FCC Drops Morse Code Requirement 231
leighklotz writes to mention a story discussing what some might consider a historic event. The FCC has dropped the Morse Testing requirement for amateur radio certifications. The public announcement was made on Friday. Ham radio operators will no longer have to study Morse,
in a move patterned after other western nations. Says leighklotz: "The U.S. joins Canada and other countries in eliminating the morse code testing requirement, after being authorized to do so on July 5, 2003, when the World Radio Telecommunications Conference 2003 in Geneva adopted changes to the ITU Radio Regulations."
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Hasn't Bruce Perens been pushing this for years? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bad idea? (Score:3, Informative)
That said, you still need to be licensed. It's not like they're giving everyone a gun, a bag of bullets and a case of beer.
Re:Bad idea? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:A change which makes sense (Score:2, Informative)
If you're going to send messages, which is probably what you'll want at low bandwidths, there's got to be better and more efficient encodings and transmission protocols than CW. Off-hand, how about not sending the message in order so transmission errors don't result in consecutive symbols lost, and with CRC/ECC techniques and encapsulation to boost the chances of recovery (and reduce sensitivity to noise/loss). Isn't this the kind of thing that makes experimenting with 'moon bounce' and such fun in the first place? Experimenting with encodings, compressions, recovery methods, heuristics, homing algorithms, etc?
If I were part of the ham culture I'd be concerned that CW, by providing a predesigned but rather poor encoding and protocol standard, discourages innovation and entrenches mediocrity.
Re:I might become one. (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.arrl.org/ [arrl.org]
Welcome!
Re:CQ (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bad idea? (Score:5, Informative)
Also transmitting at x watts uses x plus some variable depending on the equipment in use power that has to come from some place. Commercial power, batteries, generators, solar cells, windmills all cost money or significant effort to put a signal on the air.
Lastly, as odd as it seems to some people, we do not want to cause interference with other services or non-radio equipment. It actually bothers us when neighbors report that they are hearing our signals on their TV, computer speakers, or stoves. It means that energy we want to be broadcast for reception by other hams is being picked up by equipment not designed to receive the signal. Either energy that we want to be in the frequency spectrum we are transmitting on is in another spectrum, or the consumer equipment our neighbors are using has been designed poorly or the like.
There are also big challenges to seeing how far we can communicate with very little power. There are a lot of hams that contest and communicate around the world on less than 5 watts. You know, the amount of energy that an incandescent night light draws.
Re:What the Morse? (Score:4, Informative)
If you truly care about the direction the Service is headed, then you need to get involved in one of the organizations and work toward that end.
Re:Bad idea? (Score:4, Informative)
Huh? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Back in the days... (Score:2, Informative)
Lots of people dislike the FCC content regulations, like this ham, for example. [visi.com]
another article (Score:2, Informative)
http://technocrat.net/d/2006/12/15/12273 [technocrat.net]
Re:HAM radio license requirements (Score:3, Informative)
Look here [arrl.org] for an amateur radio association in your area. The members are usually happy to help someone get their license. It's been said that every ham is responsible for bringing someone else into the hobby.
Re:Bad idea? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Bad idea? (Score:2, Informative)