[GreenKeys] Re: MORSE code

[Horace W. Hall]

> an INITIATION RITUAL (read hazing). <

These are not the same things. Initiations need not involve harrassment,
but hazing always involves harrassment. Example: learning to recite the
Scout Oath, etc., are intiation rites to becoming a Scout but aren't
harassment. It may or may not be appropriate to consider Morse an
intiation, but it isn't hazing. 

Government considered amateur radio to be a valuable reservoir of radio
expertise. IIRC, it was the government that named amateur radio a 'service'
rather than calling it a government sanctioned hobby. IOW, hams & feds view
amateur radio with differing points of view. (However, I submit that the
perception of us as a useful & skilled 'service' is what preserves our
spectrum allocations.) Morse, along with theory and regs, was part of the
gov't licensing requirements. That is changing, in a way that is perceived
as making it easier to obtain a license. 

The dual views, service or hobby, also pervade the ham fraternity, and it
thus we tend to take different positions on changes to amateur radio,
depending on whether we consider our license & spectrum as grown-up's toys
or something deeper. 

It seems to me that there are actually two different debates about
retaining the CW requirement. One debate is whether CW as a skill has, or
will long have, real value as a skill. The other debate seems to be not
about CW, per se, but about whether the easier licensing is a positive
long-term strategy for the continued existence & quality of amateur radio &
perpetuation of a reservoir of skills. These often get mixed in the same
conversation, though. For example, a person may defend requiring CW
intending it as a tool for upholding or improving the quality of ham
membership (e.g., detemining if the prospective licensee is serious about
radio) but the counterarguments often question validity as a skill.
--Wayne
  WB4OGM