It's form of modern day government speech censorship. Similar to what goes on Facebook, Instagram or pre Musk Twitter. In UK you can also be imprisoned for anti government or other comments criticizing government officials on social media websites. Another form of government censorship is the FCC discouraging hams talking about religion, politics etc a definite violation of the 1st amendment.
I agree with @UT7UX , who cares if there are 2 millions hams in the USA, if they don't care or have a clue on how to get on the air, what good does that do anyone? I much prefer quality or quantity. I am "flummoxed" by those who that think sheer numbers alone will make ham radio viable forever.... But I digress, ham radio's demise has been discussed for over a 100 years now with folks crying chicken little since the first spark, yet here we all are still doing ham radio.
Why do you need a few kilowatts to contact any one with all the options avaiable can you imagine the qrm ?
Heavens knows what they did but the hobby here in VK has gone down hill big time 40 meters sounds like 27 megs anything but ham radio.
Also what you left out was Foundation calls can be issued with 3 letter callsigns from A-Z as long as they say they are Foundation holders it appears okay i worked one the other day a VK3Acall but he only said he was a Foundation call when i questioned him .
Les you are 100% correct in your posting it will only get worse if you cannot utilize 400 watts then better give up and i know some hams who paid for their 2 letter calls well i did not had mine for close to 50 years was offered $1000 fer it by a 3 letter call at a hamfest plus 1000 qsl cards with my new call on them if i agreed that's what is come down to also W.I.A has to be held accountable.
Hi Don we had ham exam cram here back in the early 1970's did not take on the hurdle was cw Hi Don we had exam cram syndrome here when Novice ticket was introduced still the hurdle was cw 5 wpm i supported the Novice ticket and 5 wpm cw i rememb er my friend was atrocious at learning it but he persevered and finally got his fullcall now what have you got a farce people from all class of licence lapped up cw's death mainly from limited calls i know some and they are good friends i did cw ust before the speed requirement was reduced just after 1960's most of my contacts were on cw i dont get on much anymore one weekend on 40M did that sounded like 27 megs the 4 letter words no callsigns announced talking anything but our once wonderful hobby did that my gear hardly gets turned on.
Hi Richard maybe no big deal in Canada but here it would be you have not heard what 40/80 M sound like 27 megs it is dead now all the CBERS have got their cereal packet tickets and are on 40/80 mtrs.
Hi Grahame yes it is a great feeling and an achievement but you know the hams that have some grey matter they dont need 1kw or 2.5 kw we have them here as well saying we should have 1 kw plus for them it is power gets you everywhere i remember when Albania came back on air on 20mt ther was an unimaginable pile up heard i had my 100watts 7 element log and i almost fell of the chair when he came back to me it was a U.S.A dxpedition inever will forget when he said huge signal out of pacific all that with 100 watts.But 600 milliwatts my hat off to you Grahame.
Yes I could. Would you be so kind to give me some further explanation of what do you exactly mean? The limit actually exists since too weal PC won't decode fast enough even with 'filter' option engaged. Well that's interesting.
You obviously do not have experience with weak-signal modes using 6M Es propagation. Certain multi-hop and tilted Es cloud propagation may occur once in several years between two points across the globe. There is no twice per week and receiver quality means nothing without an opening. I will not even dwell on the high-power requirements for meteor scatter and forward ionospheric scatter involving weak-signal communications. Also, for digital communications, establishing a contact is an all or nothing proposition. An improvement of 1 to 2 dB can make the difference between completing a contact or not having it logged. The analog SSB world is quite different. High-power and QRP modes can both be challenging and highly rewarding in our hobby, but Operators must be disciplined and always use the lowest power necessary to complete a contact.
