[Fists] Hello?

[K Allen]

I've been licensed since 1979 and by the measure of some of the real talent out there I am still a relative newcomer.  My comments will not be brilliant or particularly unique but I feel compelled to respond because every time I hear about the ARRL and/or the FCC trying to dumb-down amateur radio it makes me mad.

However, I sometimes have to quietly applaud ARRL's occasionally peculiar efforts to help keep interest in amateur radio growing or at least alive in the Instant Message, Cell Phone generation who want everything now and they want it to be easy.

That being said, I personally never cared much for "phone."  (Does anyone still use that term instead of "voice"?  On "phone" I ran out of things to talk about real quickly and it just seemed so pointless and unchallenging.  So I have stayed with cw since my Novice days and do not intent to change.  I may not have much to say but it is so much more fun to say it with my key. 

Ken - N0VA 
(Now being weaned from years of dependancy on an iambic keyer by trying to learn to use a bug.)