[Qcwa] CW Requirement

[W1EOF]

NO.

Although I love CW, and although for years I was on the opposite side of the
fence, after long thought into my own reasoning I concluded several years
ago the answer (for me) was "NO."


LOSE OUR FILTER?
CW has not proven to be any kind of a filter to keep the ill-mannered,
ignorant or unseemly out of ham radio. They somehow managed to "slip through
the cracks." The great, great majority of hams didn't fit in any of those
categories and still don't today. The majority are decent, smart, helpful
people who are in a group I'm proud to say I'm a part of.


DUMBING-DOWN!
We should tighten-up the written part of the test. Make it something you
can't just memorize the answers to. Make it so that the person really has to
understand the material. Make the VALUE of passing that test higher, not
lower so there is more pride in achieving it.


CW WILL DIE!
As far as CW goes, the best thing we can do (as I stated the other day) is
to get on the air and have more QSOs and Elmer, elmer, elmer. Within or
outside a club, take a non-cw ham and tell them about the high quality of CW
QSOs. Talk about what a thrill it is to maintain a skill and an art from
many years past. Talk about the very high percentage of NICE people on CW.


CAN'T ATTRACT YOUNG PEOPLE!
By the way in my dealing with young people and ham radio they are not
interested at all in phone operation, they can pickup a telephone and talk
round the world for pennies-a-minute. Keyboard modes don't do anything for
them either, they have that on the Internet. BUT show them some CW, and they
think that's "the bomb" (A good thing if you are a teenager!).


WHAT NOW?
So we have a great opportunity before us to share our love of CW with the
rest of the world. We'll never do it by being nasty and allienating the
"non-believers." Be respectful and courteous and your natural love of CW
will be infectious and you'll find them being drawn to CW.



THAT'S how CW will survive, and thrive.

73,

Mark W1EOF



> Since it seems that not every QCWA member wants to keep the code as
> a requirement to operate HF, how about an unofficial survey?
>
> Should CW be retained as a license requirement to operate below 30mhz?
>
>
> YES or NO and why
>
>
> I will tally the results and report back on 7-23
>
> Dan N0DT
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> QCWA mailing list
> QCWA@mailman.qth.net
> http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/qcwa
>