It's Taps For Morse Code

OC Register ^ | 2/23/07 | Erik Ortiz

[vintage patriot]

Morse code is in need of some serious SOS.

The language of dots and dashes, first used during the infancy of electronic communication in the mid-1800s, is going the way of Latin.

Beginning today, amateur or "ham" radio operators in the United States won't be tested in Morse code – also known as Continuous Wave – in order to be licensed by the federal government.

In an effort to advance the hobby, the Federal Communications Commission in December agreed to eliminate the five-words-per-minute Morse code requirement for people seeking their upper-level class licenses.

[ASA Vet]

As a TA I never supplied beer to hogs while on duty.
I did however require my TA section to see to the care and feeding of our hogs.
Coffee and sandwiches while on pos was a small price to pay to keep them happy.
A happy contented hog won't drop a target unless mortars are dropping on his R-390.
I loved watching them work. Their yelling, "He's CHERRY! I've got him! He's Mine!"
always brought a couple of almost orgasmic TA's running to look over his shoulder.

[Blue Collar Christian]

Time machine experience!

[Old Student]

"If you have hearing problems then you may have a hard time hearing the dot's and dash's and may not be able to pass the test. "

You pretty well extracted the information from my post. I can hear voices just fine, and music fairly well, but I never got more than two words of fifty on any practice test I ever took for CW. My dad is still active as a ham, btw. We were talking about it last night, in fact. He has exceptionally good hearing, and it took him several years to get his general class license. I believe he's an extra class now, but that is possibly faulty memory; we don't talk all that often. It's one of the reasons I want a ham ticket. If I call him on the phone on a net night, he's too busy to talk to me... :)

[Thinkin' Gal]

Say, what do you know. This article was posted on the 23rd.

"What hath God wrought!" (Numbers 23:23) ping.

[dragnet2]

There's no license to use a cell-phone radio that you can use to talk to anyone anywhere in the world who has a similar one. The 'wow'-factor of being able to do that with an HF rig is over.

I think if you start randomly calling overseas telephone numbers on a cell phone, those that answered would think you were quite odd. Worldwide HF amateur radio and cell phones are two completely different things, used for *completely* different purposes.

I just spoke to someone last night, deep in the south Pacific, about 200 mile off coast of Tahiti.

They were making their way to South America. He described his cargo, talking about his dog he had on board, the calm seas, described the sunset, spoke about his primitive antenna system, his radio and he touched on his sailing adventures.

This was a complete random contact. I had no idea whom I would be speaking with before answering his call.

Speaking to someone on the other side of the planet, or in the south seas, with the same interest, on just a piece of copper wire, and a low power radio, is still pretty amazing. And no need to pay a monthly bill to Gigantor Corporation.

[FreedomCalls]

And that’s still not different from reading somone’s blog and leaving comments and getting replies, or chatting on an open channel on an IM system, or using Usenet, or any of the myriad ways of chatting over the computer with someone in the South Pacific that you’ve never met before? Let’s face it, the thrill is gone from HF. Low power radio that can talk with anyone in the world = cell phone. Simple device for talking with random people doing interesting things = internet chat. You can even combine the two and IM on your cell phone.