A few years ago, my wife was thinking about upgrading to General but found a similar situation where the dits and dahs sound roughly the same to her. She decided that it was not something she wanted to spend that many resources in trying to learn, since the only possible use she would have for a General would be HF portable operation to enhance what we do now with repeaters.
Because the test had dropped to such a slow speed at 5 wpm, it was practical to consider alternate methods of reception, such as flashing light or tactile feel. Some deaf hams have been able to hear CW by lightly touching a speaker cone and sensing the vibrations. For some, it is one of the few ways they could communicate. Computers have helped tremenously in being able to display text and images. If digital modes were extremely important for emergency communication, it is not unreasonable that the government might include some kind of certification for typing skills when you consider the Part 97 basis and purpose of amateur radio, but it does not seem to be viewed as an important skill for the radio amateur. Speech to text technology has improved somewhat over the last decade and even QST had an article a while back with a ham that used this for sending PSK31, rather than having to type the message on the keyboard. On one of my farm internet discussion groups, we have at least on blind participant and I know some who use speech to text to write their posts. It is even possible for a deaf person to communicate with a blind person using these kinds of technology. Just one of the extra benefits of our digital modes:) 73, Rick, KV9U James Wilson wrote: >Glad you learned it. I have spent at least 80 hours trying to learn code >using every method possible. I was getting ready to go to the doctors to >figure out what was wrong with me. > >It's hard to explain I just can't hear the sounds. Dit's and Dah's continue >to sound the same. I consider myself fairly intelligent but just couldn't >learn code. > >After they dropped code I said ok this is good, but I still want to learn it. >It's low power, ability to work in all situations then I learned about PSK and >the beauty of PSK. Now I agree with the CW guys there should be a skills >requirement for current technology. If you can't type 20 words per minute >your drop down to a tech, 30 words to be an extra. Come on, anyone can learn >how to type and 30 wpm isn't that fast. > >
