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February 26th 04, 03:42 PM

(William) wrote in
om:

PAMNO (N2EY) wrote in message
...
In article , Alun
writes:

The authorities in South Africa reacted to the demise of the ITU code
test requirement in a truly bizarre way, by suggesting a third class
of licence with a ZT call, with a 5wpm code test and limited HF
privileges.

Why was this a "truly bizarre way"?

TAFKA Rev Jim, I'll explain it to you. SA has two existing coded HF
licenses. ITU says you can drop code, so they come out with a third
coded license. Bizarre.

This has been shelved, due to what they say were a large number of
comments.

Democracy in action.

You almost got it right. Should be "Democracy inaction."

No such licence will now be implemented, so don't expect to
hear any ZT calls anytime soon.

Instead, they are proposing a dual route to a full licence, offering
a choice between either an advanced theory test or a code test for
each candidate. This was proposed by many people in many countries
whilst there still was an ITU requirement for a code test, but this
is the first time I have seen it resurface since it ended.

Sounds like a very reasonable compromise.

Then why did they initially suggest a third coded license? Why did
that generate a "large number of comments?"

If South Africa does
implement it, they will be the first and probably only country to do
so.

Why? Perhaps it could be a way out of the constant arguments. It
wasn't possible before, due to the treaty.

TAFKA Rev Jim, the constant arguments can be gotten out of by letting
go.

They are also proposing to give the same limited HF privileges that
they would have given to the new licence, to the existing restricted
licence instead, without any addtional testing.

How many has in South Africa, anyway?

huh?

Not quite right, the ZR licence is no-code, but yes, it is bizarre to greet
the end of the code requirement by suggesting a new licence with a code
test.

And Jim, I didn't say it was a bad idea to have a dual track system with
code and theory alternatives. It's actually quite a good one. No doubt now
someone will put that in petition number 18, or whatever number we are up
to now.

I won't though, because it isn't going to happen. We don't know exactly
what the FCC will do, but we do know two things that they are on record as
saying:-

1) They don't beleive that the code test serves a useful purpose;

2) They won't rearrange subbands until a consensus emerges amongst us.

So, we do know really (although some are in denial) that the NPRM will dump
Element 1 completely.

We can be rather less sure what it will do to reform the unnecessary
proliferation of licence classes, and the equally unneccessary slicing and
dicing of the ham bands that goes with it. I hope it might do something in
this regard, but it is perhaps more likely that it will do nothing, or at
least as little as possible, as they probably will decide that we still
don't agree with oneanother.

73 de Alun, N3KIP