[CW] Dumb down not justified

[John Rippey]

Well, I have a different perspective than the typical reader of this reflector.

I returned to ham radio in 2000 after a 45-year hiatus. Forty-five years 
ago, I had a General Class License (13 wpm). In 2000 I retook the Novice 
exam (then still available) and received a 13 wpm certificate. Later, I 
upgraded to General, and by that time, I didn't need the 13 wpm certificate.

1.  Out of my concern about the paucity of sigs in the Novice bands, I 
urged the FCC in a petition (still under advisement 18 months later) to 
open up more space for Novice/Tech Plus types so they could have a better 
chance of making some contacts. I figured that HF and CW in particular 
might still have some appeal to a certain percentage of the newbies if they 
actually had a chance to do some QSO-ing, rather than being confined to 
tiny slices of several HF bands where activity was/is slim to none. Then 
the ARRL came in with its own proposal (still under advisement) to alter 
the subbands. In some ways the proposal tracks my earlier one, in some ways 
not.

2. I received a bunch of e-mails from disgruntled old-timers calling me a 
dunce, dunderhead, etc., after filing my proposal. Enough dumbing down, 
they said. Many of the comments filed with the FCC in regard to my proposal 
reflect the same sentiments.

3. My proposal concentrated on expanding CW sub-bands for Novice/Tech 
Pluses but also included expanding phone privileges some on 12 and 17, as I 
recall. Later on I regretted not including digital modes in the proposal. 
If you read stuff coming out of Newington, it looks as if digital modes are 
gaining favor and that the simple urge to give SSB rag chewers more 
bandwidth, which seemed to be the motivator of the ARRL's 2002 proposal, is 
meeting with some resistance within the ARRL itself. (SSB is, after all, an 
inefficient means of communication; giving SSB rag chewers more space is 
hardly going to advance the hobby and, more important, be a sound basis for 
FCC action.)

3. Whatever we feel about the ARRL, it needs to be strengthened. Every 
active ham should be a member. Ours is a tiny group of hobbyists seeking 
pretty important federal protections and privileges. There is no way hams 
can withstand the competition of competing services badgering Congress and 
the FCC unless we are united and focused. The ARRL is our only hope in this 
regard.

4. Finally, my take on the Extra Class exam. A lot of it is silly--for 
example, requiring examinees to memorize formulas. When I was taking exams 
as a freshman at MIT a hundred years ago, I do not recall having to come to 
the dreaded Saturday morning exams with memorized formulas. The examiners 
were looking for an ability to solve problems, not to show how good the 
students' memories were. The current exam seems not only technically 
difficult but also increasingly irrelevant. Now that software-defined 
radios are becoming the norm, shouldn't examinees be asked to 
write/discuss/decipher software code that goes to make up radio circuits? 
Hams with background in software-defined radios--and there are precious few 
of them--should prepare the exams. Or will the exams continue to look back 
at a time when analog radios were the norm and at an even more distant time 
when we could actually work on them--the Ten-Tec Corsair and such? Picture 
yourself taking an exam written by Doug Smith of Ten-Tec, which is what the 
Extra Class exam should be like today if the logic of the "make it tougher" 
argument is followed. Do we want to return to MIT and Cal Tech for degrees 
in software engineering in order to prepare for the Doug Smith Extra Class 
exam? I haven't seen any discussion anywhere of what the Extra Class exam 
appropriately should consist of, given technological advances.

73,
John, W3ULS