[Yaesu] changes in rigs when CW dropped?

[waltah@earthlink.net]

Jim asks:

> When the code is dropped will all the rigs come without all the nice CW
> features?

Unless CW were to become illegal (which would never happen), this 
would be purely a marketing decision -- just as those features are 
today.   

That is, the features are there not because CW is required to get a 
license, but because potential buyers ask salesmen "And what 
features does it have for the CW op?"   Shrewd guys in the product 
planning department at Yaesu calculate that X% of a certain kind of 
set sells to guys who want a rig that will do CW well.   Cost gets 
traded against number of sales ... It's the "good ol' American" way, 
although we're buying (most of) our sets from Japan because for a 
time we forgot how to do it.  Ditto cars ... another story.

If we ever got to where very few buyers wanted CW features, those 
features would go away, at least from most new sets.   But that 
wouldn't happen until essentially the entire ham cohort had no-code 
licenses -- decades after all of us are SK.   Maybe not even then -- it 
could be that there'll be enough guys doing it just for kicks to keep 
up demand, just as has been the case for AM features.

AM is the *same* story.   The feature was at first included for 
compatibility reasons -- in 1970 there were still a fair number of guys 
operating AM so the FT-101 series does it pretty well and even could 
be configured with a from-Yaesu double sideband AM filter, tho your 
choice was either that or a narrow CW filter.   Later, guys who 
wanted to do some AM just for kicks with groups operating vintage 
gear, asked about AM features.  Yaesu had the reputation of having 
better quality injected-carrier AM than anybody else and I'm sure that 
made them some sales.   

I learned CW about '53, mostly from a set of 33-1/3 RPM records and 
sending with a code oscillator.   Had I started with more on the air 
copy, I'm sure I'd have gotten comfortable with CW QSO's and not be 
essentially blocked in that department today.   But I've kept up 
sending and receiving proficiency -- even slowly improved.  I often 
listen to CW QSOs for a couple of minutes and I find I'm recognizing 
more and more words by ear.   And I still spend a few minutes with a 
code oscillator -- now a vintage design (relays!) keyer with a built-in 
paddle -- about once a month.

I expect that a weekend of practice would make me comfortable on 
the air.   It's just the procedural stuff I can never keep track of.   I'm 
basically a future CW fanatic.  

No time right now -- too busy building vacuum tube receivers and 
once in a while fixing up a very old Yaesu. Anybody else here have 
an FL-100B/FR-100B combination?   Late 60's -- except for very poor 
quality control they would have cleaned the American makers clock 
a few years ahead of when the Tempo One and FT-101 did, if they 
had been if imported here.  Anyone else got an FTdx-100?

Walt Hutchens
KJ4KV