Building a shortwave/HAM radio station...

I use Morse on a daily basis and am completely self taught (over 50years ago). I don't think it?s an "I can/can't do it situation." Learning it is another matter. If you can't pick it up yourself then find somebody qualified to teach you. After all, the military and commercial shipping used to train thousands of 20wpm morse operators. Provided you are not visually and or aurally impaired (I am partially both and still have no problems) then CW is for you. Why use CW? That?s the easy one. It will always get through where voice will not. ? Rod Smallwood G8DGR ? ? -----Original Message----- From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Duell Sent: 18 April 2011 19:40 To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Subject: Re: Building a shortwave/HAM radio station... Hmm... I think it depends on the person. As you all know, I find SMD soldering ro be easy, I hav no problem doing component-level repair of classic computers even without a service manual, I don't worry about replacing disk drive heads, or turning a new bush for a printer mechanism, or...; Others here have commented that they find such things to be far too difficult for them I have the same problem with morse code. I simply can't do it. I've tried. My brian just doens't work that way. I am sure some people find it easy. Others, like myself, clearly do not. While I will be the first to agree that morse should be allowed on amateur bands, I don't think it should be a requiremnt for getting a license. Why single out that mode? Why not require that all amateurs have to drill their own Nipkov disk and make a mechanical SSTV system? Yes, I am well aware of the _historical_ reason for requiring all amateurs to know morse, but that doesn't apply any more. -tony