henry (12/10/82)
It is very interesting listening to the opponents of the codeless licences flame. Particularly since two of the major arguments seem to be: 1. A non-trivial code requirement helps keep out the turkeys like the ones on CB... 2. It's not that hard to learn the code, why bother with the codeless licences... Has nobody but me noticed that these statements cannot both be true? I must admit that I think #2 is much more accurate, to judge by some of the people who *do* get licences. My own view is that the code is a psychological barrier to valuable people and fails to dependably exclude turkeys. The idea of tossing out the code while toughening up the technical side of the requirements strikes me as a fine idea, and I think the second half of that idea is much the more important one. Now *there* is a reasonable way to get rid of the turkeys. The people who argue about the importance of code for emergency communications are missing the point. If I am not interested in the code, and learn it only for the exam, how likely is it that I will stay in practice? And if I don't stay in practice, what are the odds that I would be able to copy code effectively in emergency conditions? Maybe ten or twenty years after the licence exam? The people who can use code effectively are the ones who stay in practice, and would most probably do so whether it was required for the licence or not. The way to get effective emergency communications is to put all the smarts (like error correction and conversion from signals to readable symbols) into the hardware, and then make that hardware useful and *cheap* so there will be lots of it around. We'd be better off with a bit less code and a bit more technical progress, not the other way 'round.