[HCRA] No Code future - how does this play out?

[Rick Lindquist, N1RL]

Kevin:

Please see the story on the ARRL Web site
http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2005/07/20/100/

the W1AW bulletin http://www.arrl.org/w1aw/2005-arlb018.html 

or the story (best) in the Friday, July 22, edition of The ARRL Letter
http://www.arrl.org/arrlletter/05/0722/ . 

Yes, the FCC appears to be committed to this course, but that should not
keep anyone from commenting.

If you were thinking of upgrading to General, I wouldn't hold my breath
waiting for this proceeding to be completed. In fact, assuming the FCC
does eliminate the Morse code requirement, you'll *have* to get a
General to have *any* HF privileges (under the present licensing regime,
you can pass Element 1, the 5 WPM Morse examination, and get some HF
privileges).

In and of itself, having to take a test in or even being quite
proficient at Morse code never made anyone a better operator (except on
CW, of course). You're exactly quite right that it's now up to those who
value Morse code for whatever reason to propagate the faith, so to
speak. The government's unlikely to continue requiring prospective radio
amateurs to be exposed to it in order to get a license to operate on HF.

73, Rick, N1RL 

-----Original Message-----
From: hcra-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:hcra-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
On Behalf Of Kevin F. Berrien
Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2005 12:08 PM
To: HCRA Maillist
Subject: [HCRA] No Code future - how does this play out?

______________________________________________
-------Hampden County Radio Association-------
-----------e-mail list (reflector)-------------
______________________________________________
As an active no-code tech, the CW annoucement is of great interest.

So the FCC is all for dumping the code requirement.  Its my 
understanding there is a response period, etc... but past that, is there

anything stopping the FCC from implimenting the new policies, and if so,

when would this likely happen, sometime next year?  What are the steps 
that will bring this to be the law of the land?

I'm half and half on all this.  As a no-code tech who's found it 
difficult (and somewhat lazy) to learn the code I'm not against the 
proposed changes (though I like to see the requirement for Extra at 
least).  I'm a good operator and won't poisen the HF bands - assuming 
they are already not somewhat poisened.

What I find unfortunate, is not having the requirement I'm unlikely to 
learn code (lets be honest), which I think would be a lot of fun to 
use.... but I guess thats all up to me.

73 Kevin N1VMJ
------Hampden County Radio Association-------
An ARRL Special Services Club for over 50 years
------------http://www.hcra.org------------
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