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FCC Relaxes Entrance To Ham Radio
Randy Rathbun writes "In a very bold (and IMHO, much needed) move, the FCC today released major changes to Part 97, which is the rules for the Amateur Radio Service. Among the changes are that there is only a 5 word per minute morse code exam from now on (getting rid of the 13 and 20 wpm exams), and reducing the number of license classes from six to three. The text of the changes can be read in this PDF document. You don't need to know morse code to get on the air on bands above 30 MHz, btw."
Right. Much needed for the manufacturers of Ham Radio appliances and for the continued existence of the ARRL, perhaps. But certainly just the opposite of what was needed for the "health" of Ham Radio, IMO.
I recently allowed my license to simply expire. I just somehow never got around to renewing. I once was very active. I had an Advanced Class license. Obtained when one really had to work to get one. (I took my General and Advanced Class tests at the Federal Building in down-town Detroit. Administered by FCC personnel.) In the past: I was active in both CW and phone (that's Morse code and voice, for the non-Hams out there) on the low bands (translation: HF - those bands below 30MHz). I was also active in VHF (FM, SSB and packet) and UHF. Built my own antennas. Maintained my own gear. Built some of my own gear. Was actively involved in the Amateur Radio Public Service Corps in my county. Was once actively involved with what was once a major repeater group in my area. Hardly ever went anywhere without a rig close-at-hand.
What happened? In a word: disgust.
There has been a serious decline in the "quality" of the hobby. I mean a really serious decline. These days one finds more appliance-using "lids, kids and space-cadets" on Ham Radio that one does seriously interested, knowledgeable and talented Operators. It has become, IMO, little more than high-end (and I use the term loosely) CB radio.
I think the final straw was hearing something like the third horribly-bungled Skywarn weather net in a row--and hearing the net control operator receive compliments for it--that I finally just gave Ham Radio up as a lost cause.
Ham Radio "operators" like to laugh at "CB radio types" as clueless, redneck yahoos. Well y'all ought to take a look in the mirror some time. Here's how: turn the radios off for a couple of months and then turn them on again and just listen. Be prepared for a shock. Prior to Ham Radio I had been involved with organized volunteer public service CB radio groups. Their professionalism far and away exceeded what Ham Radio has devolved into today.
For those who might accuse me of being a quitter--who might ask "Why didn't you stick around and help the hobby?": I tried. I really, really tried. I tired of tilting against windmills. Just try to correct somebody's bad operating habits these days. Just try to explain to to one of the average current crop of Hams that "QSL" does not mean 10-4. (Or "right". Or "correct".) Just try to tell some Ham that trimming ones coax does not really improve VSWR. Or that they're over-modulated/over-deviated. Or that their transmit power far-and-away exceeds their receiver's capability. Try to explain to a "modern" Ham on a 2m repeater why listening for "breaks" is important. (Much-less finding someone on 2m or elsewhere that has a clue how to handle emergency traffic!) Or, conversely, why one shouldn't "break" into a conversation unless they either: 1) intend to participate or 2) have urgent traffic. Arrrrgggg.
FCC and ARRL keep pushing the entry barrier down and the hobby just keeps declining--both in "quality" and participation. Somehow it never seems to occur to these two that the effects just might be related. Well, in my case they most definitely were.
Bitter? You bet I'm bitter. Having witnessed what was once an enjoyable hobby, populated mostly by Hams I could honestly regard as peers and superiors, degrade to the wasteland it is today.
You can keep it.
This provision will no doubt signal the beginning of the end of morse code (IIRC the only reason there's any requirement at all is because we have an international treaty requiring it), in the hands of an expert, morse code is totally amazing to watch. I've seen crusty old hammers with keyers (boxes with switiches that emits streams of dots or dashes when depressed) that can do morse faster than they can talk. It's really incredible to not even be able to discern between dots and dashes when these people are having entire conversations in them. Skilled morse oding seems to be destined to become a lost art along with blacksmithing, writing machine code, etc.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Well, I remember back when I was a kid with a ham license sending and receiving CW with another kid whose was chirping like a canary. We discussed it for a while and it turned out that he had a home built rig that was basically an RF oscillator stuck to an home brewed RF amp stuck to a string of wire, with a code key stuck between oscillator and the power supply (i.e. the oscillator fired up everytime the key closed and shutdown when the key came back up).
Of course it was an incredibly half assed way to build a radio, but it worked well enough that we could communicate using 5W probably five hundred miles apart! My nephew just got his codeless novice, and his first rig is an incredible little 2m handheld that can access just about any place on the world on a sophisticated network of repeaters using maybe 5W. However, he could no more build this for himself than you could assemble a functional web server out of a barrel of surplus electromechanical relays. He's having a lot of fun, but he's not really learning any electronics. The new licensing tests don't require that you know anything about circuits.
The cool thing about CW is that a kid can sit around and dream up a rig with no outside guidance and build it himself out of probably less than $100 of parts. It may not be done the "right" way, but he's going to learn a lot.
CW also enables people in third world countries to communicate without the kind of sophisticated repeater networks that exist in this country. And, no matter what you say, CW is the most reliable form of telecommunication there is. It takes only a few watts to go hundreds of miles, so it can work during a prolonged power outage. It doesn't require any kind of intermediate linkages like repeaters or sattelites.
That said, undoubtedly CW is going the way of the wire telegraph, very soon now. I'll be sorry to see it go.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The fact is that wireless communication has become a commodity item, and as a result some of the reason people take up amateur radio in the first place has disappeared. Why after all, would someone engage in something that requires expensive equipment and a special license when they can go out to the local electronics store and pick up a pair of FRS radios for under $150? Or suffer through static crashes and the ins and outs of HF propogation when they can grab a cell phone and dial any phone on the face of the planet?
As wireless services become more prevalent, fewer people will have an interest in rolling up their sleeves and getting their hands dirty. The state of the radio art is no longer being advanced in amateurs' workshops, it's happening in the labs at Motorola and Qualcomm. While it used to be true that many EEs were also hams, I think the current working conditions many of us suffer through make us less inclined to do things similar to what we do at work during our off time. Amateurs are, after all, by definition people who do something for the love of it. Why do something if it's neither necessary or fun?
I still do it because people don't tend to want to talk to you if you pick up your cell phone and dial a number at random. Having a yak with people I know on the way to work in the morning makes the commute go by faster. And even though I know this message will be read by people around the world, I'm still tickled to be able to talk to someone halfway around the world with no wires.
Fewer interested parties means fewer participants, and it's sad to have to predict that the hobby will probably have dwindled to almost nothing in 20 more years. Compounding the problem is the fact that in this country, amateur radio is the classic nerdy hobby, even more so now that computers are commonplace and using the internet has become the hip thing to do. Several years ago I was having a chat with someone in Europe about this topic. It seems that in his country (and I forget which it is), people who take up the hobby are regarded as people who are doing something useful with their spare time and not sitting down at the bar quaffing beer and watching soccer.