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February 17th 05, 12:33 AM

wrote in news:1108578593.250795.201100
@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Alun L. Palmer wrote:
Yes, South Africa has abolished the code test! One more domino has
fallen.

How many countries does that make now, compared to those who still have
it?

73 de Jim, N2EY

It's getting a little difficult to keep track. However, I think at least
the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg,
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand,
Papua Niugini, Hong Kong and South Africa have abolished the code test so
far. I think that of these only Austria and the Netherlands even retain an
entry level licence that doesn't give HF privileges.

That's only 17 countries, but I expect I may have missed some out. I make
the combined ham population of the above something over 260,000 (possibly
more than half of them no-coders), so probably a little less than half the
number of hams in the US. However, there are well over 50,000 hams in
Canada, which is also likely to abolish the code test very soon.

Don't forget that Japan, with a ham population of 1.2 Million (twice that
of the US, out of maybe a fifth of your general population), has long had a
no-code HF licence, albeit limited to 10 Watts. I'm not sure how many
Japanese hams have a no-code HF licence, but they may even rival all the
new ones so far put together, although the new guys can use more than 10
Watts! It's probably only a matter of time before Japan lets all of their
hams use HF anyway.

Even without the low power Japanese stations, the number of no-coders who
have full HF privileges right now is probably about the same as the number
of no-code Techs in the US.

73 de Alun, N3KIP