[CW] Destructuring

[Donald Chester]

>From: Ken Brown <ken.d.brown@verizon.net>

>Anyway I am really sort of surprised there was not more discussion about 
>what were the underlying reason for eliminating the higher speed code 
>tests...

The debate has been going on for years, but what got the ball rolling was a 
group in New Zealand a few years ago who started an organisation called No 
Code International.  When they first began international lobbying efforts to 
kill the code requirement, most people didn't take them very seriously, but 
someone must have had some clout somewhere, for soon one country after 
another began to cave in to the pressure and announce that their 
administrative authority would advocate elimination of the CW test 
requirement at the next WARC.  The US was one of the first to reduce the 
speed requirement to 5 wpm (the FCC couldn't eliminate it altogether because 
testing amateurs for Morse Code is required under international treaty).  
Almost immediately, other countries around the world began to follow the US 
lead, and now most nations have a 5 wpm code test.

Apparently, it is a done deed to eliminate the international requirement at 
this summer's conference, so the code test will probably be done away with 
in the US very shortly, and I am sure in most other countries as well.

Cw is not even LEGAL in the new 60 m. "band".

Interestingly, Russia was one of the few holdouts at the radio conference to 
retain the Morse requirement.

Don K4KYV

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