[Johnson] THE FINAL AMATEUR RADIO CW TEST (Very sad in many ways...)

[Bry Carling]

THE FINAL AMATEUR RADIO CW TEST

For every one of us that loves CW and cut our teeth on it,  
this is bloody sad to read!

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From: Cliff Cheng, KI6CM

Hi Everyone:

Young Will Campbell made history, last night - ham radio history at
least, when some of my Santa Barbara ham friends gave the very 
last code exam. The story does not say this but the background 
story is that 3 people took the test, including a friend of mine. 
Only young Will passed.  Kudos Will!  
Will however I am told did not pass the theory.  
My friends in Santa Barabara were scrambling trying to find 
anyone to take the last test.  They too wanted to make history too. 
Had it not been for the distance and working late, I would have 
driven up and VE'd with them.

Please read the news story below.

Cliff

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A test that was good to the last dot: Ham operator passes what may 
be FCC's last Morse exam

SCOTT STEEPLETON, NEWS-PRESS ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Will Campbell learned Morse code on this "key."

February 23, 2007 7:14 AM

Will Campbell spent a month studying for the exam, using a pencil 
in the early stages before advancing to a specialized piece of 
equipment.

A junior at Dos Pueblos High School, he went over lessons in 
his mind during class and researched pertinent material on the 
internet at home, hoping to master the subject matter. 
Then, at one second before 9 Thursday night, he became perhaps 
one of the last people in the United States tested on the Morse 
Code, 
the 170-year-old series of dits and dahs -- dots and dashes to the 
rest of 
us -- that changed the way man communicates.

"I'm pretty confident," said Will, leading up to the test. "It's 
like learning music."

The Federal Communications Commission today ended the 
requirement that people applying for amateur radio -- also known 
as ham radio -- licenses know the alphabet of dots and dashes. 
So, as a nod to the past and as acknowledgement that people 
around 
the world still communicate via the system developed by Samuel 
Morse, 
the Santa Barbara Amateur Radio Club held what it sees as the 
last official test of the code.

"The FCC says it's slow, says there are better ways to send data,"
said Darryl Widman, contact person for the club's volunteer 
examiner
team.

And after years of debate, commissioners decided in December 
2006 to
drop the requirement.

That sparked action on the part of the radio club, whose members
identify themselves as much by name as call sign. "Hundreds of
thousands of hams all over the world absolutely love the code," 
said
Mr. Widman, who learned it as a Boy Scout in 1952 and earned his 
first ham license in 1956.

"At midnight Eastern Standard Time on Thursday, that's when it 
(came) to a screeching halt, so we figured we could squeeze it in 
there 
and give the last Morse code test in the United States of America, 
one
second before," said Mr. Widman, whose call sign is KF6DI.

As of Thursday afternoon, Will Campbell was among three people 
who
signed up for test. It was administered at the Santa Barbara County
Health Auditorium on North San Antonio Road by club volunteers 
and
amateur radio operators Michael Jogoleff (WA6MBZ), 
Tom Saunders  (N6YX) and Carl Stengel (W6JEO), who in 
essence conduct 
the tests on behalf of the FCC.

Will became interested in Morse code when a friend of his returned 
to his native India.

"We thought it'd be a fun way to talk," said Will. "At first, I just
used a pencil, just tapping it out. Then my dad got me a Morse 
code
key, a little thing with a battery that you use to practice. It 
makes the sounds you hear in the movies."

Those sounds -- or character rhythms -- each stand for a 
different letter. The first telegraph transmission was 
"What hath God wrought?"  sent from Morse, in Washington, to 
an assistant in Baltimore, MD, on May 24, 1844. It was in the form 
of raised marks on paper that could be translated by the recipient.

Today, all you need is a computer to translate code, a service 
Stephen Phillips, a research engineer in the IT Innovation Center 
at the University of Southampton in England, makes available on 
his Web site, 
http://www.morsecode.scphillips.com

All you do is type in the word or sentence you want translated into
Morse code and let computer code do the rest. "I got interested in
Morse code back in 1994 when someone sent me an e-mail with 
some dots and dashes in," Mr. Phillips said via e-mail. 
"Back then the Web had only just started to get going and I looked 
for 
a page showing what Morse code was but couldn't find one. 
I went to the library and copied the Morse code from an 
encyclopedia onto 
one of my Web pages." His first translator was operational 
approximately 
a year later.

"I wrote it because it presented an interesting programming 
challenge," 
said Mr. Phillips. "Creating a sound file programmatically
and sending it back to the user along with a Web page: 
Both quite tricky."

Mr. Phillips' most recent rewrite involves the Java version of the
translator, which runs on the user's computer. "I just rewrote 
that in the last couple of weeks to make it look a lot more attractive 
and also to provide more features of use to people learning 
Morse code."

Despite the code being known around the world, with cell phones,
Internet and other communications technology, why would anyone 
learn it today?

"The code gets through noise, it gets through interference. The ear 
is attuned to it," said Mr. Widman. "Voice is very clear and easy to
understand, but when you're trying to communicate through bad
conditions, voice doesn't work well. That's where the code shines."
And in times of disaster, he added, Morse code can be used by 
hams 
to get information to the outside world.

Thursday's test consisted of listening to a recorded Morse code
conversation and writing down everything the test-takers heard.

To pass, they needed to answer 10 questions about the 
conversation
correctly or get 25 words in a row correct.

And, while the results might go unnoticed by the FCC, Will said he 
was proud to pass.

"I got a certificate, and I'm going to file it away to prove that I
was the last person to take it."

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WERE YOU EVER A NOVICE LICENSEE??

Please visit the Novice Historical Society, 
http://www.NOVICE.bappy.com
and share with us a story of your novice days.

Cliff Cheng, Ph.D., KI6CM
Licensed Since 1975