Hello Gary,
Gone are the days of being proud of getting your General or
Extra Class ticket. Taking a bus to the FCC field office in the city making
a day of it. Now days just memorize the answers and your a Extra Class.
The system nowadays is so easy a Cave Man with a IQ of five, could get a
license.
Being a VE here also, I see testes that know the answers but nothing more
about them.
The basic problem people are just lazy and want everything on a silver
platter.
You should show these Tech's what they are missing out on, maybe they will
upgrade.
Remember you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
Now flame time.
73 Gary WB6BNE
----- Original Message -----
From: Gary
To: digitalradio@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 15, 2009 10:55 AM
Subject: [digitalradio] Techs on HF digital
I thought I'd run something up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes:
With the currently extended low sunspot cycle reducing the occurrence of 10
meter openings to near zero, there is little to offer new hams for radio
operating opportunities besides VHF FM. Many of the people who attend our
Technician license classes are interested in doing much more than chatting with
the local guys on a local repeater. Sure, VHF SSB is a possibility but for us
rural folks, even that provides slim pickings for distant contacts.
We are seeing a very low percentage of newly licensed people ever buying a
transceiver and getting on the air. We are estimating that number to be less
than 10%. Other clubs in our area are experiencing the same problem: good turn
out for classes and lots of licenses issued but few new hams getting on the
air. It may be that VHF FM is not a viable stepping stone to getting very many
new folks active in Amateur Radio.
Being an old fart, I naturally began as a novice operating CW on the HF
bands. Finding other stations to make contact with was never a problem as there
was always activity on either 40 or 80 meters, depending upon the time of day.
Making contact with other stations hundreds of miles away was common. While
that same opportunity is available today, at least theoretically, CW operation
is not part of a new ham's skill set.
So... Here is the idea. Would you be amenable to allowing Technician Class
licensees to operate digital modes in the Technician CW bands and do you think
that would be of interest to new hams?
I would imagine, the license limitations would have to state something like a
maximum of 300 baud and 500 Hz bandwidth with a 200 watt power limit. There may
be other limitations that might be nice to toss into the mix but this is a
starting point for discussion.
Your thoughts?
Gary - N0GW
