[CW] Strong Support of CW Support

[David J Ring Jr]

The following email should be of interest to you all.  It has run around and come 
back to the beginning.  Bill Horne, W1AC <w1ac@w1ac.ampr.org> wrote this in 
answer to a posting I made to my private "Radio Officer's" mailing list.

Seems things on the internet circulate.

One good thing - and a compliment deserved by us good CW operators - is that it is 
unchanged - except that I added Mr. Stevenson's new callsign.

New callsign: WK3C - upgraded from Tech Plus to Extra.
His Web site: http://www.users.fast.net/~wk3c

73

DR

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Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2003 20:40:04 +0000 
From: "John Orton WA6BOB" <wa6bob@arrl.net> | 
To: "K. Stanfill" <ks6cw@arrl.net> 
Subject: Morse history 
  

Get a breath of this for strong CW support.
I caught this on the  Morsecode mailer

John

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM


TO:  Mr. Stevenson, WK3C

OM,

I've just read your web page on The Institue article "Signing off ?
latest technology replaces Morse code"

Your remarks concerning Morse Code strike a responsive chord, but I'm
moved to comment because I don't feel that this issue has been shown
in the most clear perspective.

In order to save time, I'll intersperse my comments with your original
text, Internet style.

> Thus, we see another clear indication that the maritime community
> has, with good reason, abandoned the use of Morse code.
> Furthermore, that "good reason" appears to be rooted firmly in the
> desire to save lives and the views of the experts that Morse code is
> an "insufficent" means of communication in emergency situations.

No offense, but I feel you've got the cart before the horse here.  The
maritime community abandoned Morse because it was cheaper to
substitute automatic alarms and satellite-based location for human
operators that ship owners had to pay every month. The initiative did
not come from the Coast Guard, but from the shipping industry.

> This deflates "Morse Myths" such as "Morse always gets through."
> and "Morse is important for emergency communications." which are
> often invoked in an attempt to "justify" forcing Morse code on all
> hams, whether they wish to learn and use it or not.

Let me illustrate with an analogy: I chose this one for a reason that
will be apparent shortly.

I'll confess, right up front, that there's a bid of the curmudgeon in
any Extra class like me. I was a soldier once: I crawled under the
barbed wire, and my impulse is to make the newcomers crawl under it,
too.

That said, I'll also add that crawling under barbed wire teaches
valuable lessons to soldiers, and learning Morse can teach valuable
lessons to hams. The code requires a discipline and dedication that
experienced leaders in all walks of life will appreciate, and we're in
need of other options if we don't have Morse.

> Morse code is no longer a part of any credible emergency
> communications plans ... the maritime services were the last
> "holdout."  Yes, amateurs use Morse, but only for recreational
> reasons.  No known governmental emergency management agency, public
> safety agency, or private relief agency such as the Red Cross,
> Salvation Army, etc. (our primary "customers" when we're providing
> emergency communications assistance) places any reliance on or plans
> to use Morse code in its emergency communications plans. Thus, no
> need exists for a cadre of Morse-trained amateurs willing and ready
> to step in a a moment's notice to "save the world from disaster with
> Morse code."

With respect, I disagree: no competent emergency planner would ever
disregard a tool that is in place and usable. It may not be his first
line of defense, but it should be a part of any credible plan where the
equipment and expertise is available.

Morse code is also a part of day-to-day communications both inside and
outside the military. Consider:

1. The U.S. Navy still employes Morse Code, both for radio and signal
   (light) communications. Lights are, for obvious reasons, extremely
   hard to detect, and radio operators find Morse to be a useful tool
   both for maximizing bandwidth use and for informal or H&W traffic.

2. U.S. Intelligence agencies still hire, train, and support large
   groups of employees for intelligence gathering systems based on
   Morse, since guerilla forces of all stripes and colours find the
   low cost, low weight, low battery drain, and low profile of Morse
   to be useful.

3. Many fire services still require Firefighters to learn American
   Morse, since fire alarm boxes all contain morse code keys and
   sounders, and the apparatus is in place and available in any fire
   alarm box, to any Firefighter. It's a lot cheaper to give them
   firebox keys than two-way radios, and cellular channels get
   overloaded very quickly during any wide-scale emergency.

In short, Morse code still plays a part in emergency and ordinary
communications used by many different players.

> Amateur Radio is still an important part of the emergency
> communications plans of such "customers" however.  They simply want
> and need more modern and efficient services, such as tactical voice
> using VHF/UHF FM (for local work) or HF SSB (for medium-long range
> work) and accurate, high-speed digital data transfer and messaging
> services such as packet radio and perhaps remote access to the
> internet and/or their own computer systems.

Well, they may WANT "more modern and efficient" services, but they
NEED something that WORKS. In disasters, our "customers" have to be
concerned with getting the message through, not with how it's done:

1.For local communications, yes, FM is fine. So was AM, before FM
  became popular. CW never competed with voice in local use.

2.HF SSB is not, IMNSHO, reliable for medium or long range
  work. Experience DX'ers will tell you that big amplifiers and big
  skyhooks are the entry price to using SSB for reliable
  communications: despite advances in receiver design, SSB *STILL*
  requires high power and high towers to be reliable. It's not
  practical to run a KW on battery power, to set up beams in field
  locations (especially during hurricanes), nor to expect every ham in
  every corner of the world to honor requests for the clear channels
  that reliable SSB must have.

3. I'll defer to others on the data speed question: AFAIK, 1200 bps is
   still the accepted standard for amateur packet on VHF, with 9600
   capability a distant second. Perhaps times have changed in the few
   years since I used packet, but the complexity of computer based
   systems argues against relying on them in an emergency. In any
   case, HIPAA requirements would prevent the exchange of confidential
   computer-based patient data over the airwaves, since hams can't use
   encryption. You might argue that in an emergency, the rules would
   bend, but that's not the way the systems would be set up as a
   matter of routine, and it's not the way they'd be used in the
   field, where joining a computer to an existing Windows NT/200*
   network is beyond the capacity of most users, let alone ham
   operators unfamiliar with the network and unequipped with logon
   codes. To expect that hams could join together nodes of a
   customer's data network isn't a viable option when the maximum of
   flexibility is essential.

> In light of this, while we accept (and have no quarrel with) the
> recreational use of Morse code by any amateur who chooses to employ
> that mode, we believe that the Amateur Radio Service has a public
> service obligation (and a survival-based self-interest) in
> modernizing and eliminating the undue emphais on Morse code
> proficiency which currently exists in the amateur licensing
> structure and testing process.

Well, that's the heart of it. This might surprise you, but I agree
that hams must modernize: however, the direction and extent of that
modernization is open to question.

I'll cut to the chase: there was always an unwritten agreement between
hams and our government vis-a-vis Morse, and the unease with which
hams contemplate Morse's declining importance is a tacit admission
that we've nothing to replace it with.

You see, during the times when Morse was the standard for reliable
communication, ham operators enjoyed the use of some very valuable
pieces of spectrum, in exchange for our participation in an important,
but largely invisible, agreement. We got the bands, and the government
got a trained cadre of operators who could be pressed into service
quickly during war.

With amateur traffic nets patterned EXACTLY like their military
counterparts, with the simple technology of Morse, and with (let's be
honest) no other option open to it, the U.S. military supported hams
in their efforts to get, and keep, HF spectrum which was far more
valuable then than now.

Times change.

Military electronics are now so sophisticated, and so secret, that
technicians in the field have been reduced to board-level
replacements, and troubleshooting has been limited to go/no go tests
on custom-made diagnostic tools. The boards pulled from service are
returned to regional repair centers, or to their manufacturers, for
repair, and the average GI, even one trained in "electronics", is
unlikely to know anything like the amateurs of the past.

It is a sad fact of military life that soldiers sometimes die in wars,
and a sad necessity that their replacements must be able to take their
place without retraining, without indoctrination, and with all due
speed. It's a trueism that this degrades armies to the lowest common
denominator of the societies from which those soldiers are drawn, and
since American children are largely ignorant of the math, science, and
physics considered routine when I grew up, those soldiers are ignorant
in turn.

Ergo, the problem: we don't have anything to offer the military as far
as I can see. The military, in turn, no longer protects "our" bands
(remember 220?), and no longer sees a ham license as a significant
factor in training decisions.

Ergo, the question: what now?

1.Do we eliminate Morse, and insist on a more technically challenging
  test? It's unlikely we could educate hams to the level of competence
  required of repair-depot technicians, let alone the engineers who
  design military electronics, and there just aren't enough candidates
  to fulfill the military's needs in any case. At least with Morse,
  we're still available for the slots that are still in place.

2. Do we abandon the concept of an Amateur Corps being available for
   military duty? What will replace it? Can Hams prepare for a future
   where we compete with deep-pocketed multinational corporations in
   bids for spectrum space? Of course not. How, then, might we claim a
   place at the allocation table?

3. Should we try to become a pool of operators for emergency
   communications? That's a thorny question. Despite Field Days or
   local drills, few hams are ready and available for an emergency,
   and their equipment is usually less transportable than they are. In
   any case, the Internet has drawn most potential young hams away and
   we're all getting old, and putting up dipoles or carting around
   generators during a Nor'easter is a younger man's job. Yes, this is
   Hobson's choice: draw more young enthusiasts by eliminating the
   code, but risk losing any value to those whom we've served in the
   past.

In short, despite the ARRL's best efforts, we as a group are, to be
brutally honest, fighting a Rear-guard action against the
bandwidth-hungry and well-financed commercial interests that want more
and more spectrum. Merely saying that we don't need Morse is begging
the question of how we'll show that we're ready for duty in
emergencies or wars. In other words, what we DO need is a way to serve
the public that will justify our spectrum assignments.

So far, Morse is serving that purpose, admittedly at a lower priority
than in years past. To be frank, it's not about Morse, but about
survival as a hobby: what can we offer to replace the code?

Bill Horne - W1AC
w1ac@w1ac.ampr.org

 




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