Ed,

When I first passed my general, I was about 14 years young at the time.  I
had a Viking Ranger one for a transmitter.  It ran A M of course but I had
no microphone.  So that first morning after getting my ticket, I went up
into the 75 meter phone band and on CW, called a guy running side band
calling CQ and he answered me.  This was when most phone operators could
still copy CW of course.  Anyhow, I about fell off my chair because he
literally rag chewed with me for a long time and never once complains about
me being on CW.  In fact, now that I think of it, he never asked me why I
didn't switch to phone.  Way cool.  Them were the days.  I hope, when they
do away with CW testing all together, they at least keep one written
question on the exam, and that is, Do you know what CW is?  The answer?  I
call it, for my packet buddies, the ODM, or the Original Digital Mode.  No,
I don't care if they do away with the code because only people who know the
code, and can copy it, work the CW bands.  Just leave us with at least 100
KHz of band width, though, because them dad blame digital boys are now
taking up half the CW bands so we need at least 50 KHz to call CQ in.

Phil.
K0NX