FCC Report and Order Posted on New Rules

I have a secret weapon for any of those that wish to use "echo boxes" and "roger beeps" on the ham bands...

http://www.ky1v.com/40m.jpg

 

And I suppose a few old farts saying it is true we are supposed to believe them? I believe the FCC has more data than a bunch of old farts whining about the dropping of morse code testing.

 

You forgot one important issue with CW. The spaceing. Because of that added bit of information it does not qualify as a digital mode. CW has Three states not two.

 

Mark:  Hard to really quantify a reason to not drop it as a requirement.  I'm not a CW lover.  But, I do appreciate tradition and history.  I guess, though, CW isn't in the same category as religion.  Although, what we hear from some here really places it close to Godliness.

Short of tapping two bare ends of wires together, knocking on a sealed door, or a drain pipe to send the famous series "S-O-S" when no other means of communicating an emergency is available, I can't think of a really good reason.  The deaths of several folks in the West in frigid surroundings wouldn't have been affected if any of them knew the code.  If one or more were hams, well, any mode would have worked, if they had their gear with them and it worked, I suppose. Although, tapping out S-O-S on a car horn could probably have been done for a really long time......

Could someone copy makeshift CW on an FM-only receiver from someone in a crisis who could only manage to short together two wires of a mike cord?  Hard to say.  Most definitely not through a repeater.  Perhaps, though, from a downed aircraft.  But, ELTs do a reasonably good job of marking their spot.

And, as has been said much earlier, ships no longer monitor LF frequencies as a rule and most coast stations in other countries do not.

Guess its like an obsession with antiques.  You admire the items.  Seek them out.  Keep them in great shape, and use them every once in a while to appreciate them for what they were.

Good luck with your article.

73,

 

I,m an old F I guess. Took the class B in 1939 at the FCC. The idea was to promote electronics interest to young persons. It took math, ohms law ac knowledge and so on. How many of todays hams can tell you inductive or cap. reactence? It has turned into strickly an operators test. The FCC will soon see no reason for the ham bands next. They many be right!

 

Did I type that? Show me where I typed that.

Besides, who says everyone of the opinion morse testing should remain is old?

You seem to make many assumptions and generalizations!

Still LMAO!

Quite frankly, I don't care how many CB'ers join ham radio, as long as they are giving me 59's in the next contest!

And when they squeeze more of the CW sub band to make room for them, we'll operate the CW contests in the phone band...won't that be a hoot!!!

 

At least on the year 2000 version of the Extra exam, there were plenty of impedance questions that required some knowledge of complex algebra to solve. Including conversion from rectangular to polar (magnitude and phase angle).

If those have all been eliminated since then, you may be right.

I suspect, though, that theory tests will get a bit tougher. They should. Especially for the Extra Class.
With all of the digital modulation techniques and such, there should be much more on system theory than there has been.

Also, some decent circuit analysis as well, instead of just identifying devices by their symbol. That's an insult.

I agree about the operating part, though. Just memorizing a bunch of semi-useless propagation and ionization layer cr*p and when the moon is at "pedigree" is a complete waste. The useless operator stuff shouldn't be on tests, unless its how to make adjustments to or tune a transmitter, a tuner, or a linear amplifier. That's operating information worth testing.

 

Again, wrong.

Even if there are three states, so what? Still digital. Digital simply means that discrete values are used to represent information. It has nothing to do with 1's or 0's.

That third space you're talking about is simply that, a space. It can be likened to a timebase, a clock if you may, that just keeps track of what time things happened. The characters are still only made up of dits and dahs (1's and 0's). Digital modes can and will have spacing as well. They just occur along different parts of the timebase so that the computer (or your brain) can distinguish one character from another.


So CW is still 100% digital, no matter how you try to ignore that fact.

 

Some hams today can't even tell the difference between digital and analog either!

LAWL!

 

3.525-3.600 CW only 200W only
7.025-7.100 CW only 200W only
21.025-21.200 CW only 200W only
28.0-28.3 CW/data/RTTY 200W only
28.3-28.5 CW/SSB 200W only

 

Oh, but it really IS the absolute truth. Just listen to 75 meters at night anytime for example and you'll see why. The R&O comment also shows that the FCC is fully aware of what is going on in that particular subband. But what they'll do about it is anybody's guess.

And yes, I've heard over and over and over that the code keeps out the bad apples. I've heard it on the air and read it here on QRZ, eHam, and many other forums. I've even heard it at some club meetings and hamfests. Now we know it's just a myth that got busted big time, thanks to the FCC.

The thought that the code kept out the bad apples was truly B.S. I'd like to hear something better now from the OF gang now.

 

And you are totally wrong. You even said digital modes have 2 states. CW has 3. Try to decode CW without the spacing put in. It would be impossible. Digital modes such as psk31 and packet do not have spacing because they have uniform data lengths.

CW is not and never will be digital. Get that through your head.

 

Rules change not all are great you guys sound like the old man who cried because they installed a stop sign at the end of his street. The rules have changed many times over the years and always someone wants to know why. can't we move on or should we all find a cave and club. I spent 18 years in the military when I first joined we used AM offshore and everything on shore was teletype and the day the teletype was replaced by the computer I near danced on the desk when we got radar the old RDF loop came off the boat's I was again overjoyed but there were old timers that cried they didn't know what the world was comming to (A BETTER PLACE) just like ham is move on stop the name calling it does no good it shure woun't make the club meetings any better.
Plain English get over it !!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

The problem is the OF's want to continue the myth that CW is a filter for bad apples. We all know the FCC busted that bubble big time in yesterdays R&O. Besides look at where most of the violations occur. Remember Baxter? He was the biggest lid of all time and the FCC got him. Plenty of other Extras and Generals that have gotten caught by the FCC so the R&O was correct in saying that the CW being a filter argument was bogus.

 

The biggest problem is all these OF's that keep saying if I had to do it then they should too. Well I had to do it too but I do not mind them changing the rules. Does not bother me one bit. Will give me plenty more people to talk to especially since I don't think I want to even talk to these elitest OF's anymore. If you can't deal with change then go find a new hobby. Ham Radio is all about changes and new ideas. Old ideas are what is killing this hobby and making commericial interests want to take up our spectrum. Ham radio used to be out front in inovation but now it is so far behind because of the road blocks we may never catch back up and may never even take the lead again.