for all Amateur Radio license classes

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/12/15/104/?nc=1

All Technician licensees now have the privileges of Tech Plus, which means some access to HF bands, as noted in that ARRL article.

Indeed... this would be a good opportunity for those who haven't gotten their amateur radio licence because they're worried about the morse code portion

*perks* whoohoo!
now i don't have an excuse not to get mine ..
I don't hear the morse code quite right so that's why didn't get mine

Maybe now we are heading in the right direction for a backcountry digital text messager device.

For those of you who would like to learn Morse Code anyway, there's some good software called Just Learn Morse Code which I have been messing with for the past couple months.

This is, perhaps, the last gasps of the dying hobby of ham radio. I know that I, like many others, had neither the desire nor the time to bother with morse code, and that left me parked at a level of "no-code tech" for about the last 10 years. Over the years, I have pondered why this morse code was deemed necessary - it seemed a bit like requiring our military to demonstrate competency with a muzzle-loading firearm before being allowed to use an M-16. I know that in this area- Bucks County PA. - the ham bands are mostly silent and I also know that there's hardly a "thrill" for me to "make contact" with some staticy station in Bora-Bora when I can (and do) video chat with people all over the world via the Internet. I know that there's new various digital models that are of interest to some, but when I wake up tomorrow and my wife asks me what I want for christmas, I don't think that now that I can work HF that I'll be asking for an HF rig. It's a shame, because in many ways, the whole ham radio thing was a great place for geeks to play with hardware. I think that today, it's more about buiding computers and stuff like you see in makezine.com not spending $30,000 on radio gear to send "di-dah's" around the globe.

Well, first of all, like Mark Twain's comment "Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated" probably applies here. While the code aspect of amateur radio is now gone, there are millions of folks around the world who still like and use ham radio daily--and its a good thing they do. Hams will ALWAYS be the ones communicating long after all other forms of communication are down. Be it hurricane, winter storm or any other disaster, amatuers offer valuable communication service. And Martin, I dont know where you shop, but paying $30k for a radio is simply absurd. Excellent NEW HF radios can be bought for $1000 or less. Good used gear can be far less than half of that 1k, that will talk around the world.
Anyway, I am not trying to be contentious, but just bringing a little balance. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
KG7IW

You know I had a ham license when I was 16 and let it drop. yes, the code portion was the toughest. But ya'll seem to forget, morse code gets through when voice doesn't!!! Those dot dashes work when voice doesn't. So, if you're wanting to communicate over long distances, it's stll the best option. Just my opinion.

Morse Code: The original digital…

Hmm... access to the HF bands sounds nice. I think there is still a place for amateur radio, but that folks will see the allocated spectrum shrink as airwaves go up for bids. Especially as governments & private companies find new uses for radio devices.

At least with ham radio you don't have to worry about going over your minutes each month. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

There isn't too much commercial interest in the more popular ham bands, especially HF. Shortwave broadcasters are dying off. Most military and commercial traffic that used to go via HF has long since moved to satellite systems. There's some interest in the 2m and 70cm bands, but in most urban areas, the trend is to move most agencies to 800MHz (or higher) trunked systems or get on a commercial network like Nextel. The higher bands might suffer, but I doubt there more than 1,000 hams in the U.S. that have ever been active on a band above 1GHz. I think our bands are relatively safe from being taken away. The 220MHz fiasco was probably an isolated incident. It'll be interference from adjacent frequencies that clobbers bands like 2.4GHz that keeps them from being used. Or rather, the lack of cheap easily modified commercial equipment that keeps the bands from being used.

There's still a lot of value to ham radio and there are many aspects of the hobby. It's easy to be an active ham for 20 years and not spend any time ragchewing with the old guys running a kilowatt on 75m. Most afternoons I can fire up my 5 watt PSK signal on 20m and have essentially an instant messager conversation with a random ham in Europe, South America or the Caribbean. I know it would be easier to go IM random foreigners with AOL/Yahoo but I doubt it would be as interesting. Or if that doesn't float your boat, for years I was involved in public service as a ham, helping with everything from walk-a-thons / bike rides to hurricane responses.

I'll just remind everyone:

The Rule changes do NOT go into effect until 30 days AFTER they are published in the Federal Register - figure that will be sometime between now and the first week of January - so these changes will occur sometime Late January or Febuary

I still think it's usefull to KNOW the code (I do- but I'm only a 5wpm extra), and it's interesting, but I don't think it should be required.

That said, I'd LIKE to see the Tech test get HARDER - with more "This is proper operating procedure" questions, and the eliminated "techinical" questions moved up into the general pool

I have been studying for my HAM radio test, and in the meantime I bought a radio scanner, to get familiar with the type of radio traffic out there. I was extremely disappointed - just a bunch of ranting libertarians, or people saying things like "I'm pulling into my driveway now". I love all things radio, but I never heard much to inspire me to study hard and get the test under my belt.

I guess it all depends on where you are as to what you will hear on a 2 m or 7cm repeater. Here in South Florida, I have a very active group I talk with every morning. Our traffic information has all the broadcast stations beat by a long shot. And after the Three Sisters (Frances, Jeanne, and Wilma) hit us, you could get dependable information on where to get food, which gas stations were operating, where the lines were while broadcast media was still busy patting itself on the back for the two day old forcast.

Its also different when you can do the talking as you have some control over the topic, just listening all the time can get tedious.

I hope you will go ahead and get your license, I've met a lot of nice people through amateur radio. I hope you won't deny yourself that.

Craig.

Absolutely. CW is another tool in the gear bag. Many have considered it outdated and superfluous, but when the chips are down, and all you have is low emergency power with terrible conditions, it's the best tool in the bag.

I don't see how you can say that a hobby that adds thousands of people to it's ranks each year is dying. It is changing but it is far from dead. It is still very useful. In my community a few years ago we had a terrible ice storm. The lexington KY police and fire department could not communicate with the electric utility company. There were so many calls to 911 that the phone lines were overloaded and people couldn't get a call in from one of the local shelters. Our local ham club handled about 5000 messages that week. One call was for an ambulance to come to a shelter for a man having a heart attack.
Enjoying ham radio is all about making friends with other hams that also happen to like to be prepared for emergencies.
It doesn't cost much to get into ham radio. Most folks get started for less than $500. I don't know of very many hams that spend anything like $30,000 on equipment.
I am not sure that this change is in the best interests of ham radio but I hope that it helps make the hobby more attractive to people with an interest in technology and preparedness.

How can it not be in the best interest of ham radio? What harm is there in not requiring people to take a morse code test? Please make me a list of problems it will cause.

I think ham radio progress is hampered by the old timers who are stuck in the mode of "we had to take it and so should you". How silly.

I suspect that one of the reasons for the code requirement is to "keep out the riffraff".

If you want to know what the riffraff sound like, listen to a CB on channel 19 for a few minutes.

You are absolutely correct about channel 19. However, any one of those truckers could have passed the test for their tech license if they wanted to -- but they still don't. The existing test is still enough of a barrier to keep out the riffraff, despite 2-meters being a lot clearer with a lot better range.

Morse code won't cause a bunch of CB'ers to suddenly rush to HF, any more than the existence of tech has cause a bunch of CB lids on VHF.

KG4ZUD

Having lived life professionally around radio work for many years, here's my insight into why morse code was fundamentally important, and still could be.

From a true technician's perspective, the simplest radio communication device to construct is CW. Basically, you need to build an oscillator circuit to resonate at a specific frequency, then simply turn it off and on, and you can communicate. No keyboards, no microphones, and best of all, intelligence is more easily distguishable by a trained ear than any other form. You could build a low power transmitter from parts salvaged from consumer electronics, at least before the age of everything digital and surface mount hybrid ICS. In fact, you could take a basic amplifier circuit built around a common 2N2222 or 2N3904 transistor, which were quite common, and tweak it to oscillate at a set frequency, if you had a basic amount of training in electronics theory.

In fact, you could even build a makeshift transmitter from things with microprocessors and such in them, since they all have oscillators of their own, and you could key the circuit using morse code in a way that people who make their living listening for such things (I used to be one of those types long ago) would be able to detect, recognize, and act on.

But if you didn't know code, then it wouldn't do you much good to sit there and randomly key a transmitter. Even if detected, it wouldn't be recognized, and therefore no benefit.

By the way, countries such as China, Russia and Australia still have morse code transmission mode as a back up for all that snazzy digital, spread spectrum satellite stuff. In fact, it is still part of our back up in the states as well. When all else fails, you can fall back on the code as a last gasp.

I got up to 36 wpm back in the day, now I am lucky to make the 18 mark, and even then I'd probably need a couple weeks to raise the edge back up. I do like the idea of packing a low power portable rig juiced up with a couple lithium batteries set for Tx mid band at 40 meters or 20 meters. If I got in a pinch, I know once I got it set up, which don't take much, someone will eventually hear my signal and send in the rescue team. 3 watts goes around the world fairly well, albeit it is in the grass most of the time nowadays with all the noisy gadgets, but people are still listening for it. I don't think CW or morse code will ever go away completely.

Ironically the elimination of the morse code requirements may help to promote the use of morse code. I know some people (that includes me) who never took the test because it would have required to prepare for the test and have some time off in order to take it. And I didn´t really need to know to communicate in morse code. Without the requirements one can just learn the code and call CQ on the local club´s frequencies. Some CW enthusiats may be happy to have QSOs.
For this winter I started learning it as a winter project. I hope to reach 12 wpm at first.

Hi,

In New Zealand the Morse requirement was dropped a while ago. I have been casually interested in Ham radio for a long time, but last week I decided I would have a go at the exam. Well, I passed, so soon I should get a licence and a callsign.

I have no doubt that Morse is a terribly useful skill to learn, but being a Ham is useful by itself. Anyway, the test requirements in NZ are not too onerous. If you know basic physics (Ohm's law etc.) and spend some time reading the regulations and the basics of what's inside a radio and how radio works then you can probably get your licence fairly quickly.

I can't buy gear until I get my callsign (no-one is supposed to sell Ham gear to non-Hams), but I'm looking forward to getting on the air.

A

Congratulation for passing your exam and I wish you lots of fun when you receive your callsign.
The Morse code requirement was dropped in Germany a couple of years ago. But there still is the option to take an exam as some countries would require an exam to issue guest licenses.
I agree that being a HAM is useful by itself. I took an exam last year. My callsign is DO1MLA. I do not have DX equippment right now but if you like we may try to get connection via Echolink (just send me a PM if you´re interested).