Ham Radio Aero Mobile & Morse Code

I think most of you know that I've been operating aircraft ham radio mobile
since the days of dynamotors and vacuum tubes (yes, I put a Heathkit "Twoer"
in the Cessna 120 using a surplus wwii dynamotor back in 1968).

For those of you who have been sorta thinking that some day it would be nice
to have a ham rig in the airplane, for emergency if nothing else, but that
the morse code requirement kept you away, the FCC just did away with the
morse code for all license classes. Read about it he

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/12/15/104/?nc=1


No more excuses for not having that ticket now, is there?

{;-)


Jim

(Of course, for those of us who thought that the code was long since
anachronistic, it is sort of like the FAA dropping the requirement to know
how to manipulate the manual spark advance on the magneto.)

RST Engineering wrote:

No more excuses for not having that ticket now, is there?

{;-)

Wow. Well that's a good thing. I got my extra class license
back when you had to send and receive 20 WPM. On the other
hand, I have no problem decoding VOR/LOC or NDM identifiers.
A lot of the newer radios even decode those for you now.

I've had a ham license since about 1985, Extra since about 1987. I
tried, I really did, to get interested in CW. I tried my damnest to get
some countries on CW. Just gave up. I have about 185 with voice but
the code was a dinosaur in the 80's, now the whole thing is laughable.
I have a two meter rig here at the computer and an antenna on the roof
but zero interest in it since the late 80's. I use the radio to listen
to the airplanes since it has AM in it. Maybe one of these days.....




RST Engineering wrote:
I think most of you know that I've been operating aircraft ham radio mobile
since the days of dynamotors and vacuum tubes (yes, I put a Heathkit "Twoer"
in the Cessna 120 using a surplus wwii dynamotor back in 1968).

For those of you who have been sorta thinking that some day it would be nice
to have a ham rig in the airplane, for emergency if nothing else, but that
the morse code requirement kept you away, the FCC just did away with the
morse code for all license classes. Read about it he

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/12/15/104/?nc=1


No more excuses for not having that ticket now, is there?

{;-)


Jim

(Of course, for those of us who thought that the code was long since
anachronistic, it is sort of like the FAA dropping the requirement to know
how to manipulate the manual spark advance on the magneto.)

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:17:07 -0800, "RST Engineering"
wrote in
:

... the FCC just did away with the
morse code for all license classes. Read about it he

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/12/15/104/?nc=1

....
(Of course, for those of us who thought that the code was long since
anachronistic, it is sort of like the FAA dropping the requirement to know
how to manipulate the manual spark advance on the magneto.)

Interesting enough, the Army's first aviation transmitter (c. WW-I)
contained no vacuum tubes, and only permitted Morse code transmission:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...3739&rd=1&rd=1

The aircraft was used as an artillery spotter, who would tap out the
locations of enemy guns to an SCR-54-A crystal receiver on the ground.
The person on the ground communicated with the aircraft with flags.

http://www.stonevintageradio.com/des...68.108.25 1.9

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 10:42:43 -0800, Richard Riley
wrote:

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 09:17:07 -0800, "RST Engineering"
wrote:

I think most of you know that I've been operating aircraft ham radio mobile
since the days of dynamotors and vacuum tubes (yes, I put a Heathkit "Twoer"
in the Cessna 120 using a surplus wwii dynamotor back in 1968).

For those of you who have been sorta thinking that some day it would be nice
to have a ham rig in the airplane, for emergency if nothing else, but that
the morse code requirement kept you away, the FCC just did away with the
morse code for all license classes. Read about it he

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2006/12/15/104/?nc=1


No more excuses for not having that ticket now, is there?

Very cool, Jim, thanks. I got my Technician a couple of months ago
(KI6GFO) and I wasn't going to take it any further. Maybe I'll take
the next step.

You can take away my J-38 when you can pry it from my cold, dead
fingers, pilgrim!

Don

kontiki wrote:
RST Engineering wrote:

No more excuses for not having that ticket now, is there?

{;-)

Wow. Well that's a good thing. I got my extra class license
back when you had to send and receive 20 WPM. On the other
hand, I have no problem decoding VOR/LOC or NDM identifiers.
A lot of the newer radios even decode those for you now.

Any body in the DC area ready for the test the last weekend
of February, I will be your DPE. I've been running the tests
at the VWS Winterfest for 15 years plus now.

The funniest VOR ID story was I was riding in the back of the
plane while my wife (also an Advanced class ham) was doing her
primary training in. The instructor and her had dialed up
the EMI VOR and they were getting screwy readings. They
actually had the ID turned up through out this whole process.
I finally had to point out to them that it was sending TEST
over and over.

When I took flying lessons the high tech radio in the airplane (the
only high tech thing on that old piece of junk) was a Narco SuperHomer
(if you ain't old enough to know what that is, turn the page)
Anyway, as we got into the XC portion of training the instructor would
tell me to fly to the xxx VOR.. I would consult the chart, dial up the
appropriate frequency, turn up the audio and listen to the CW id...
"Have you got it?", he would shout (we didn't know enough to use
headsets in those days)
"Yup."...
"How do you know?"
"It's sending xxx." I would reply...
He would glare at me and hollar, "Bull ****, you didn't copy it down."
Then he would laboriously use an old, well chewed, yellow pencil to
mark the dots and dashes on a scrap of paper... Then fight with the
chart to get it unfolded to the flap where the Morse Code was printed
out next to the letters of the alphabet... Sure enough it would turn
out to be xxx... He would glare at me and pout... Then give me the
lecture that if I didn't learn to do it right I was going to fail my
check ride... He must have done that 20 times during my training and
no amount of explaining that I could hear the morse code letters just
like he was tallking to me, satisified him... He never believed me,
"you're just lucky you tuned in the right vor but someday it's going to
bite you.", he would growl...
Gawd rest his grumpy soul... He was flying food to starving refugees in
Africa when rebels used a heat seeking missile to blow the wing off his
DC6... The fathers of the very same sonsabitches that are raping and
murdering over there right now...

denny / k8do

Denny wrote:

He would glare at me and hollar, "Bull ****, you didn't copy it down."
Then he would laboriously use an old, well chewed, yellow pencil to
mark the dots and dashes on a scrap of paper..

My flight instructor tuned several stations and had me identify
them. After that he got off my case for not looking at the dots
and dashes on the paper.

Makes me think of the limerick about the telegraphers
daughter.



"Ron Natalie" wrote in message
...
| Denny wrote:
|
| He would glare at me and hollar, "Bull ****, you didn't
copy it down."
| Then he would laboriously use an old, well chewed,
yellow pencil to
| mark the dots and dashes on a scrap of paper..
|
| My flight instructor tuned several stations and had me
identify
| them. After that he got off my case for not looking at
the dots
| and dashes on the paper.

On Sun, 17 Dec 2006 11:40:46 -0600, "Jim Macklin"
wrote:

Makes me think of the limerick about the telegraphers
daughter.

Did it?

Don