[VoIP] Off-Topic No code

[Ian Jolly]

The Morse requirement has been gone a while here in the UK.

But to get my full licence all those years ago,  I had to sit the 'Post 
Office Morse Test' at 12 words per minute.

In those days it was either taken at a Coastal Radio Station or at one or 
two other Post Office locations where they had experienced operators. I 
first tried at Liverpool and everything was fine except I couldn't send a 
'5'   .  They said try again in a couple of weeks but by then I was in the 
Highlands of Scotland at some remote spot so I call at the local Coastal 
Radio Station - two corrugated iron huts in a field with some wire slung 
between a couple of 60 ft telegraph poles!  I was the first person every to 
turn up for a morse test at such a remote location!  We spent the afternoon 
chatting about radio. Then the guy found he couldn't send as slowly as 12 
wpm so we called it a day.

I turned up at Liverpool a couple of weeks later for my 3pm appointment but 
had to wait as they were trying to help a disabled person through their 
test. I waited aged until I was eventually called in. The tester asked me 
what I was doing back?. I told him the tale about Oban and that started 
another chat about who was there and radio etc and how I was exPost Office! 
Suddenly it was going home time.  He said 'just send a few fives'  - so I 
did no problem --- and got my Pass Certificate .

Never used morse since,  but I did get my full licence    :-)

All the best for 2007 - we are an hour into it - already I'm wonder how the 
year is flying by. Doesn't seem so long since the Millennium (and its 'bug') 
:-))

Ian Jolly
GW4BTW exG8EOO

+44 (0)352 82 26 (via a 1929 GPO Rural Automatic eXchange!)
CNET - the Heritage Telephone Network


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jayson Smith" <ratguy at bellsouth.net>
To: "Voice Over IP Tandem for Analog Switches" <voip at ckts.info>
Sent: Monday, January 01, 2007 12:19 AM
Subject: [VoIP] Off-Topic No code


> Hi guys,
> You've probably all heard this already, but some of you being hams as I 
> am,
> I felt I ought to tell you something I heard just last Saturday.  It
> certainly was an early Christmas present for me!  On December 15, the FCC
> announced that it would be dropping the morse code testing requirement for
> all amateur radio classes in the US.  The effective date will probably be
> thirty days after publication in the Federal Register, which according to
> the ARRL means probably sometime in February.  Currently I'm a Tech, and
> although I know the code, I never did really get it up for studying long
> enough to pass the test in order to get my General.  I was waiting for the
> FCC to drop the code after WRC03.  That was a battle I waited out and won.
> Now I'll start studying and go in and get my General.
> Jayson KG4TUQ
>
>
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