One of these years, I suppose, there will be no CW. Another of these years, I suppose, there will be no Amateur Radio or it will be so different that no one today will recognize it. It is fortunate from my viewpoint that each of these "one of these days" will be well in the future and I won't have to deal with the transition to whatever comes afterward. This said, we are talking about legal requirements and legal requirements, only. Let's begin to make a distinction between legal requirements and preferences. No one, as I understand, required the old spark gappers to begin switching to CW (until after the move to CW had been well established), but they switched in large par. No one required our predecessors to begin using AM, but they began to use it. No one required "us" to begin using FM vs. AM on V/UHF, but we have essentially done this to the exclusion of AM. No one has required many of the "low code" operators of later years to use Morse, but many have and these are becoming good ops. No one to my knowledge expects FCC to BAN the use of CW so there is no reason to expect CW will dry up and blow away provided the Board and staff come up with ways to continue to interest people in it. If we can't create interest in CW, it will go away from amateur use whether it is required for licensing or not. My sense is that we as the Board are in an essentially win:win situation or at least a win:no lose situation if we play our cards correctly. My sense concerning the cards is to poll the MEMBERSHIP to determine their thinking (yes, we may already know it, but lets bring them into the discussion). If there is a clear-cut member-view as we may expect, I think we should promote their thinking. If there is no clear-cut member-view, we can thank the members for expressing their wishes and as the Board can determine what we determine. If the membership overwhelmingly wants to keep Morse requirements and if we petition FCC to do this, what do we have to lose? If FCC says "no" as we would expect, it isn't our fault and we say so very loudly and prominently. If FCC surprisingly agrees with the keep-code position, we have gained another victory - on behalf of our members. Either result shows we value member input which isn't bad. The admonition that in trial one does not ask a question for which he/she does not know the answer is quite accurate. As a defense witness, I sank the plaintiff attorney any number of times by knowing what he wanted me to say, leading him to where he thought he had me and then shooting him out of the water with my fully truthful-but-unexpected answer. The Morse situation is different; however, provided we are smart about how we follow through. Will every member be happy with whatever the outcome is? No, but we can make most of them happy WITH THEIR ARRL. This is my opinion for what, if anything, it may be worth. Tnx, 73, Jim Jim Weaver, K8JE, Director, Great Lakes Division k8je@arrl.org - Tel. 513-459-0142 ARRL -- The reason Amateur Radio is! GREAT LAKES DIVISION CONVENTION, September 6, 2003: See http://greatlakes.arrl.org