I really, really, really don't think cw was an effective way to insure the
quality of ham operators. If it was, we wouldn't have the kind of truly poor
conduct found on the ham bands, perpetrated by hams who got their licenses
when cw was still a required test element.
I think the tests should no longer be multiple choice (I also think this is
true of our education system, including college and university testing).
That, all by itself would raise the bar. Also, I don't think the question
pool should be publicly accessible. I also think the number of questions
required per test should be increased so that several questions from each
category is included. Finally, accountability, and enforcement of the
existing amateur radio rules would go a long way towards reducing the
garbage through which we must sometimes wade while pursuing our hobby.
We don't expect people to behave courteously anymore and we don't enforce
consequences when people don't behave courteously. That's why we're
experiencing the jamming of repeaters or the myriad, ongoing circuses that
can be heard on well known, hf frequencies.
My 11 cents worth (two cents don't go as far as they used to).
73 all
Ron Miller
-----Original Message-----
From: For blind ham radio operators [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
On Behalf Of carolyn johnson
Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2014 9:15 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Happy Ham's Day
Amen to that one. I think them dumming down the liscence program is a crying
shame. I still think the novice and code should be still enforced. I can see
why they got rid of the advanced class, but not all the other things. I to
had to do the code for my extra in 1988.
Carolyn Kj4vt
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Tom Behler" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2014 7:19 AM
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Happy Ham's Day
> Very interesting, Phil.
>
> I got my Extra back in 1996, when you still had to do the 20 WPM CW,
> and am proud of that to this day. ... CW has always been my favorite
> operating mode.
>
> I'd say that now, I'm comfortable with a cruising speed of around 26
> to 28 WPM, but in contesting, I can go considerably faster since the
> exchanges are usually relatively short.
>
> People often suggest that CW is dying, but I disagree. It's always
> very easy to find any time of the day or night, and on contest
> week-ends, it's usually wall-to-wall on all of the involved bands.
>
> 73 from Tom Behler: KB8TYJ
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: For blind ham radio operators
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> On Behalf Of Phil Scovell
> Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2014 1:15 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Happy Ham's Day
>
> Tom,
>
> I saw my first ham stations, a DX60 and the HQ129X receiver over at a
> friend's house whose older brother repaired televisions and was into
> ham radio when I was age ten. No, actually, I was about 7 the first
> station I saw but I didn't understand what it was for even though the
> guys there tried explaining it to me. At age ten, I wanted to go into
> electronics after my friend's brother let me watch him in his work
> room and took me on house calls to repair televisions. But a few
> months later, my father died unexpectedly and six months after that,
> my retinas began shredding into tiny pieces. I've had about 30
> operations and medical procedures in my 62 years and about 15 of those
> were on my eyes and almost all of those were before I turned 12. It
> was at the school for the blind I discovered they had a ham stations
> and wouldn't you know it, another DX60 transmitter. I dove head first
> into learning the code and in less than a week, had all the numbers,
> letters, and punctuation memorized and began practicing with others
> trying to study for their test. My Elmer told me I was copying 10 WPM
> when I passed the novice code test and 20 WPM when I passed the
> general 7 months after passing the novice. I didn't take my advanced
> class until something like 1977 or so so I lost half my phone bands
> due to incentive licensing which I'm still mad about to this day,
> haha. I took my extra in the fall of
> 1978 and that was, of course, when you still had to send and receive
> 20 WPM.
>
> I lost some time during college and early married life but I always
> had a receiver somewhere and a friend's house which I could go and
> operate all day so I've never been far from those dits and daws. I
> worked a lot of phone back in 1980 to 1982 on 20 meters and one year
> on SSB on 20, I worked 295 countries in that one year. The wood
> pecker was alive and loud back then on
> 20 meters, too; some mornings during long path it completely blanked
> out
> 20
> meters both phone and CW parts of the band. I don't miss that Russian
> wood pecker either but who knows what those HARP installations around
> the world are doing to us now, smile.
>
> Phil.
> K0NX
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tom Behler" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, April 25, 2014 6:59 PM
> Subject: Re: Happy Ham's Day
>
>
>> Congrats, Phil, and happy ham anniversary!!
>>
>> I got my first novice ticket in June of 1969, so I was just a few
>> years behind you.
>>
>> Of course, I had a significant gap in my ham career after that novice
>> license expired, due to college, graduate school, starting a family,
>> getting settled in my career, etc.
>>
>> But, in the early 1990's, I got my ticket back, upgraded to Extra,
>> and I guess the rest of the story is still be written to this day.
>>
>> 73 from Tom Behler: KB8TYJ
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: For blind ham radio operators
>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>> On Behalf Of Phil Scovell
>> Sent: Friday, April 25, 2014 3:32 PM
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Happy Ham's Day
>>
>> It was 48 years ago today I made my first contact as a novice. I was
>> at the school for the blind when my mom called from home on a Monday
>> afternoon and told me my ticket came. I had her repeat the call sign
>> a dozen times to be sure. I had been walking to our regular Monday
>> after school student council meeting. I was representing the 9th
>> grade, and the office secretary called out the office door as I
>> passed by going to the library for the meeting.
>> She said, "Phil. You have a phone call." The only person who called
>> me at school was generally my uncle in Kansas but this time it was my
>> mom with the good news. I hunt up the phone, and spun around and
>> took a step to the open office door. Our superintendent was a nice
>> guy and although he was not a ham, he made sure we always had good
>> equipment, unless one of our radios was down for repair, but he
>> called out and said, "Hey, Phil. You got your license." It wasn't a
>> question. I was so out of it, I just grunted a yes, and ran down the
>> hall to the radio room. A couple of friends were already in the ham
>> shack and one was a novice of about 3 months. I told him to move
>> over, I was getting on the air. It took them a few seconds to
>> believe me but when I threatened to dump him off the king's chair in
>> front of the radio, he got the picture. At this time, our DX60 was
>> off the air so I used an A T 1 on 80 meters to make my first contact.
>> I was WN0ORO and my first countact with another guy in Nebraska and
>> his call was WN0OHO. We kept in touch for years after that. After
>> supper that night, I was back in the ham shack pounding out CQ again
>> and having the time of my life. To this day, although I only had my
>> novice license 6 months before I took the general class, it was still
>> the most fun I had as a ham. The guy I almost dump out of the chair
>> lived at home where the school for the blind was so we worked each
>> other, building up our code speed, in the evenings and then when
>> school was out for the summer. We had a lot of the same crystals so
>> we ended up working each other hundreds of times that summer. We
>> even started a midnight schedule which we carried on for years after
>> getting our generals and could work side band.
>>
>> Phil.
>> K0NX
>>
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