RadioBanter - View Single Post

February 17th 05, 12:40 AM

"Alun L. Palmer" wrote in
:

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

That's 18, I didn't count both Austria and Australia!