts), and with feeling this time....

[kd7eze]

K9STH

I commend you for having so much patience with NUS.

http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

KD7EZE/5

[w8ob]

Oh Brother!!!!!!!!!!
Me Thinks the code horse has been beaten to a pulp. Me thinks the younger generation needs some serious
attitude changes. Being a business owner here I see this everytime one of the Hot shots comes in off the street looking for a job, boy oh boy gonna rule and change the world, Put you out on the job and you don't know jack s--t. I do not mean for this post to apply to every young person out there, as some of them really have been taught social skills and are real ladies and gentlemen. No the job world is not luck or who you know, its based on your outlook at life in general and your knowledge of the type of work or your ability to learn the same. Oh yes and I never require anyone to kiss my butt , only to do the work I would do.

2nd part. If I whine and complain about something will I eventually get it for free?http://www.qrz.com/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/confused.gif??

I am now a registered old fart and proud of it.

[ae4fa]

This whole thing reminds me of a movie in which the &quot;never trust anyone over 30&quot; crowd succeeds in taking over the country - until they run afoul of some 10 year olds . . .

73, Bob

[9V1VV]

Hi All,
A lone voice crying from the South-east Asian wilderness.
I worked hard to learn morse. I use a straight brass RAF type D brass key. I am a fully paid-up member of the OF's of South East asia.
Can't master the code?
Then get off the air.
Yelling and shouting on SSB is acheivable by any fool.
There lies the future, or not, of Amateur Radio