I haven’t made an entry here for a while, and I’m sorry about that. The lack of entries here does not mean I haven’t been doing things. They’re just a lot of little things, none deserving of their own entry. Here’s what’s been going on.
- Flame War! I got involved in a big debate on the Fists mailing list. Being a CW club, they periodically get into complaining that ham radio is going to go to hell when (note that I say “when” not “if”) the FCC eliminates the Morse code test requirement. I’m of the opinion that it’s a foregone conclusion–especially for the General class license–and all the complaining is just a waste of time. Filing petitions is as well. Now that the last World Radio Conference removed the requirement, and many countries have already eliminated the test, it’s only a matter of time here in the U.S.
Anyway, I got into the argument, and because I’m in favor of removing the requirement, I, of course got flamed. One guy even started insulting me personally. The guy knew he had no logical arguments to make, so he started calling me names. I know better than to let ad hominem attacks distract me.
What Fists should be doing is working on ways to encourage those currently licensed to become CW operators and improve their skills. The awards and contests they sponsor are great and a lot of fun, but Fists is going to have to be more proactive about getting licensees to be CW operators if they’re truly going to “preserve” Morse code. - General class. Another thing I’ve been doing is preparing to teach a General license class. To be honest, I’m going to have re-learn or learn a bunch of stuff before I can teach it properly. For example, I’m going to have to bone up on propagation theory in order to teach it to the students. I’m sure there are also a bunch of regulations that have changed since I last took a test.
This class is going to include a code class. I know some of the guys who’ve signed up have no-code Tech licenses, and I’m determined to get them on CW. I’m going to be using the G4FON CW Trainer, which uses the Koch method to teach the code. It will be interesting to see how that goes. Last time I taught a code class was many moons ago, and I used the ARRL Code Book. I was actually successful in teaching two guys CW way back when.
I’ve been doing some other stuff, too. I’ll post more later.
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