RadioBanter - View Single Post

July 11th 03, 08:45 PM

On 12 Jul 2003 03:39:36 GMT, ospam (Larry Roll K3LT)
wrote:

I agree that Morse code proficiency has nothing to do with speaking or
typing -- but the ability to effectively employ the Morse/CW mode -- at
speeds greater than 5 WPM -- will keep you communicating when conditions
prevent you from communicating by voice or digital modes.

I thought CW *is* a digital mode.

You have done
nothing but provide personal, anecdotal proof that reducing code testing
requirements down to a mere 5 WPM maximum was NOT a good thing!

Don't look now, but it's about to get reduced even further, to a zero
WPM maximum. The result will be that there will be fewer and fewer
people on the bands that know any code at all...which means that there
will be fewer and fewer people for you to contact on CW. Unless, of
course, you manage to start convinging some of them that CW is
actually fun to use - and if you keep on going with the same
derogatory comments about no-code hams that you've been treating
people to for at least four years now, you'll have a tough time
getting anyone's attention even if you do decide to try.

These days, the vast majority of emergency communications is done on a
local basis, primarily on 2m using FM repeaters and simplex. 70cm is
probably the next most widely used band for this purpose. Neither is
subject to the propagation difficulties often encountered on HF.

True -- when the "emergency" is confined to a small locality and the VHF/
UHF repeater infrastructure remains intact. However, what if there is a
widespread disaster -- such as the "Big One" striking the San Andreas fault
line in California? That will not be a "local" disaster -- it will affect the
entire country. Vast regions hundreds of miles in radius will be affected,
and the commercial communications and existing Amateur Radio
infrastructures and the power grids they depend on will be disrupted for
God only knows how long. At that point, we could be talking about areas
with populations of hundreds of thousands of people being out of
communication with the area "outside" the disaster zone. Communications
nets spanning many times the normal operational range of terresterial
VHF/UHF systems will be necessary -- and don't look now, but we're
coming to the downside of the solar cycle -- meaning poor propagation.
I guarantee you that there will be lots of opportunities for No-Code HF
Ham Heroes to help out, but when conditions dictate the use of CW, in
order to be able to communicate when voice and data modes fail due to
lack of available electrical power or poor atmospherics, that capability
will not be available because it will not have been learned. That's when
some guy like me will enter the picture, and say, "Step aside, Sonny,
and take your toy microphone with you."

No, that's when FEMA and the U.S. military will start shipping in
trailerloads of frequency-agile communications equipment - yes, VOICE
communications equipment including portable repeater systems, mobile
and handheld radios, and...aw, what the heck, you have Internet access
same as I do. Check out what the SHARES program is all about.

Then he'll plug in his key and
re-establish contact with the outside world.

With no electrical power? I think he'll need to plug in a lot more
than a key.

Of course, you will never
be convinced that that could happen -- so you'll just have to hope it doesn't.

Oh, I'm sure "the big one" could happen. I just don't think we agree
on what the needed response from the amateur community will be.
Furthermore, since I live in New York and you live in Delaware, it
doesn't matter what either of us expects. What matters is what the
ARES/RACES ops in the affected area will be expecting, based on what
the officials from their served agencies tell them they'll be asked to
do...unless you plan to hop on your horse and ride to California when
it happens - packing a QRP CW rig, a battery, and a few hundred feet
of wire, of course - in which case they may just stop you at the state
line and tell you to get lost.

In the meantime, I'll be ready!

Is there a fault line in Delaware that I don't know about? :-)

Well, unfortunately, there are lots of new Ham Heroes who believe
precisely that, and they belive that their possession of the HT and
650 mAh battery pack makes them a "real" ham radio operator!

The fact that their licenses say "Amateur Radio License" on them, same
as yours and mine, makes them "real" ham radio operators (assuming
they spelled their names right on their applications and thus don't
have an invalid license). How prepared they are for emergency
operation is another matter entirely.

I don't think anyone's going to confuse emergency communications with
anything enjoyable. However, in order to have total communications
capability, leaving out Morse/CW capability just doesn't make sense to me.

Hmmmm...it made sense to the Coast Guard when it became clear that
they were better off using NAVTEX. USCG doesn't use CW anymore.
Somehow, I doubt that the rest of Homeland Security considers them any
less of a "real" organization because of that.

We're going the wrong way on that, and the only reason for it is because
people these days are just too damn LAZY to learn a useful communications
skill.

Lots of people these days are learning lots of useful communications
skills, Larry. Some even invent brand new ones once in awhile. The
bottom line is, there is more than one way to skin a cat (so to
speak), and as long as the message gets through, it really doesn't
matter whether it went by CW, SSB, packet, PSK31, SSTV, or for that
matter, by carrier pigeon.

Hmmm...my late paternal grandfather raised pigeons as a hobby. Makes
me wonder if he thought the mailman was lazy.

End of story.

But Larry, the story hasn't even *started* yet!

73 DE John, KC2HMZ