[CW] Licensing Proposal

[N7DC@cs.com]

In a message dated 1/23/2004 10:29:15 AM Eastern Standard Time, w3uls@3n.net 
writes: 
> I submitted a petition to the FCC in mid-2001 which became RM-10354. It 
> advanced, with reasoned arguments, why the present entry-level licenses (at 
> that time the Novice or Tech Plus) failed to provide new hams with a 
> meaningful experience on the HF bands, particularly with regard to CW.
> 
I do not remember if I read that at the time or not.  I have not read it this 
time around either, but will go do some looking.  Without reading it, my gut 
reaction is that I dont know why anyone would say that Novice failed to 
provide meaningful experience on HF.  I myself came up thru the "ranks" starting 
with, and remaining a Novice for only the one year allowed at that time.  I 
worked thousands of HF contacts during that time, all CW of course.  I got into 
contesting, winning the 7 land Novice roundup, and also being able to work the 
Novice bands on a large multi-multi contest.  I worked NO VHF/UHF, at all.  It 
was pretty meaningful to me.  

 I taught the Novice course to hundreds of others (mostly Scouts) but with my 
moving around, I never really was able to keep up with how many continued in 
radio.  But, even if a small percentage of say 1 out of 10 continued on to 
reach Tech, or General, there were a lot that would have gained from that Novice 
experience. 

True, Novices and Techs were not able to work voice on HF, and I too felt 
that that particular item needed to have a bit of change, especially for the 
Techs, but at that time it was illegal, according to international law, if they 
had not passed a CW test.  

Personally, I would like things to go back the way they were in the 60s/70s, 
except to allow voice, say on 10/15 meters, for techs.    If one didn't wish 
to work to pass the code, he could stay on Voice.  With the advent of cheap and 
easy digital modes, that too could be added to those license classes.  



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