QRZ! Ham Radio 3/QRZ Ham Radio Callsign Database - Volume 3.iso/digests/policy/930476.txt

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Date: Mon, 22 Nov 93 04:30:22 PST
From: Ham-Policy Mailing List and Newsgroup <[e-mail]>
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Subject: Ham-Policy Digest V93 #476
To: Ham-Policy


Ham-Policy Digest           Mon, 22 Nov 93       Volume 93 : Issue  476

Today's Topics:
                 Another possible use of Morse code??
                       No Code etc... (6 msgs)
              Why isn't Amateur Radio like CB? (2 msgs)

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Archives of past issues of the Ham-Policy Digest are available
(by FTP only) from UCSD.Edu in directory "mailarchives/ham-policy".

We trust that readers are intelligent enough to realize that all text
herein consists of personal comments and does not represent the official
policies or positions of any party.  Your mileage may vary.  So there.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 93 14:05:35 EST
From: concert!gatech!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!wariat.org!mystis![e-mail]
Subject: Another possible use of Morse code??
To: [e-mail]

F. Kevin Feeney <[e-mail]> writes:

[much deleted]
> So, recommendations on a good text to speech program that doesn't require
> a 486dx66? (hmmm, how do I get a sound card in the laptop????)
>
> Interesting thread...
>
> 73 de Kevin, WB2EMS ([e-mail])

Why not a ascii text to MORSE decoder... (Speed could even be adjustable
for preferance)

(NO, I am not anti Morse, I am anti-Morse TESTING!!!)


 ======================================================================
 || Dan Pickersgill  N8PKV   ||  'Pots have handles, Magazines have  ||
 || [e-mail]    ||      Personals, Hams have Names'     ||
 ======================================================================
 || 'Your enemy is never a villian in his own eyes. Keep this in     ||
 ||  mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not you    ||
 ||  can kill him without hate - and quickly.'  -Lazarus Long        ||
 ======================================================================

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 17:32:28 CST
From: cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!menudo.uh.edu!jpunix!unkaphaed!amanda![e-mail]
Subject: No Code etc...
To: [e-mail]

Ed Ellers <[e-mail]> writes:

> No, as I have said OVER AND OVER that is NOT acceptable -- knowledge of Morse
> Code is NOT RELEVANT to the use of phone.  The fact that you're advocating
> requiring Morse in order to use phone shows clearly that you simply want to
> use Morse Code as a barrier to entry, NOT as a test of relevant skills.  I
> submit that this is entirely the wrong attitude to take in a free society.

Then perhaps you should go out and find yourself another hobby that does
not require so much effort. Here in the United States, knowledge of Morse
is required for access to the HF bands. Your constant bitching about that
fact will not change matters.

 --Robert

____________________________________________________________________
|  A Codeless Technician is never a villain in his own eyes.       |
|  Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend.  |
|  If not, you can kill him without hate - and quickly.            |
--------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 15:26:28 EST
From: library.ucla.edu!agate!spool.mu.edu!sdd.hp.com!caen!malgudi.oar.net!wariat.org!mystis![e-mail]
Subject: No Code etc...
To: [e-mail]

[e-mail] (Ross Alexander) writes:

> [e-mail] (Larry Kollar) writes:
> >I can run my entire packet station on batteries.  The older Tandy
> >laptops are good for several hours between recharge/new AA batteries;
> >that's why they're so popular at hamfests.  A couple people I know
> >personally have mobile packet and/or AMTOR stations.
>
> I can run a kilowatt & computer and you-name-it on batteries.
> The trick is to have big ones ;)
>

Or a hyperactive squirel!!!

(...and around...and around...and around...)

(Smiley implyed, if not stated overtly.)


> regards,
> Ross ve6pdq
> who runs his entire house on batteries, 365 days a year.
> --
> Ross Alexander,[e-mail],[phone],[e-mail]

73,


 ======================================================================
 || Dan Pickersgill  N8PKV   ||  'Pots have handles, Magazines have  ||
 || [e-mail]    ||      Personals, Hams have Names'     ||
 ======================================================================
 || 'Your enemy is never a villian in his own eyes. Keep this in     ||
 ||  mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not you    ||
 ||  can kill him without hate - and quickly.'  -Lazarus Long        ||
 ======================================================================

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 15:31:35 EST
From: library.ucla.edu!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!wariat.org!mystis![e-mail]
Subject: No Code etc...
To: [e-mail]

[e-mail] writes:

>  I would tend to agree.. The tougher G/A/E would definately hold the number o
> higher classed hams down.. But it's not that it would keep them down that is
> important.. It's the fact that the people who were taking the general and up
> would be a lot more technical.. I think a big factor would be if the ARRL and
> others would stop publishing the answer books.. There needs to be more
> randomness in the tests.. So people can't just MEMORIZE the answer.. Most
> people will forget most of what they memorize anyways.. But if you actually
> LEARN this stuff.. It tends to stick with you for a longet period of time..
>

Mike, I tend to disagree. Having taught students with no tech
background, it won't matter if they memorize the pool or study the
theory, if they do not continue to use it they won't remember it.
Besides, if the person can remember the answers, they know SOME of the
material.


 ======================================================================
 || Dan Pickersgill  N8PKV   ||  'Pots have handles, Magazines have  ||
 || [e-mail]    ||      Personals, Hams have Names'     ||
 ======================================================================
 || 'Your enemy is never a villian in his own eyes. Keep this in     ||
 ||  mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not you    ||
 ||  can kill him without hate - and quickly.'  -Lazarus Long        ||
 ======================================================================

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 93 15:21:49 EST
From: library.ucla.edu!agate!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!wariat.org!mystis![e-mail]
Subject: No Code etc...
To: [e-mail]

[e-mail] (jeffrey.n.jones) writes:

> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (M
> >Ed Ellers <[e-mail]> writes:
> >
> >> No, as I have said OVER AND OVER that is NOT acceptable -- knowledge of Mo
> >> Code is NOT RELEVANT to the use of phone.  The fact that you're advocating
> >> requiring Morse in order to use phone shows clearly that you simply want t
> >> use Morse Code as a barrier to entry, NOT as a test of relevant skills.
>
> Good try but on the wrong tack. It is a test of relevant skills as it
> is in wide usage on the ham bands. As much as the anti-code groups
> try to spread the myth that it isn't, it is the second major mode
> after SSB. So it is very relevant until CW ceases to be the second
> major mode after SSB.

Then we can assume that, since you agree it falls in with all modes a
good amateur should know, that the Morse questions should be included
(and scored) as part of the WHOLE exam, not as an independent element?



 ======================================================================
 || Dan Pickersgill  N8PKV   ||  'Pots have handles, Magazines have  ||
 || [e-mail]    ||      Personals, Hams have Names'     ||
 ======================================================================
 || 'Your enemy is never a villian in his own eyes. Keep this in     ||
 ||  mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not you    ||
 ||  can kill him without hate - and quickly.'  -Lazarus Long        ||
 ======================================================================

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 93 14:27:19 EST
From: sdd.hp.com!saimiri.primate.wisc.edu!caen!malgudi.oar.net!wariat.org!mystis![e-mail]
Subject: No Code etc...
To: [e-mail]

[e-mail] (Jay Maynard) writes:

> In article <[e-mail]>,
> Robert <[e-mail]> wrote:
> >Here in the United States, knowledge of Morse
> >is required for access to the HF bands. Your constant bitching about that
> >fact will not change matters.
>
> Unfortunately, it may well. We now have a no-code license because people woul
> rather bitch than work. Continued bitching may well produce the same result o
> HF.

Morse testing will be removed from the HF bands (assuming that we still
exist by then), the only question is when we will enter the 21st
century along with the rest of the world or by the begining of the
22nd? And Morse testing will be removed from HF for one important
reason, the arguments the anti-testing people are making are valid even
today, and more so tomorrow. The significance of Morse in communications
is dropping rapidly to zero. We will either move ahead with the world or
go the way of the spark gap commercial radio. That is not to say that
the pro testing people are making fine arguments, just that the
arguments don't fit with the state of radio today, as much as they would
prefer (or believe).


 ======================================================================
 || Dan Pickersgill  N8PKV   ||  'Pots have handles, Magazines have  ||
 || [e-mail]    ||      Personals, Hams have Names'     ||
 ======================================================================
 || 'Your enemy is never a villian in his own eyes. Keep this in     ||
 ||  mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not you    ||
 ||  can kill him without hate - and quickly.'  -Lazarus Long        ||
 ======================================================================

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 09:27:42 CST
From: dog.ee.lbl.gov!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!menudo.uh.edu!jpunix!unkaphaed!amanda![e-mail]
Subject: No Code etc...
To: [e-mail]

Ed Ellers <[e-mail]> writes:

> You want to weed out people who are looking for a free ride?  Excellent idea.
>
> All the "code-free HF" proponents are saying is that the test should be
> relevant to the privileges being granted; a Morse test is NOT relevant to the
> use of other modes.  The better way is with a stiffer written test, with heav
> emphasis on regulations and operating procedures.

Or to grant limited privileges on HF EXCLUDING both CW and Phone.

 --Robert

____________________________________________________________________
|  A Codeless Technician is never a villain in his own eyes.       |
|  Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend.  |
|  If not, you can kill him without hate - and quickly.            |
--------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 93 01:42:23 CST
From: tadpole.com!news.dell.com!swrinde!menudo.uh.edu!jpunix!unkaphaed!amanda![e-mail]
Subject: Why isn't Amateur Radio like CB?
To: [e-mail]

[e-mail] (jeffrey.n.jones) writes:

> In article <2cikev$[e-mail]> [e-mail]
> >In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Robert
> >>
> >>Sounds like typical activity for a Codeless Technician. Ten-Four?
> >>
> >> --Robert
> >
> >No wonder people think that you are just some looney howling in the wires.
> >Tell your crap to 2.5 million Muslim people who were butchered by the
> >Armenians in x-Soviet Armenia and Eastern Anatolia.
>
> What????

Sounds to me like Will has gone off the deep end.

 --Robert

____________________________________________________________________
|  A Codeless Technician is never a villain in his own eyes.       |
|  Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend.  |
|  If not, you can kill him without hate - and quickly.            |
--------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 93 09:34:22 CST
From: dog.ee.lbl.gov!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!menudo.uh.edu!jpunix!unkaphaed!amanda![e-mail]
Subject: Why isn't Amateur Radio like CB?
To: [e-mail]

[e-mail] (Thomas Collins  WI3P) writes:

> I was scanning the 26/27Mhz just a couple of days ago and heard
> a fellow on 26.800 (well known out of band CB freq.).  He was having
> a conversation with another about how hard he was trying to get
> 5WPM down so he could become a "...full fledged HAM operator"
> and could use SSB on the HF bands.  He mentioned he had his
> "No Code" license for a while but was bored with the technical
> talk on the local 2 meter repeater.

Sounds like typical activity for a Codeless Technician. Ten-Four?

 --Robert

____________________________________________________________________
|  A Codeless Technician is never a villain in his own eyes.       |
|  Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend.  |
|  If not, you can kill him without hate - and quickly.            |
--------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1993 12:06:14 GMT
From: library.ucla.edu!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!math.ohio-state.edu!hobbes.physics.uiowa.edu!news.uiowa.edu!icaen![e-mail]
To: [e-mail]

References <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>
Subject : Re: Why isn't Amateur Radio like CB?

[e-mail] (David R Tucker) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Douglas J Renze) writes:

>   Well, I've heard the rumour from a number of truckers that there are enough
>   complaints coming in about the Citizens' Band that the FCC is strongly
>   considering a petition to reinstate the CB licensing system and charge
>   something like $15-$30 per yer.  Anybody can confirm/deny this?  Should
>   we, as Amateurs, sponsor a petition like this?

>(I guess I, *as an amateur*, don't care particularly.  How would it
>help us, or hurt us for that matter?)

>My real question is this: Will the FCC bother enforcing the Part 95
>rules?  Catching bootleggers, and such?  If not, forget it.  Waste of
>time.

If their operating budget is at stake (where do you think that $30/yr would
go to?), then yes, they'll nail the bootleggers.  They might run in the red
for a few years, but they'll do it.

--
__  /|  | Douglas J Renze, N0YVW  | I just finished reading Joe Haldeman's "All
\'o.O'  | [phone]         | My Sins Remembered."  I've felt a lot of
=(___)= | [e-mail]  | emotions from books, but this is the first
   U    | [e-mail] | time I've felt the need to purge myself.

------------------------------

Date: 19 Nov 1993 22:44:19 GMT
From: newsstand.cit.cornell.edu!newsstand.cit.cornell.edu![e-mail]
To: [e-mail]

References <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]>rne
Subject : Re: Another possible use of Morse code??

In article <[e-mail]> Milt Sanders,
[e-mail] writes:
>Kevin:
>
>I'm not sure I follow your exact thinking.  English is a common language
>shared by humans and computers when input is keyboard or other
>electro/mechanical device and computer output is speach, screen, braille,
>or printer.  I haven't heard of a computer receiving audible Morse from a
>human mouth, although it might be done.  My TNC will decode Morse into
>screen or printer output, but right now runs all the characters
together.
>I would rather pound the keyboard than whistle or key in Morse.  Packet
>transfers information much faster than Morse using bits and bytes, but
>English (or German, or Kanji, etc.) can be the man-machine interface for
>transmission and reception.  I am probably missing something here, but I
am
>using English from me to the computer right now, and you will be reading
>this in English from the computer to you -- no Morse involved.
>
>Please clue me in on what I am missing?
>
>Milt
>--
>=========================================================================

Sorry Milt, my fuzzy writing and the combination of two ideas.

The first idea, that humans and machines both share morse is basically
that both an unaugmented human with a switch (key) and an ear, OR a
machine, can use morse to intercommunicate with each other. Our club's
TS440 tells me what mode I'm in with a cw identifier =  machine>human
communication.   The morse to rtty encoder mentioned previously takes
hand sent morse in from the key port to get instructions or text to send
as rtty = human>machine communication.

The point of that part is that morse is relatively simple for machines to
parse and deal with, enough so that most multimode TNC's offer some sort
of cw reading/sending program. And machine sent cw is at least as easy
for humans to copy as human sent cw (if you set the parameters well).

Mostly we do it from machine to human, machines send and we listen. Some
specialized units use morse as an input, because it's alot easier to
provide a key than a whole keyboard, or than trying to recognise speech.

The second part, thinking about doing digital modes mobile, grew out from
that idea - with the twist that instead of delivering the text as morse,
we could deliver it as digital speech. Let's take it in two stages.

Stage one - morse I/O to the driver, ASCII to the multimode box. Here we
would use a special morse terminal program to take my keyer inputs (maybe
direct from the paddles, eliminate the need for a separate keyer, emulate
it so I can hear what I'm sending) and parse them as morse code into
letters, then send those letters as ascii encoded characters out the
serial port to my PK232 where it thinks they are coming from a dumb
terminal and converts them into the mode of the moment> RTTY/AMTOR/PACKET
whatever.

In the reverse direction, RTTY/AMTOR/PACKET  would be received by the
PK232, send out to the terminal program as ascii, and there converted
into morse and sent out the pc's speaker for me to copy on the fly.

Stage two - use morse in from the driver as before, but when the ascii
characters come out from the PK232 to the computer, instead of converting
them into morse, convert them into digitized speech (of a decent enough
quality to be understood).

WIth stage two, I could carry on a pretty simple conversation using some
of my favorite modes while mobile. The computer would talk to me to tell
me what the other party is saying, and I would make my replies off my
keyer paddles on the seat beside me. I can send 20 wpm pretty comfortably
when on a clear highway.

Hmmm, another project to put in the interesting project bin. :-) I think
it wouldn't be too hard to do up some software to do the stage one stuff
with the keyer emulation built in. I think they hard part would be
getting a decent portable speech system to do stage two, which is more of
what I'd be interested in. Oh well, hardware keeps getting more
impressive and cheaper.

Hope that makes what I was thinking clearer to you and anyone else I
might have confused.

TGIF, see you later....

73 de Kevin, WB2EMS

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End of Ham-Policy Digest V93 #476
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