On 11/11/2017 9:45 AM, dyarnes wrote:
I don’t think it is accurate to suggest that CW was used to keep people out of
the hobby.
For at least the last 20-30 years of the 20th century, CW was used as a
means of keeping the hobby "pure," a "rite of passage" that all current
licensees had had to take, and that, anyone else wanting to enter their
hallowed ground must also take. You had to be not paying attention not
to be aware of this. It was easy to not be paying attention -- many of
us, including me, were on and off the air for decades at a time as we
lived our lives with jobs, families, even other interests. This was not
unique to the US -- the CW requirement was from international
governmental bodies.
Our large contesting club includes at least a dozen no-code licensees
who have developed into fine CW operators and serious contesters.
Recently, I heard of a ham club a few hours away from me that developed
out of the interest of a local community organization in emergency
communications -- this is a low population density community in the
Santa Cruz mountains north of me, where the potential hazards are
wildland fires, winter storms, and earthquakes.
Here's a link to photos from this year's Field Da. Notice the number of
young hams on the air in the photos of the stations.
http://www.sc4arc.org/groups/general/forum/topic/field-day-photos/
Some of the photos show a pretty serious effort with antennas, and
communications on their blog show well organized planning. There's a
photo of their score summary in one of the photos. All SSB and digital.
Here's their home page.
http://www.sc4arc.org/
73, Jim K9YC
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