[rescue] Dayton Hamfest

[Robert Darlington]

Eh, learning the code isn't hard.  They dumbed it down from something
near 30 words per minute (27? something like that) to 5 words per
minute across the board for all ham tests.  As of 2/23/07, they
completely dropped the requirement for morse code, which brings our
amateur radio exams in line with the rest of the world.  There is a
lot of drama associated with the decision to drop the code requirement
which I won't get into, but it's gone now.

Incidentally, Thailand's telegraph service just ended this month:
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=91565

I like the idea of code, but it's 2008 and there are faster, more
reliable means of communication out there.  The ham community has
pushed to keep the requirement around for the wrong reasons (read the
FCC's report if you're interested), but that doesn't mean it didn't
have its place.

-Bob (N3XKB)



On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 9:41 AM, William Enestvedt
<William.Enestvedt at jwu.edu> wrote:
> I would never go, but the night before last I realized the book my wife
> was reading to the kids was about a child ham helping to rescue stranded
> Floridians from his parent's New York apartment (in 1926), "Radio
> Rescue" by Lynne Barasch:
>     http://www.amazon.com/dp/0374361665
>
>   Great fun book, and it explains Morse code with a full listing and
> some examples (that also demonstrate the near-Asperger's intensity of
> teaching yourself the code and practicing it everyhere), as well as
> having endpapers that feature six greats of the history of wireless
> broadcast technology. :7)
>
>  Whoa, did I just hijack this thread? Sorry.
>
> - Will
> --
> Will Enestvedt
> _______________________________________________
> rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue