[Fists] Avalanche of license apps

[Fred Adsit]

>From the ARRL Letter, Mar 2, 2007:
"The avalanche of Amateur Radio license and license upgrade applications 
prompted by the FCC's elimination of Morse code as a licensing requirement 
is well under way with no end in sight. ARRL VEC Manager Maria Somma, AB1FM, 
reports that paperwork from upward of 450 Amateur Radio exam sessions, most 
held since the new rules went into effect February 23, arrived this week, 
more than her department sees in a month under "normal" circumstances. The 
ARRL VEC has had to add personnel and schedule extended hours to keep up 
with the workload. <snip>
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People are tripping over themselves stampeding to get, in effect, something 
that is next to free. The standards have fallen, never to rise again. All 
opinions I have read are fine, but in my opinion, ham radio will never 
regain the stature it once enjoyed, although those are not the words I am 
struggling to find. What we now have goes a LOT deeper than what results 
from becoming a bunch of appliance operators. We have allowed the ARRL and 
the FCC to sell us down the river. It is, at every age level and at every 
license level, symptomatic of what is wrong with the world we live in.

Too few - this organization included - have fought for maintenance of 
standards. We are reaping the consequences. I find life very much worth 
living. Just waking up each morning is exciting.  Ham radio has been a large 
part of my life. That part of life is hardly worth bothering with, at this 
point. It's dinnertime. Good thing nobody has allowed the art of cooking 
great recipes to go to H in a handbasket.

Fred NY2V