rick (12/11/82)
I must admit that N2XS has one of the more unique arguments
against relaxing the code requirement, however, I suggest a more
likely scenario might be this one:
.....
Rick Snafu thought to himself "Cranfols! Why do I always
get the Planet MC-4-EVER assignment? Why, it was only a few
sectons ago that they learned how to use Electromagnetic waves
as a communications medium. The last time they were still using
the simple amplitude keying method common to most developing
civilizations in their early attempts at communications."
"Well, I may as well make the best of it, perhaps they
have at least discovered the tefsom" thought Rick as his ship
assumed a standard scanning orbit above the Planet. He decided
to let the ship computer run the scanning mission, so that he
could grow some additional memory for his home computer system.
Sometime later, he Computer signaled that it had completed
its scan of the the Planet, and that it had condensed the
information into a format compatible with the brain interface.
Rick signaled the Computer to begin the transfer. "Impressive",
he thought,"they have advanced themselves well in 3.579 sectons.
Stop - what is this? (remembering his earlier mission) They are
STILL using the amplitude keying method? Surely they have
developed their understanding of communications theory to point
where they realize that amplitude keying is a less efficient
form of modulation."
"Silly MC-4-EVER'ers", he thought to the ships computer,
"They advance their technology as quickly as most, yet their
society lags behind the state of the art by many wenips. Their
system of government is partly to blame, however, the main
problem is that much of the population embraces the old ways of
life. This group called radio amateurs is representative of the
problem. In spite of efforts on the part of their government,
they still refuse to begin phasing out the amplitude keying
method. They foolishly believe that in times of disaster they
could fabricate communications equipment with raging storms
or exploding bombs all around them. Worse, they believe that CW
equipment is somehow more reliable, because of its primitive
modulation technique, yet most of their new CW equipment uses
the very SAME complex technology they claim is unreliable."
"Take us home, Computer, Planet MC-4-EVER's society is still
too backward to justify contact with our own. Before we go, let
us hint at our existence, in case there are some forward thinking
individuals on the planet. Send a packet describing the position
of our planet. Use their AX.25 coding." The computer sent the packet,
then warped the ship out of orbit. Below, on Earth, "full break-in
keying CW" operator paused for a second, mistaking the packet for
the other chap trying to break between characters. "Blasted atmospherics",
he grunted, and continued his transmission with "_... ._ _.. __._ ._. _.
.___ ___ . __ ___ ._. ... . _._. ___ _.. . .._. ___ ._. . ..._ . ._."
.....
wb2cfv, Rick