RadioBanter - Docket Scorecard

From: Leo on Sun 16 Oct 2005 10:34

On 15 Oct 2005 14:02:03 -0700, wrote:
From: Leo on Oct 15, 9:36 am
On 14 Oct 2005 15:02:32 -0700, wrote:
Leo wrote:
On 14 Oct 2005 12:39:50 -0700, wrote:
From: on Oct 14, 9:20 am
Bill Sohl wrote:
wrote in message
wrote:

If the growth doesn't happen, it means the code test wasn't really a
problem in the first place.

Ahem...this is a "preconditioning" artificiality of "reasons."
[akin to the "do you still beat your wife?" question]

Precisely so - and, it is indicative of the assumption that code
testing is currently under review because it is perceived as a
"problem".

This is, of course, not the case.

The alleged "problem" is described as a problem by those
who favor the mode and the license test that THEY passed...
and will probably never have to test for again.

License testing for manual morse code cognition skill simply
became obsolete. A REAL problem is that those who passed
the manual tests refuse to let it BE obsolete...it is an
ingrained psyche touchstone, a mile-marker of how far they
came once. They refuse to look at the future and OTHERS
who may come later. It is a very personal thing to them.

Another casual factor is human mortality. Keeping things
as they were is a form of psychological stability..."all
things are as they were then" and there are no new things
to overcome. Keeping the status very quo is comforting to
those who have become "mature." :-) It has an artificial
stability sense of delaying their own demise...in addition
to the nostalgia and yearning for a youth now irrevocably
lost to the past.

Still another casual factor is simply personal ego. Those
who have taken and passed the highest-rate manual morse
tests - thus achieving recognition by class - will lose
their eliteness and title. [despite over two centuries of
independence from the Crown, Americans are still caught up
in Titles and pseudo-nobility of Status]

"Growth in numbers" is not a raison d'etre for the elimination
or retention of the code test. The lack of love and worship
of morsemanship should be enough.

Agreed - the review of the requirement is based entirely upon an
change of requirements in an international treaty. The regulators
create the rules and regulations which control the hobby - it is up to
the amateur community to promote it and drive growth.

That is not how many of the Comments on WT Docket 05-235
down here are. :-) In many Comments elimination of the
federal requirement of manual code testing will cause a
near-total cessation of manual morse code use if removed!
[extremists add the degeneration into anarchy and chaos,
supposedly the environment of CB]

In the USA the FCC was on public record 15 years ago that
it did not feel that any manual morse code test was
necessary for their purpose in granting USA ham licenses
(FCC 90-53, a copy of which visible on www.nocode.org).
However, the test requirements were still in the Radio
Regulations of the ITU-R and the USA was obliged to obey it.

Obsolesence in Radio Regulations finally was recognized,
not only in S25.5 but in many other parts of S25. S25 was
rewritten at WRC-03 and manual morse testing made optional
for each adminstration. [there won't be another WRC until
2007] Since 2003, 23 countries have removed the absolute
necessity of testing for manual morse skill for HF and
below. It should be noted that the International Amateur
Radio Union was FOR the modernization of S25 at least a
year prior to WRC-03...and the optionality of code testing
by each administration.

One problem, a REAL problem, here in the USA is the un-
willingness of the ARRL to go with the desires of the
majority of American radio amateurs. They seem to cater
to their core membership which is the older, code-tested
amateurs. The ARRL membership is (as of July, 2005) still
only 1 in 5 licensed U.S. radio amateurs, definitely not
a majority. ARRL has to either "go with the flow" or
give up saying that it "represents the ham community."

There is no real membership/special-interest group
competitor to the ARRL in the United States, so it
doesn't seem that there is any "drive for growth" coming
from such groups. Few manufacturers need the amateur
radio market so it won't be them to any great extent.
About the only real "drive" for anything new is plain
old de facto standardization by the users themselves.
Attrition will take care of old morsemen, but only in
a distant part of the near future. Voice by SSB on
HF became the most-used mode there by de facto
standardization. Voice by FM on VHF and UHF became
the de facto standard mode there. Repeaters and packet
radio relay came into being by de facto standardization;
regulations on such were done after the fact, not before.

De facto standardization is a powerful driver of what
is used where and by whom. The FCC here has tried to
make de jure standardization in several radio services,
succeeded in some (most notably in Mass Media Radio
Service - formerly known as Broadcasting - specifically
in DTV). It just isn't in the loop to impose who
should do what where ahead of the de facto
standardization in established radio services...the time
delay of democratic-principle law, the "respondu-cantu"
of NPRM-to-Comments-to-R&O is too slow. Witness the
15 years of delay between FCC 90-53 and NPRM 05-143 on
manual morse code testing...in addition to 18 separate
Petitions that all had to be "discussed" (and cussed).

snip

There have indeed been massive changes in technology over the past
half century. Instant communication on a global basis is available to
almost everyone now, affordably and from virtually anywhere. Sure,
during natural disasters this capability is severely impacted - but in
everyday life, amaueur radio can no longer compete for public interest
as it once did. (why go through licensing and buy expensive radio
equipment to talk with Uncle Bob in Peoria on ham radio, when you can
call him up on Skype on the Internet with great audio and live colour
full-motion video for free?)

A lot more is coming for the average citizen if EDN and
Electronic Design and SPECTRUM magazines can be believed.
VoIP is an accomplished fact today, the only real
drawback being some Common Carrier arguments against it.

The usual radio amateur argument for amateur radio is
that it is "low cost" and "independent from infrastructure."
SOME amateur radio is low cost, yes, but the "independence"
from the infrastructure inhibits a greater utilization of
amateur radio in true emergency work (apart from the after-
the-fact health-and-welfare messaging). Thirty years ago
the "phone patch" was popular in connecting overseas
servicemen with their families in the USA but, now that
the military has the DSN with direct input to the Internet
plus direct connection to stateside telephone networks,
those phone patches are seldom needed; overseas military
people can call home directly from nearly everywhere.

"Low cost" equipment is highly debateable, even if out-
rageous claims of some are corrected. Really low-cost
HF transceivers HAVE to be used models, some with
their insides "modified." New ones require a kilodollar
across the counter minimum to set up a reasonable
station.

snip

Along with the common assumption that code testing is an impediment to
new Amateur licensees (due to no access to HF without it), there is
the companion assumption that licensing is also an impediment. The
theory is that if licensing was removed (as it was with CB many years
ago) that the floodgates would open and the bands would become
overcrowded by the stampede of new amateur operators.

I look on the "companionship" of code testing and all testing
as a lot of rationalized, smoke-screen-for-effect misdirection
by the OT morsemen. :-)

This is, of course, nonsense - they aren't there either. Fifty years
ago, perhaps - but not now. In the three years that I have held a
license, I have met very few people who were interested at all in
radio communications. Try this experiment - show a teenage kid an
SSTV picture being received, and watch the reaction.....

Can't say I've had such an experience. If it's anything at
all like old-style facsimile (that I had to run tests on
in 1955), it would be deathly slow in generation for a
teener's normal rapid pace. :-)

I have observed some older teeners at a mall using cell
phones with camera-imaging capability (they were comparing
styles with friends in another mall). Quick, rapid
response, all appearing to know how to use their phones
as expertly as anyone.

We hams are becoming a rare breed as technology advances.

Sigh...that has been happening since a half century ago.
The miniaturization of nearly everything electronic is
defeating the hammer-and-anvil, big-brute mentality of
some hobbyists.

A REAL problem I see is the attitudes of some in vainly
trying to keep the old paradigms...such as amateurs are
"leading the way in state of the art developments." They
aren't and haven't been since the advent of solid-state
electronics a half century ago. They have to give up their
wish-fulfillment of "greatness in radio" and just continue
to have fun with their radios as a hobby. Nothing wrong
with that and perhaps better oriented mentally to just
enjoy a pastime. [that's what hobbies are]

Nearly 60 years ago I got interested in radio while both
flying model aircraft and being a part-time worker in the
model-hobby industry (Testor Chemical Co., makers of
cement, "dope" the lacquer paint, and balsa wood). Today
the model hobby industry is bigger than ever and the AMA,
the Academy of Model Aeronautics, has a quarter million
members (more than the ARRL ever had). In knowing many
modelers over the years, I've not heard any of them boast
of "advancing the state of the art" in aeronautics nor of
being anything else but hobbyists. The technology of air,
sea, and space has long ago gone FAR beyond the
capabilities of model hobbyists working by themselves.

The same is true for "radio," at least for the MF-HF bands
used by radio amateurs. It is basically a hobby, a fun
pastime done for personal enjoyment, an intellectual
challenge for those who want to get into the theory of
it, but also needing federal regulation due to the nature
of EM propagation and interference mitigation.

There just isn't any need to have any "trained reservoire"
of morsemen in the amateur radio ranks, not for national
needs, not for any "homeland defense," not for any worry
about "terrorists" nor for natural disasters. The year
2005 is NOT 1935. Time can't be stopped. Old
regulations have become obsolete, need modernization.

Those who have a desperate NEED for titles, status,
privilege will have to seek other venues to self-glorify
themselves. There's a limit to what federal regulations
can do for them...at the expense of all those who come
after them who ARE the future.