19 Apr
2011
19 Apr
'11
8:20 a.m.
On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 07:41:12AM -0700, C Sullivan / A Baumann wrote:
On Apr 18, 2011, at 11:05 PM, Rod Smallwood wrote:
I have used morse for years, I love it but it's not for everyone. PSK31,
Olivia, wspr, jt65 are all going to be better than the human ear.
The old "Morse gets through when voice won't" argument is specious.
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.
That's not universally true. I struggled with Morse code, and never got much better
than a sloppy 5 WPM. And, it's not a matter of "somebody to teach": one of
my elmers was Gordon West WB6NOA himself (I'm originally from Southern California, and
was a member of a radio club that had Gordon as a member for a while).
We had this exact same argument with SMD soldering a
few months back. Some people just can't do it for whatever reason, and it's not
always because they lack desire or a teacher. Some skills are just simply out of some
people's reach. And that's OK: I'm sure some of the skills I have are out of
other's reach. It's part of being human. We all have different abilities and
maximum levels of achievement.
I for one was happy enough to see the morse requirement dropped with the
Canadian hamradio test. I figure if you know what DSP thats sufficient
in this day and age instead of knowing morse.
However, I also like the minimalism of morse. 1 active part will get you
a transmitter that can make contacts over in Europe, 3 will get you an entire
transceiver. Thats still very neat in my books. The younger ham must be
finding it fun too, since they are learning it for fun. And that's the
key word that should be in the hobby. 'fun'
- 73 Diane VA3DB
--
- db at FreeBSD.org db at db.net http://www.db.net/~db