FCC Proposes Abolishing Morse Code Requirement

TaxSlave writes "According to this ARRL article, the Federal Communications Commission has finally decided which path it wants to take with the Morse Code requirement for an amateur radio license. International requirements for Morse Code were done away with some time back, and several countries quickly abolished the requirement. Now, the FCC has proposed doing the same thing. Next step, months of comments, discussion, and navel-gazing."

Comments

Re:well...

[tylernt]

The entry-level ticket, Technician, is just a written test, no morse. You also have no HF privileges (VHF and up only). However, as a Technician you can take a morse test and become a Technician Plus, and gain a limited set of HF privileges.

If you take a second written test, and pass the morse test, now you are a General with most HF privileges.

Take a third written test (no more morse test, you already passed that) and now you're an Extra, with all privileges.

Yeah, I'm a no-code Technician. Don't plan to learn code, either. I hope the FCC votes to remove the code requirement for HF, but I also hope that a portion of each band is reserved only for those who do pass a code test. That way, they can go there to get away from us no-code schmucks who are cluttering up the rest of the frequencies. :-P