the SK column in QST gets longer every year... KE4MZ, Brent Dothan, AL [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.wb4zpi.org No trees were destroyed in the sending of this contaminant-free message. However, we do concede a significant number of electrons may have been inconvenienced. ----- Original Message ----- From: "KV9U" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <digitalradio@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2007 9:22 AM Subject: Re: [digitalradio] US Hams Codeless Feb 23
> The trade off that I see is that we either have a few (very few) new > entrants who are highly motivated and likely to continue with amateur > radio for a lifetime, or we have many new entrants, with a relatively > simple entrance requirement, but only a few will stay with it. But a lot > more, than you would have had with just a few entrants. > > Our public policy for many years, has been to take the second approach. > If we had stayed with FCC examining sites requiring the 150 mile travel > radius, the 5 wpm for Technician and 13 wpm CW tests for General, the > requirement for drawing diagrams of circuits, and having no question > pool but having to really know the material in order to pass the test, I > honestly believe that at best we would have 10% as many new entrants as > we now have. This would not replace the number leaving amateur radio due > to lack of interest, time contraints, and most likely becoming SK. > > The reason that I believe this to be a reasonable estimate is that I am > very hard pressed to come up with more than a handful of hams that I > have known over the years who would have jumped through all the hoops > that we had up until about 1980. My wife and daughter certainly would > not have done it. Not even the slightest chance. Same thing for most > others. > > So if we want amateur radio to continue, we really have no choice to try > and attract enough people so that a few will stay with it for the long > term. If we did not do that, and continued to lose the many, many > technical folks that we have lost for years now, we would see a > precipitous decline in ham numbers (and political clout) now that the > first wave of the 10 year licenses has ended. As it is we are seeing a > decline right now. I don't see this turning around much, if any, but if > we can at least hold our own that would be helpful. > > I am expecting a substantial number of hams moving toward getting their > General class license. Since they will rarely be using CW, they will > mostly be using voice. But when they discover how easy it is to work > weaker signals on PSK31, Olivia, MFSK16, etc., I am hopeful that we can > expect an increase in digital operators. > > 73, > > Rick, KV9U > > > > larry allen wrote: > >>Hi Danny.. >>The problem we are having is that most of our new hams don't seem to get >>on the air... >>We have more hams now than ever before yet our bands are quieter than they >>have ever been, since the 60's at least.... >>Larry ve3fxq >> >> >> > > > > > Announce your digital presence via our DX Cluster > telnet://cluster.dynalias.org > > Our other groups: > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dxlist/ > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/themixwgroup > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/contesting > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wnyar > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Omnibus97 > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > >
