NO MORE MORSE CODE EXAMS!
FCC ELIMINATES CW REQUIREMENT FOR ALL HF OPS!
By Bob Wexelbaum, W2ILP
On December 15th, while
chatting with other hams on QRZ, I learned that the FCC had officially
eliminated the CW exams for all classes of amateur radio operator
licenses. I soon was able to read a copy
of the FCCs News Release; Titled: FCC Modifies Amateur Radio Service Rules,
Eliminating Morse Code Exam Requirements and Addressing ARRL Petition for
Reconsideration.. This proved that this was true. The ARRL alsao sent out a bulletin confirmng
the same FCC report. The GARC’s VEC is
W5YI-VEC and so I sent the following message to W5YI-VEC via E-Mail:-
I believe that in a release of
There were no applicants for
Happy holidays to all at the W5YI
group.
73,
Robert I. Wexelbaum, W2ILP
I received the following reply:-
We will keep our Contact VEs up to date as we learn more about it.
Technician Class radio amateurs will now be able to upgrade
to General (and gain access to eight HF phone bands) by passing the General
Clasas (35 question multiple choice) Element 3 written exam. General and Advanced Class hams will still need
to pass the 50 question Element 4 to gain Extra Class privilages.
The not yet released
Report and Order will become effective 30 days after being published in the Federal Register. (Our
guess is the new rules will be effective as of early February.) At that time all Technician Class amateurs
will be able to work sideband (phone) on ten meters between 28.3 and 26.5 MHz
without passing (Element 1) 5 words-per-minute code test. They will also gain CW privileges on 80,40,15
and 10 meters. In other words, they will
have the same frequency and mode privaleges as Technicians who have passed a
code test.
In anticipation of the end of the telegraphy exams, many
amateurs have already passed the Element 3 and/or 4 Examinations and have
received a CSCE which is valid for one year.
If they passed these elements within 365 days of the effective date, yet
to be established by the FCC, these amateurs have to bring their CSCE to a VE
examination session to be upgraded to the General and/or Extra Class without
further testing.
73…..Merry Christmas
Sherry Shelton, W5YUP, W5YI-VEC
On
The FCC has denied the ARRL’s request for retaining the 5 wpm
CW requirement for the Extra Class. Also
denied was a request by the ARRL to consider retaining 3.620 – 3.635 MHz for
digital signals, rather than moving the Extra Class phone band to the edge at
3.635 MHz. Instead the FCC decided to
autorrize 3.585 – 3.600 MHZ for the digital modes, leaving the newly expanded
phone band as is.
The long awaited elimination of CW tests will officially take
place some time in February 2007. The
official FCC regulations will definitely change, but the long lasting opinions
of hams with regard to the CW’s ham tradition verses the technical obsolences
of CW for emergency, commercial and military use, due to the improvements of
communication technologies will be slow to fade away. Hams are sure to be asked for the date when
they were licensed and/or upgraded by the hams that they work and there may
remain old timers who will always believe that the newbees are not “real hams”
because they did not go through the same CW initiation the way it was in the
old days. As for me, I was always a
mugwump on this subject. I can only feel
some relief in knowing that I will no longer have to shlep all the stuff for CW
testing to future VE sessions.
On another first: I
find that the ARRL is now suing the FCC because the ARRL’s opposition to BPL
testing has been ignored. I believe this
is the first time that the ARRL has sued the FCC, and I don’t like it
myself. I am a mugwump on the BPL issue,
just as I was on CW test elimination. For
every conflict, there are two sides of the story. It is unfair to think only of the needs of
ham hobbiests in my personal opinion. Of
course I would like to see that Ham Radio and SWL receivers are troubled as
little as possible by any possible source of man-made interference…but we
always have been and always will have to live with many QRM sources. . Drive by
There are some guys who risk their lives climbing mountains. This is a sport for them. The first man to get to the top of
As technology advances it will be easier to get a ham license
but harder to operate without getting increased interference. In my humble opinion, that is because
technology trumps tradition. When H.P. Maxim was making early autos there was
not yet grid locked traffic on the roads or on 20 Meters. Let me hear it from you guys. If you have any comments on this subject send
them to me by e-mail and I’ll try to put them in this newsletter. You might also send them to the FCC and the
ARRL…but I doubt that they can change any decisions at this time. As always, I will not print any profanity or
threats to any individuals or government agencies, so stay cool.
Page 2
HAM RADIO UNIVERSITY 2007
Fellowship-Service-Knowledge
By Neil Heft, KC2KY, HRU 2007Chairman
I would like to take a moment to talk to you about an
exciting event called
Originally conceived as a way to get inactive hams
re-aquainted with the hobby, HRU has evolved into an annual event where hams
can come together and learn something new about one or more myriads of aspects
of Amateur Radio. This year’s HRU has
over twenty forums and seminars in a variety of Amateur Radfio topics. Frank Fallon, N2FF, the ARRL Hudson Director
willl be our keynote speaker. Frank
will be discussing a variety of current events that are changing the face of
Amateur Radio. Our “Welcome to Amateur
Radio” track features a beginner’s forum on setting up your station as well as
a young ham forum aimed at “Elmers”, who are looking for more effective ways to
get kids interested in ham radio. A
second track is dedicated to public service, emergency communication, and
public relations. For the technically
inclined ham we have a technical track, with topics like the evolution of
frequency synthesis. Finally, we have
an “Operating” track featuring HF Propagation, operating techniques and current
events for serious DXers, and contest operating at home and abroad. There will be a VE Session for those who want
to obtain their first “ticket” or to upgrade an existing license.
In short there is something for everyone at
The Grumman Amateur Radio Club was represented at HRU 2007
By Bob Wexelbaum, W2ILP
Pat Masterson, KE2LJ and myself were among the forum
moderators at HRU 2007. . HRU 2007 was held at Briarcliffe College
I hope that those who attended HRU2007 enjoyed it and that we
can all be able to attend HRU 2008, which will be held next January. I am submitting this newsletter before HRU
2006 takes place. I will report on it in
the next newsletter. I will then be
able to comparte it with previous HRUs and see if it attracts more or fewer
visitors. In the above message from KC2KY, we learn that the HRU attendence has
increased during each year that it was presented. Will the new regulations that
eliminate CW tests cause more people to become hams and more hams to
upgrade? Will this new incentive result
in a higher attendence at HRU? We might
judge what new interest this can inspire (or not inspire) by the HRU
attendence. We shall see.
Page 3
PRESIDENT’S PAGE
BY
KE2LJ
As Bob notes above,
he and I were both forum moderators at HRU on 1/7. The event was held at
LI Wireless, also is
co-sponsoring a “Long Island Radio Day” along with WCWP at CW Post University
on March 3rd. I have been invited to operate my Tesla Coil at the
event, and there should be lots of good stuff to see, like the spark demo we
had at our Club meeting last year. I am inviting you to attend, so you shall be
hearing from me again on this. We also had our year-end
GRUMMAN AMATEUR RADIO CLUB
MINUTES OF GENERAL MEETING
Since the general meeting was the Holiday Party, No formal
minutes were taken.
Below are the minutes of the Executive Board Meeting
of
Karen KC2OPX
The
meeting was called to order at
TREASURERS REPORT – Ed, WB2EAV REPEATERS – Gordon, KB2UB
Finances
continue to be in good shape. Talk
about moving repeater to Plant 25.
VE REPORT – Bob, W2ILP NET REPORT- Zack, WB2PUE
No applicants applied.
No December
Thursday night had a good turnout.
VE Session was held. Sunday
morning propagation was poor.
OLD
BUSINESS:
Marty
Miller’s will provided for a donation to the GARC.
We discussed
the possibility of seeing that all newsletters are available on the GARC
Internet site.
NEW
BUSINESS:
The
January 2007 meeting will be the first at
The meeting was adjoined at
GARC NETS:
40 Meters:
7.289 MHz at 7:30 AM EST Sundays.
2 Meters
(via repeaters): 146.745 MHz (-.600)at
145.330 MHz (- .600) at
[Tone for
both repeaters is 136.5 Hz]
(ARES/RACES) Mondays
MEETINGS
General Meetings of the GARC
are held on the third Wednesday of each month, starting at
GARC WEB SITE
The web site of the GARC can be found at http://www.qsl.net/wa2lqo/ Webmaster is Pat Masterson KE2LJ. Pictures of GARC activities, archives of
newsletters, roster of members, and other information about the GARC may be
found there.
Page 5
INTERNET LINK OF THE MONTH FOR INTERNERDS
I don’t have any specific URL
to present this month. Last month Dave
Ledo provided us with three useful sites, so I guess that they can keep us busy
for now. I am always interested in new
sites, so if you web explorers find any that would be of interest to us hams…let
me know.
I do want to comment here
that I again visited Joe Speroni’s web site at Http://www.ah0a.org. There are statistics that give the numbers of
hams in
PUZZLE
Here
is another cryptogram:
--AXUI YHHFD--
Solution to December 2006
Cryptogram:
MACHINES ARE IN THE SADDLE
AND RIdE MANKIND.
--RALPH WALDO EMERSON--
Because it was short, the
December cryptogram was difficult to solve.
Having a missing D in RIDE didn’t help.
If you didn’t recognize EMERSON it might be
impossible. I am thus printing a longer
cryptogram for this month. Sorry if you
couldn’t solve the last one. It deserved
a D.
Page
6
GARC VE SESSIONS We
are continuing to proctor exams for all classes of ham licenses on the second
Tuesday of each month starting at The present
exams are: Element 1: 5
WPM CW, [Note that the 5 WPM exam may no longer be required according to the
FCC Report and Order.] Element 2:
Technician Element 3:
General Element 4:
Amateur Extra Class. The fee for
2007 is $14 for all exams taken at one sitting. Applicants
for upgrades should bring a photocopy of their license and any CSCE and their
FRN number. New, first
time applicants should be aware that their Social Security number will be
required on their application form. All applicants should bring driver’s license
or other picture ID. Until
further notice, VE exams will be at Room: Briarcliffe
in All
applicants should contact W2ILP to preregister so as to confirm location. If no applicants apply, exam sessions may
be cancelled. For any information
e-mail: - [email protected]
or phone: - (631)
499-2214 Study
material information is available at the http://www.arrl.org or the http://www.w5yi.org web site. All VECs use
the same Q & A pools. Since the
beginning of the VE program the GARC has provided opportunities to take ham
exams monthly, during all twelve months of every year. Bob
Wexelbaum, W2ILP and
the Grumman VE team. |
CQ de WA2LQO VOL.
80, NO. 1 EDITOR Bob Wexelbaum W2ILP (631) 499-2214 CONTRIBUTING WRITERS PAT MASTERSON, KE2LJ And all the members of GARC (we hope!) CQ de WA2LQO is published monthly by
the Grumman Amateur Radio Club for its members and friends. Send articles
and amateur equipment advertisements to: KE2LJ or W2ILP ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS If you want to
submit articles or amateur equipment ads via e-mail do the following: 1. For
submission direct to editor call him at above number to set up a transfer. 2. For e-mail
transfer: Internet Address I’m now preparing for my presentation at HRU 2007,
which will be history by the time you read this. In addition to my forum
titled Frequency Control – From crystal oscillators to direct digital
synthesis”. I’ll be helping others
run a VE session at HRU2007.
Sometimes our VE sessions get some applicants who fail to pass at
the HRU. At the time I am
writing this I have not been contacted by any prospective applicants and
thus I can’t say if there will be a GARC VE session in January. I have contacted the ARRL-VEC and have
been assured that our scheduled VE sessions will be listed on the ARRL web
site. They advertise for us even
though we use W5YI-VEC. W5YI also
advertises for us. We also rely on
you GARC members to tell others about our VE sessions. On behalf of the GARC and myself I want to wish all a
belated *HAPPY* NEW
*YEAR*2007*. Peace. Vy 73, w2ilp (Increase Loquacious Population) of phone band
hams, even though the number of new CW OPs is certainly going to decline
now. GRUMMAN
AMATEUR RADIO CLUB OFFICERS FOR 2007 President Pat Masterson KE2LJ V01-01 516-346-7125 Vice President Gordon
Sammis KB2UB Retiree 631-666-7463 Secretary Karen
Cefalo KC2OPX 631-754-0974 2Yr Board Member
Zack Zilavy WB2PUE Retiree 631-667-4628 2Yr Board Member
Bob Christen W2FPF 1Yr Board Member
Bob Wexelbaum W2ILP Retiree 631-499-2214 1Yr Board Member Jack Cottrell WA2PYK
Retiree 516-249-0979 Trustee
WA2LQO Ray Schubnel W2DKM Retiree STANDING
COMMITTEE CHAIRMEN Meeting
Programs Contact a Board Member FCC
Exam Coord. Bob Wexelbaum W2ILP
631-499-2214
EDITORIAL
Treasurer Ed Gellender WB2EAV X02-14 516-575-0013
2YrBoard Member Dave Ledo AB2EF
|
TECHNICAL BITS
An
amateur radio station is required by FCC regulations to transmit only within
certain frequency band limits. Modern
transceivers usually contain digital frequency synthesizers and enable the
operator to read out a numeric display of the frequency that can be depended on
to be very accurate. This was not true
in the earlier days of ham radio. Hams
are the only category of radio operators who are permitted to build and
calibrate their own equipment. Before
the popularity of SSB transceivers, most hams built their own transmitters, and
some built their own receivers as well.
The FCC made it perfectly clear that hams would need some method,
independent of their transmitters that would accurately confirm that they were
on legal frequencies. The commercial radio receivers that used vacuum tubes and
analog tuning dials were not always dependable and their resolution of
frequency measurement was limited. A
good receiver might verify that the transmitter was on a legal frequency ,
although its dial could not be read to more than four digits. An absorption wavemeter could verify that RF
was being emitted in a ham band but could not provide accurate frequency
readout. Cavity resonator wave meters are still used to measure microwaves. The
most reliable way measure frequency, before the digital age was the heterodyne
frequency meter. Units of this type were
used during WW2 and the Korean War. These contained an oscillator that could be
beat with the station transmitter. When the beat was zero the transmitter was
on the same frequency as the oscillator. The dial which tuned the oscillator
was hand calibrated and a look up booklet was used to determine the frequency.