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The World's Most Silly Technology Law - The Morse Code Requirement is Finally Repealed!
Today, the Morse code proficiency test that had been required for a ham radio license was completely dropped from U.S. law. Morse code in 2006? I'll explain what that was about.
Press: OK to quote all of this. Please give proper attribution, and a link if possible.
This was a very acrimonious fight among the hams themselves, with at least 40 years of discussion, and the law finally being dropped in slow increments over the past fifteen years.
In the 1920s, ham radio operators could only use Morse code - other technology came later. Voice really only became the most practical mode for long-distance communications around 1950. Until the Vietnam war, the military needed Morse code operators for wartime efforts, and appreciated that hams were ready to be drafted into the signal corps when needed - and many were. But the government requirement for a test on high-speed Morse code, a rather difficult-to-learn art, stems from a decision in the 1930s to make ham radio just hard enough to learn that it would not be overrun by the less competent. The equipment of that time was hard-pressed to sustain a corps of 80,000 active U.S. hams on the available radio frequencies. Over time the technology improved, making it possible to use more frequencies and less bandwidth, and there are half a million or so hams in the U.S. today.
Although they are less known these days, hams provide some important services to the public. As trained improvisers of radio systems, they are crucial for providing communications in the wake of a disaster that destroys or overloads the existing communications infrastructure. Many hams assisted in the recovery efforts of 9/11 and the New Orleans flooding. Ham radio is also one of the best ways to learn science, engineering, and wireless technology, as it's one of the few ways for individuals to build and control complex electronic and radio systems that would otherwise - in the hands of radio-naive consumers - be the exclusive domain of some large corporation like a cell-phone company.
In the late 1970s, King Hussein of Jordan was one of the first to ask for a relaxation of U.S. Morse code requirements. The holder of ham radio license "JY1", Hussein was frequently heard on the ham radio bands. Hussein interceded with U.S. diplomats and the FCC on behalf of a friend who had medical issues that prevented him from demonstrating Morse Code proficiency, and FCC started granting medical waivers allowing some people to become hams with a slower code test or no test at all.
In 1991, the code requirement was dropped from a "beginner" license that for the most part did not grant hams the capability to communicate over long distances. Then, in 1999, the code requirement for the higher classes of license, with which hams have worldwide range, was dropped from the excruciatingly hard-to-learn 13 words-per-minute to a much easier five words-per-minute. And now, the code requirement is gone from U.S. law and the law of many other countries. To do this, an international treaty had to be modified, as well as the laws of many nations. And the end-game dragged on, as FCC took more than half a decade to carry out two rule-makings that reformed ham radio licensing.
Hams fought among themselves because some thought Morse code was essential and that everyone should "pay their dues" by learning it. In the early 90s, there was a perception among some hams that removal of the code requirement would unleash a flood of incompetent "CB-like" operators among hams, but this fear ended as the Internet siphoned off those without a more serious interest in wireless communication. By 2003 the fight was perceived as having been won by the "no-code" side, but there was a long delay before the "fat lady sung" - when FCC finally ruled.
I founded No-Code International in 1997 to lobby Radio Amateurs and their national and international organizations on this problem. For a while, my personal role was important, as a ham who was well regarded and had passed the 20 word-per-minute code test, and yet was publicly "out of the closet" as opposing code testing, a position vehemently opposed by a dominant older cadre of hams at the time. Fred Maia W5YI, a publisher of books about ham radio and later one of the key figures in the transfer of the operation of amateur radio license testing from FCC to the hams themselves, joined the effort immediately, as did Bill Sohl K2UNK, and the two remain directors of the organization to this day. Carl Stevenson WK3C eventually became executive director, and has carried on much of the work of the organization. And our thanks go to other current and past directors, and the membership.
But although NCI was the public front for the effort, the real fight happened in ARRL, the U.S. national ham radio organization, the amateur radio clubs of other nations, and the international Amateur Radio organization IARU. In all three, there was a gradual shift in opinion from defense of code requirements to a perception that it would be sufficient simply to allow those who wished to communicate using Morse rather than voice or other modes to learn it without government compulsion.
Morse code remains a useful mode of communication, one of the easiest in terms of the equipment necessary, one of the more efficient in terms of use of radio spectrum, and one of the longest in range. Many hams still use it, enjoy it tremendously, and they'll continue to do so.
The remainder of this article reproduces a piece I wrote about the Morse Code issue in 1997, when this question was far from decided. It gives more background about it, and happens to have been the first editorial featured on Technocrat.net .
Bruce Perens K6BP (bruce at perens dot com)
The World's Most Silly Technology Law
Bruce Perens<bruce@perens.com>When we talk about bad technology laws, we're generally discussing cryptography export restrictions or software patents. Here's a look at an older technology law that, though absurd, is still being enforced today. Consider it a warning about how inappropriate and obsolete Internet legislation could become.
A lot of people who are interested in technology become ham radio operators. Ham radio can be very educational in a way the Internet can't touch: you can learn about analog electronics, and about the synthesis of analog and digital that is wireless data communications. You can build your own equipment from the ground up, while most computer folks only get to plug cards together. You can communicate around the world without an Internet - with nothing but air between you and the person you're talking to. You can even call up Mir or the Space Shuttle, or operate one of many satellites that hams have built and had launched as "hitch-hikers" along with commercial space payloads.
So, with all of that fun to have, why don't more people do it? The world's most silly technology law is stopping them. In order to be licensed to operate a ham radio station with international range, you must pass a test on the ability to receive Morse code by ear.
Now of course it's been a long time since the invention of the microphone, but hams are still compelled to learn to read dots and dashes as if they were Western Union telegraphers from the 1800s! Specifically, U.S. hams are required by the FCC to pass a Morse code test at 13 words per minute to operate below 30 MHz, and there are similar laws in other nations. Although there's a no-code license in the U.S. that allows operation above 30 MHz, those frequencies are, in general, useful to communicate across a city rather than around the world.
There was a logical reason to pass this law in the 1920s. Military stations needed a way to order the hams off of the air if the country went to war, or if the hams were interfering with the military stations during peacetime. Since the military didn't have any voice radios, they required the hams to learn Morse Code so that they'd understand when they were given government orders. Another reason for having the hams know Morse was that the government wanted telegraphers for communication during wartime. It took a long time to train a telegrapher, so it was easier to just draft a ham who had already learned the code.
When the International Telecommunications Union treaties were drawn, this Morse code requirement was included in them. Thus, it became international law, and countries that signed the treaty (almost every country) were bound to require Morse code of their hams. The treaty still exists today - in fact it's been expanded to govern most international communications by radio, telephone, satellite, and even the Internet. If the FCC decides to drop Morse code testing today, the U.S. will be violating this treaty. Thus, to change the law we may have to get the ITU to meet in Geneva, and have representatives of all countries vote. The problem is that ITU's agenda is full until about 2005 - they only meet once every few years, and they're not even willing to consider the question until then. Getting all countries to vote the way you want is no picnic, either.
With the advent of voice radios, you would have thought that Morse code regulations would wither and die. However, many hams were enamored of Morse because they thought it helped keep the "riff-raff" off of the air. Learning Morse code was a long and difficult initiation that would keep the only-casually-interested person from becoming a ham. Around 1936, ARRL, a national ham radio organization in the U.S., felt that the ham frequencies would become saturated if many more people became hams. They asked FCC to raise the Morse code testing speed requirement to 12.5 words-per-minute, as this was felt to be difficult enough to keep most people out of ham radio. FCC didn't like the .5 in 12.5 and they raised the rate to 13.
Today, ARRL wants to back off of the code requirement somewhat. Over-saturation of the ham frequencies isn't the problem they predicted, even though there are many more hams now than there were in 1936. ARRL still hasn't been convinced that code testing should be dropped entirely, but they have asked the FCC for the code testing speed to be only 5 words per minute, which is a lot easier to learn than 13. Although they can lower the speed, FCC probably can not drop the code testing even if they want to, because of the international treaty. Meanwhile, the educational opportunities of Amateur radio are still being wasted due to this silly law.
Unfortunately, many older hams who have already passed high-speed code tests are fighting to keep the tests in place. They don't really want newcomers "spoiling" their frequencies. Some of them have even asked me to let ham radio "die with dignity" rather than be polluted by people who don't know code!
In 1997, I founded No-Code International to fight the Morse Code testing requirement for Amateur Radio licensing. NCI has been growing rapidly, and today has members in 36 countries. We're lobbying ITU, FCC, and most national governments to drop Morse code testing. The following links will help you learn more about this.
[Editor: some of these links are dead and are here for historical purposes]
About the author: Bruce Perens holds an Amateur Extra, the highest grade of ham radio license, for which he passed a 20-word-per-minute Morse code exam and a much-better-justified series of tests on electronics, radio operations, and safety. His ham radio callsign is K6BP. He's currently building a satellite station intended to talk to the International Space Station's ham radio.