[South Florida DX Association] CW is front page news

[Adam Farson]

 Signs of the times: Our local club held a Basic licence exam session 2
weeks ago. We had 17 candidates;  13 passed with a mark of 80% or above,
which gets them full HF privileges without code; 2 scored between 70% and
79%, which is good for the Basic licence (similar to US Technician without
code), and 2 failed. 

The candidates whose marks were below 80% have two options; they can take
the 5 wpm Morse test, or they can re-sit the Basic written exam. If they
score 80% or higher, they will have HF. Both have elected to re-sit. 

In Canada, the only operational differences between Basic with HF and
Advanced (equivalent to US Extra) are:

1. Basic power limit is 6 dB below Advanced - 560W PEP SSB output instead of
2.25 kW, 190W output instead of 750W in other modes.

2. Basic licensees are not permitted to build, repair or modify
transmitters. There is no such restriction for Advanced.

There are no sub-bands by licence grade or emission type. There are limits
on per-channel occupied bandwidth which vary by band.

I believe that we are now witnessing the last generation of Canadian amateur
CW operators.

Cheers for now, 73,
Adam VA7OJ/AB4OJ




-----Original Message-----
From: sfdxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:sfdxa-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
On Behalf Of NPAlex at aol.com
Sent: 06 March 2006 05:12
To: SFDXA at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [South Florida DX Association] CW is front page news


There's an article on the front page of the Chicago Tribune today about the
controversy over the FCC's consideration of dropping the CW requirement for
US ham licenses. I can't remember the last time ham radio was mentioned so
prominently in a front page article.

The article is also on the Tribune's website at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/
"A call for help - Morse code fans: ... --- ..."
and at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0603020207mar02,1,7436367.story
?c
oll=chi-news-hed

These web articles usually stay up only for a week, so don't delay if you
want to view it.

Regards,
Norm W4QN
_______________________________________________
SFDXA mailing list
SFDXA at mailman.qth.net
http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/sfdxa



Scanned for viruses by Blue Coat
http://www.WinProxy.com/