"Mike Coslo" wrote:

Dwight Stewart wrote:

Isn't Code more of a skill than a knowledge? Any
person can look at a piece of paper with a code
chart on it and translate code, but that doesn't
mean they have the skill to send or receive code
over a radio. Wasn't the latter the ultimate
purpose of the code test?

One must know the Morse code to send and recieve it.


You're right. Perhaps memorizing the individual sequence of sounds
associated with a letter of the alphabet is knowledge on some very basic
level, similar to a young child memorizing the sounds associated with the
letters of the alphabet. Amazing that this would become a key focus of
testing in ham radio for so many years.


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/

Dwight Stewart wrote:

"Mike Coslo" wrote:

Dwight Stewart wrote:

Isn't Code more of a skill than a knowledge? Any
person can look at a piece of paper with a code
chart on it and translate code, but that doesn't
mean they have the skill to send or receive code
over a radio. Wasn't the latter the ultimate
purpose of the code test?

One must know the Morse code to send and recieve it.

You're right. Perhaps memorizing the individual sequence of sounds
associated with a letter of the alphabet is knowledge on some very basic
level, similar to a young child memorizing the sounds associated with the
letters of the alphabet. Amazing that this would become a key focus of
testing in ham radio for so many years.

\


Mygawd, Dwight, are you really licensed as a ham? And *that's* all you know of
radiotelegraphy?
You been hiding out in the wilderness somewhere, in a cave? What do you think
it was that started
radio in the first place, semaphores?

"Dick Carroll" wrote:

Dwight Stewart wrote:

(snip) Amazing that this would become a key focus of
testing in ham radio for so many years.

(snip) What do you think it was that started radio in
the first place, semaphores?


Radio's start was a very long time ago, Dick. And I can understand that.
However, it is the "for so many years" part of my comment that I find
amazing. Here we are so many, many, years later still focused on that.


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/

Dick Carroll wrote in :



Dwight Stewart wrote:

"Mike Coslo" wrote:

Dwight Stewart wrote:

Isn't Code more of a skill than a knowledge? Any
person can look at a piece of paper with a code
chart on it and translate code, but that doesn't
mean they have the skill to send or receive code
over a radio. Wasn't the latter the ultimate purpose of the code
test?

One must know the Morse code to send and recieve it.

You're right. Perhaps memorizing the individual sequence of sounds
associated with a letter of the alphabet is knowledge on some very
basic level, similar to a young child memorizing the sounds associated
with the letters of the alphabet. Amazing that this would become a key
focus of testing in ham radio for so many years.

\


Mygawd, Dwight, are you really licensed as a ham? And *that's* all you
know of radiotelegraphy?
You been hiding out in the wilderness somewhere, in a cave? What do
you think it was that started
radio in the first place, semaphores?



Phone goes back a long way. Yes, Marconi started out with Morse code, but
AM was only a few years behind.

There was phone even when people used spark. A circuit patented by Elihu
Thomson to keep arc lamps burning was adapted by Prof Duddell FRS to keep
a spark going continously for this purpose. This type of transmitter was
used by DeForrest in his famous voice coverage of the yacht race from New
York harbour. His 'Audion' (triode) was not used in the transmitter as
most assume, but in the regenerative receiver used to pick up his spark AM
signals on shore. This was because he hadn't figured out that it could be
used to amplify, so it predated TRF receivers even.

Even before DeForrest, the first transmission of AM over one mile took
place on Cobb Island, Maryland, on December 12, 1900. The system was
designed by Fessenden, a Canadian whose research was funded by the weather
service in the US. He used a spark gap driven by a high frequency
alternator, commonly used to produce Morse at several kW of RF back then,
but he had an 80 kHz alternator specially made for him by Poulsen, another
pioneer in his own right. By exciting the gap with an alternator running
at a frequency _above_ audio he was able to make maybe a kW of AM, whereas
the Thomson/Dudell design made far less power (a few watts). Unfortunately
he had to rely on some sort of rectifier with no amplification or
regeneration for the receiver, hence only being able to hear a kW of AM no
more than one mile away.

Moving on just a couple more years, the earliest published circuits I have
seen for continuous wave transmitters, such as those by John Scott-
Taggart, show a mic as well as a key. They would, of course, as phone was
known for spark transmitters. CW, of course, originally stood for
continuous wave in the sense of 'not spark', and was applied to AM as well
as Morse. I do use that kind of CW!

"JJ" wrote ...

You mean you and Larry boy don't know semaphore Dick? Why that is just
plain LAZINESS. You know, when conditions are so bad that you and Larry have
to rely on CW and your faithful CW rigs gives up the ghost or conditions get
SO bad that CW can't even get through you and Larry could save the world by
using semaphore, if you had that skill, that is.
__________________________________________________ _____________________

I have to presume by your comment, JJ that you indeed know semaphore.
Otherwise, you look stupid when you chastise them for a skill you don't
possess. And, of course -- I'm sure it's just plain LAZINESS on your part.
What else could it be?

Arnie -
KT4ST

"Arnie Macy" wrote in
:

"Alun Palmer" wrote ...

Well, it's certainly possible that it was their excuse to make me go
away
and quit bothering them! All the same, these are people who could pass
the Extra theory without too much effort, so once there is no longer a
code test we probably _will_ see some of them on the air.
__________________________________________________ ______________________
__

No we won't. At least not in any great numbers. We've had a
'codeless' license in the ARS for quite a while, and I'm yet to see the
great influx of EEs and the like. The code requirement were reduced --
still nothing. If they were truly interested in the ARS, they would be
here already (lots of technical stuff to do under the entry license).
Old argument, Alun -- not good then, not good now.

Arnie -
KT4ST






How do you know they are not here? Do you really know what each of us
majored in? I really don't think so.

"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
...


Carl R. Stevenson wrote:
"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
...

Carl R. Stevenson wrote:


I have reported that, in my over 32 years in the RF communications
business, I have worked with MANY very competent engineers who
would be interested in ham radio, but can't/won't be bothered with
wasting their time jumping through a silly Morse code "hoop."

Some have become hams since they could get meaningful HF privs
for "only" 5 wpm ... I'm sure that more will once they can do the
same without having to waste their time on even 5 wpm ... these
are folks that could pass a technical test well beyond the Extra.
Do you doubt that, even without Morse proficiency, they could/would
make good hams and could contribute to the service?

I dunno. I doubt it though. I wonder if a person who doesn't want to
jump through hoops is going to do much of anything that he/she doesn't
want to do.

Mike,

Do you seriously believe that just because someone is not interested in
Morse that they could not be interested in, and contribute in valuable
ways to, other aspects of ham radio?

"Elmering" new hams who are not technical on the technical aspects
designing new modes
writing useful ham software
building networks
public service communications
emergency/disaster communications
"SKYWARN"
etc., etc.

Just because someone isn't interested in jumping through the Morse
hoop, doesn't mean that they are so selfish that they can't/won't
contribute.

Umm, Carl.... you are here! You have have achieved your goal, at least
will be very soon. I'm going to have to assume the reason is to engage
in a little gloating? So you're getting what you want on all counts. You
really wouldn't have to hear all us PCTA's crying if you didn't want to.

In other words, if you want to discuss it, we're here. Lessay we all do
what you want, and "just live with it". I guess that means we're
supposed to shut up. Then you wouldn't have the fun of discussing it
with us, or even telling us to "just live with it".

I don't think you would like that very much..

I'm not here to gloat ... I'm here to make sure that newcomers hear
the news and aren't overly tainted by being totally awash in PCTAs
to the point that they think all hams are that way and decide that ham
radio isn't really for them after all, because of a false perception that
it's totally populated with the sort of folks that they'd really not like to
associate. :-)

Carl - wk3c

Alun Palmer wrote:

"Arnie Macy" wrote in
:

"Alun Palmer" wrote ...

Well, it's certainly possible that it was their excuse to make me go
away
and quit bothering them! All the same, these are people who could pass
the Extra theory without too much effort, so once there is no longer a
code test we probably _will_ see some of them on the air.
__________________________________________________ ______________________
__

No we won't. At least not in any great numbers. We've had a
'codeless' license in the ARS for quite a while, and I'm yet to see the
great influx of EEs and the like. The code requirement were reduced --
still nothing. If they were truly interested in the ARS, they would be
here already (lots of technical stuff to do under the entry license).
Old argument, Alun -- not good then, not good now.

Arnie -
KT4ST






How do you know they are not here? Do you really know what each of us
majored in? I really don't think so.

That's an easy one. The numbers didn't rise accordingly after restructuring.

"Carl R. Stevenson" wrote in message ...
"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
...
Carl R. Stevenson wrote:


I await the influx of all these engineers and the advances they will
bring Amateur Radio.

Don't hold your breath waiting for either.


Did anyone seriously say they were really interested in Ham radio, but
the Morse Code test kept them out? just har dto imagine that someone
really interested would do that.

Right on the money.


I have reported that, in my over 32 years in the RF communications
business, I have worked with MANY very competent engineers who
would be interested in ham radio, but can't/won't be bothered with
wasting their time jumping through a silly Morse code "hoop."

Some have become hams since they could get meaningful HF privs
for "only" 5 wpm ... I'm sure that more will once they can do the
same without having to waste their time on even 5 wpm ... these
are folks that could pass a technical test well beyond the Extra.
Do you doubt that, even without Morse proficiency, they could/would
make good hams and could contribute to the service?


Brings up a question Carl: You're a seasoned EE and have been a ham
for many years. What technology-based contributions have you made to
the service?

w3rv

Dick Carroll wrote in :



Arnie Macy wrote:

"JJ" wrote ...

You mean you and Larry boy don't know semaphore Dick? Why that is
just
plain LAZINESS. You know, when conditions are so bad that you and
Larry have to rely on CW and your faithful CW rigs gives up the ghost
or conditions get SO bad that CW can't even get through you and Larry
could save the world by using semaphore, if you had that skill, that
is.
__________________________________________________ _____________________

I have to presume by your comment, JJ that you indeed know semaphore.
Otherwise, you look stupid when you chastise them for a skill you
don't possess. And, of course -- I'm sure it's just plain LAZINESS on
your part. What else could it be?

Arnie, if learning semaphores had been a licensing requirement for the
ARS, I would have learned it along with lots of others, like it or not.
I sure wouldn't have sat on my backside for most of my lifetime carping
about how 'unnecessary' it all was to make me jump through some
"useless" hoop.
But of course semaphores have no application to radiocommunications,
as I
inferred, and JJ knows that, it's just all he could grope around and
come up with.



No true, what if the sound fails on your ATV setup and you are aboard a
sinking vessel? ROTFL