[Re: [CW] ARRL CW Survey]

[Thomas Beaudry]

> I fully support retention of the CW requirement.  To my knowledge, the 
> League
> has never polled the membership regarding keeping the CW requirement.  
> If the
> League wants to properly poll its members, it should include a form in 
> an
> issue of QST coded with the membership number (perhaps like a ballot 
> for
> director or section manager).  The web-based poll is subject to 
> manipulation
> from outside elements, and therefore unreliable.
>

Agreed on the web poll.  I hope it's just put there for entertainment 
value, like the polls that CNN puts on their web site at times.

As for polling the membership in the past, they have but it was some 
years ago.  I can't remember exactly what year it was.  First they sent 
out a ballot to the membership, a representative sample if I remember 
correctly.  That was overwhelmingly in favor of retaining Morse 
testing.  That received complaints from W2NSD, W5YI, and other famous 
anti-Morse types that it was unfair to those who were not members and 
that the ARRL was supposed to represent all hams, not just those with 
membership.  (Which is what the ARRL claims.)  So the ARRL had a second 
survey of a sample of the entire US ham population.  The results of 
that were even more in favor of retaining testing than the first.  The 
ARRL hired one of the big name polling firms for both polls but that 
didn't stop W2NSD, W5YI, etc. from claiming the polls were fixed by the 
ARRL.  At the next BOD meeting, the results of the polls were 
discussed.  It was decided that the ARRL should fight to retain Morse 
testing and encourage the use of Morse as much as possible.  It was 
also decided to have our IARU representative attempt to have that body 
recommend retaining Morse testing in the international regulations.

The IARU decision was later rescinded but the decisions for retaining 
Morse testing in the US and encouraging it's use still stand.

I may have made some errors in the details, it has been a long time and 
I no longer have the QSTs with the articles that told the story.  But 
the general facts are correct.  King Sumner made no attempt to dispute 
them in his reply to my email last August.

-- 
Thomas M. Beaudry
k8la / ys1ztm
K2 # 3422