FCC Drops Morse Code Requirement

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."

Comments

Re:CQ

[kefoo]

For all those who don't know Morse Code, it says "Interesting".

Re:Bad idea?

[rusty0101]

One of the reasons that hams do not use the max allowed power all the time is that hams are supposed to use the least power they can to communicate. Not that they always do. Two hams a block or two apart may be chatting with each other through a wide area repeater transmitting at 50 or 90 watts, when they could be communicating simplex at less than a quarter watt.

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.