Morse Code

Morse, CW, Requirements or not?

Honestly, this particular subject has been beat like a dead horse for over two decades now. But, before we let it goes, let’s smack it a few more times. (I KNOW that we will never convince people to let the old go, and move on to the new - because in some cases, folks like me tend to keep the “old around”, like 8 bit computers, Morse Code, vacuum tubes, old “Operating Practices”, because some things never truly get old. Giving up Ham Radio for a cell phone is the furthest thing from my mind and I never will do so, willingly. Keeping “the Old Ways” around is what keeps us sane, and able to survive when the power goes out. That’s my preface for this installation…. with that, read on….)

I have a lot of respect for anyone, Amateur or Professional that can head copy 20+ words per minute without picking up a pen and paper or using a keyboard and I’ve known both Hams as well as military code people who could do upwards of 60 wpm. I even once had a young, female student in one of my electronics courses, whose job it had been to listen to HF radios at night over in Germany to the USSR’s CW nets and copy all they said. I didn’t believe her when she said she could head copy 65 words per minute, so I went home and wrote an Applesoft BASIC routine to create morse code at 65 wpm and higher, and recorded several tapes, and tested her. She blew me out of the water by copying all three tapes at 100%.

It’s amazing, it’s cool, but it does not prove “technical ability” at all. Not one bit. It proves that someone has an “ear for CW”. Nothing more.

Some people are damned good at languages, speaking several. But, does this mean they are technologically inclined? Nope. It means merely they have an innate ability to work through language processing in their brains.

Some people are extremely inclined to mathematics, and practice it religiously. Does this mean they can read a resistor color code without studying it? Nope. Nor does it mean they might be well inclined to learn ancient Greek or modern Morse Code.

Some people are very adept at electronics and physics (yes, electronics IS a branch of physics, as is radio frequency theory, antennas, Ohms Law, Thévenin's Theorem and countless other bits and pieces of Electronics.

The same goes for simple, and yet important parts of Chemistry, where doping your PN junctions creates diodes and transistors (not the kind of Doping that Lance Armstrong did, who, by the way to the best of our knowledge does NOT know Morse Code, but does speak English and French (and possibly a couple other languages).

My point here is that in the “Olden Days of Yore” back when the Federal Communications Commission was “running things” it was widely believed by older men (mostly men, by the way) that being a good Amateur Radio Operator required you to know physics (even though they called it something else, radio theory) AND be able to send and receive fluently, 20 words per minute Morse Code. The requirement was born on the fact that radios were rudimentary, and CW was considered the most basic communications mode and method, and would “get through” even during nuclear war and ionospheric “scintillation” — a condition which would vary the phase, frequency, and signal strength of a radio signal rendering it unreadable because important intelligence of the signal would become distorted significantly beyond it’s original components.

Truthfully, CW or Continuous Wave (a name for an on-off signal of which Morse Code is created) is a signal that can be recovered by the human ear if trained to hear it. However, that every single individual be forced to learn morse code at or faster than 20 wpm is merely a way to prevent people who have a mastery of the technical aspects of physics from being licensed.

I am a “case in point”. Over the course of my life, I have been licenses to hold a 3rd Class, 2nd Class and finally a 1st Class Radio telephone license over the years. I’ve been a professional communicator for the military and outside the military, passed the requirements on my first testing to hold an Advanced Class license (however I missed the technical requirements for Extra by a couple of wrong answers on my test).

What I COULD NOT do then, and to this day, still can NOT do, is to pass a 20 words per minute Morse Code Test. I learned too late in life that learning CW at 5 wpm not only LIMITS the brain’s ability to speed up and improve easily, but also teaches you extremely bad habits in CW copying.

As a child of 6 or 7 my siblings and some friends taught ourselves Morse Code using paper charts we drew up. Many evenings were spent sending Morse code in the woods to each other, using flashlights. No sound. We were limited by only the speed we could muster with our fingers on the flashlight pushbutton. Probably 10 wpm max with those painful-to-our-little-fingers push buttons on old flash lights.

To this DAY, I still COUNT mentally the dots and dashes. I have learned the right way to learn Morse Code, and I might still succeed some day.

But is it important to know Morse Code?

Is it so important that it should be brought back as a requirement?

Is it so important that those who HAD to pass it “back in the day” at 20 wpm should have a “special license” or have it annotated on their existing license?

The answer is, probably not. There are a couple of dozen communications modes including other digital modes that blow CW out of the water.

CW is technically an obsolete mode in some fashion, though still used today by many of us.

But, Amateur Radio has lost a lot of ground and a lot of operators over time, many Silent Keys have gone before us all. The Navy, Air Force, and other services did away with Morse Code. The Navy has returned it back to it’s rightful place, because of people like myself (I was in the US Air Force) who fought to keep HF radio in place. Highly placed officers over the years have realized millions could be saved by removing what they considered “Obsolete Equipment” like Radio - specifically HF radio - replacing it with, you guessed it, COMPUTERS.

After all… there’s an internet, and gosh, long as we have the Internet, we have the ability to communicate. Radio’s are passe!

Well, not so fast.

Anyone who was around for 9-11, or wild fires in Colorado, California, hurricanes on the Florida and Eastern Seaboard knows for a fact that HF Radio, Amateur Radio, and in some cases, MORSE CODE saved the day many times. But, making it a requirement to be able to be licensed to operate in certain bands does no good to those with the technical abilities to do so. Especially when CW isn’t even a real requirement to operate anything these days.

Technical abilities give one the ability to set up antennas, operate radios. Not pass messages. There has always been a “division of labor” in the military Comms people. Operations and Maintenance. Operators operate. Maintenance personnel set up and maintain the physical and technical aspects of systems.

Amateur Radio isn’t broken up into these constituent components, but not being able to operate at 20+ WPM in CW is also not preventing those with proper technical understanding from setting up a radio system, and assisting in sending signals. In fact, in the military, I was known for doing both jobs as well. Sending and setting up.

I guess there are a few old curmudgeons (apparently a bit older than myself even, if that were possible) who wish to bring back CW.

Well, to that I say NO. Do NOT DO IT.

Neither was I saddened to see two license classes evaporate forever. At least as far as obtaining the Novice and Advanced. (My wife remained a Novice for 10 years, but I eventually convinced her to upgrade, and she is happy as a Tech, having no desire to work the HF bands. However, she was a Code Novice and Tech and thus had HF privs anyway.) Today she rarely touches a radio, but does know how to operate one, or bring up a repeater, assist in installing an antenna and other important aspects. She no longer sends CW (she had a stroke a couple of years ago and is hard pressed to remember Morse Code at all, but can easily handle a radio).

So, what do you all think? Do you think that wanting to mark a few old licenses as “I got my license when I had to learn 20wpm code” is a good idea, or do you think that folks just want “recognition”?

I hold an Extra Class license. I tested originally in 1991 I think it was… I passed the Novice, the Technician, the General, the Advanced and missed probably 1 question too many to pass Extra. But, because of my Morse Code limitations, which to this day I’ve barely surpassed 12-13 wpm, I could ONLY have a Tech License. WORSE yet, a year or so later, they REMOVED the “CW” testing and told us we were “Tech Plus”… which I also felt was a little silly.

We either are, or we ain’t.

You can either pass the technical portion or you can’t. A CW test is nothing more than a way to keep many smart people from upgrading in my book and perhaps that what some want.

On the other hand, listen in over there on 20m at 14.313 Mhz, or on 40m at 7.200 Mhz some time at the ridiculous nonsense that passes for “Radio Operations” and examine the sheer number of EXTRA CLASS Licensees who have, over time, been cited for deliberate and malicious interference. Didn’t many pass that 20wpm code test (YES) and did that make them “better operators”?

In the end I think we have kind of settled our Amateur Radio Service in the USA on a set of three appropriate, non-biased licenses classes without extraneous nonsense like “Copying 5wpm, 13wpm or 20wpm Code” and giving either 26 characters in a row, or answering 5-10 random questions about the QSO.

Stick instead to the TECHNICAL and SCIENTIFIC aspects of radio theory, experimentation, and allow folks to spread out from simple CW practice to become “proficient”.

Today, more than EVER, we need to attract younger people to the Amateur Radio Community, not drive them away. We need to re-learn politeness when a noob asks questions, giving them legitimate and correct answers, directing them to information, and setting them on a course for learning, not for breaking their spirit.

Teach.