(slightly OT) Free Ham Radio Course

I read in alt.binaries.schematics.electronic that RST Engineering (jw) wrote (in ) about '(slightly OT) Free Ham Radio Course', on Mon, 17 Jan 2005:

You still have a 'coarse mode' requirement? In this digital age?

Yup. Kind of like requiring that you show how to properly hitch up the horse to the buggy when going for your driver's license exam.

Jim

Thanks for posting this. Also, you might want to post it to sci.electronics.basics.

That's not one of the groups that I subscribe to. If you subscribe, would you mind forwarding it for me?

Thanks,

Jim

I took care of this for you...

Tom

Many thanks...

Jim

Is the site going to stay up for a while, or is the end of feb. the limit?

More like sitting through four years of PhDs spouting political advocacy so you can get a certificate and make the big bucks.

If you can sit there and train your brain to receive Morse Code, you're worthy of the epithet, "Radio Amateur".

Cheers! Rich

For a lifetime. Mine, not yours.

Jim

Hand-keyed CW will get through conditions that defeat anything else. It's so slow that you can use a very narrow filter, and once the receiving operator learns the idiosyncrasies of the sender's "fist", the cocktail-party effect kicks in. In a pinch, you can send with anything that generates RF; I don't know whether anyone has actually sent an SOS with an arc welder, but it would work.

I read in alt.binaries.schematics.electronic that Steve Rush wrote (in ) about '(slightly OT) Free Ham Radio Course', on Tue, 18 Jan 2005:

I agree about the robustness of CW; it just seems odd now that most hams use commercial equipment to insist on them learning a communication protocol that they will never use.

Many years ago, I suggested that since humans can easily produce what sounds like MCW Morse with no prosthetic at all, it should be used for direct communication with computers. That would mean everyone leaning Morse, and many would get quite fast!

Happens a lot in thriller novels. (;-) My experience is that most arc welder users want to send 'War and Peace' unabridged. (:-(

Has anybody said that the 'no code' technician license has been available for close to 15 years now? I you opt to take the code portion, all you must do is listen to a QSO. Questions are then asked to prove that you copied the communication.

The hardest thing I found on the test was reading the superscripts on the poor quality copies the VE's handed out. I had enough time to check every answer three times.

Wouldn't be me though...nope...not at all....certainly not once I build and install the HF start unit...yup...

That should be splatterific, no? ;-)

Tim

-- "I've got more trophies than Wayne Gretsky and the Pope combined!" - Homer Simpson Website @

There have been a couple of times that I may have worked one on 40....

de W8CCW

I don't know whether anyone has actually sent an SOS