Ladies and Gentlemen: OVERVIEW OF REQUESTED ACTION: Based upon the following information from my members, I urge strongly that we submit comments to the FCC in support of maintaining Morse code testing in some form. Again, based upon input from GLD members, I suggest we continue to support a 5 wpm test level for the Extra Class license level. Obviously some level of activity on the part of our General Counsel would be required to develop and submit these comments; however, this would be a rather perfunctory operation that could be managed nearly in total through a paralegal. BACKGROUND For what, if anything, this may be of interest to you all, the following is a summary of much of the information I received from GLD members in response to one of my polls - this one related to the FCC NPRM&O including deleting all CW testing. The questions I asked were: Question No. 1: Do you operate using CW? ___Yes or ___No. Question No, 2: What do you believe ARRL should do regarding the FCC's proposed rule change? ___ 2.a. Do nothing. Let the FCC do what it chooses without encouragement or protest. ___ 2.b. Fight to have FCC retain a Morse code requirement but do not allow this fight to draw effort from our attempts to obtain additional, critical changes in the Amateur Radio license structure. ___ 2.C. Fight strongly to have FCC retain a Morse code requirement even though doing this will prevent us from engaging in a strong campaign to obtain additional, critical changes in the Amateur Radio license structure. Pull out all the stops for CW. The results are available in more detailed numbers, but the significant facts to me are as follow: CW POLL The results are in from my poll asking what, if anything, ARRL ought to due in response to FCC's Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) to abolish all Morse code testing for amateur licenses. A total of 523 of you participated. Thanks. Overall, you appear to believe ARRL should fight the Commissions' proposal. This preference was expressed by 64% of the total of 523 responders (and by 43% of 213 non-CW ops and 58% of CW ops). Of these who said to fight to retain "a" CW test somewhere in the licensing structure, 20% thought we should engage in the battle but not drop everything else; whereas, 13% thought we ought to drop everything else to fight. Twenty two percent of CW users recommended we not fight FCC's plan to drop all code requirements while 56% of non-CW ops held the same opinion. Of the total 523 responders, 36% said we ought not to fight the FCC NPRM, but that we should let the Commission do what it wants without protesting. A couple of additional revelations of the poll were: 1. 3% of non-CW ops thought we should drop everything else and fight to keep Morse code testing, and 2. 40% of non-CW users thought we ought to fight a measured battle against the NPRM. In other words, 43% of non-code users believe FCC should maintain a CW testing requirement of some sort. Only 57% of non-code users feel there should be no Morse code requirements for amateur licenses. In a poll I took two years ago, 5% of responders said we should fight to the bitter end to save CW testing, 5% of you said to fight to the bitter end to abolish this testing and 95% of you said to fight a measured battle to keep CW testing of some form. Taken together, 327 of 522 total responders to the most recent poll say we should fight to keep code at some level in the Amateur Radio license structure. Only 185 responders said to do nothing to preserve some form of code requirement. Jim Weaver, K8JE Director, Great Lakes Division ARRL; http://www.arrl.org/ 5065 Bethany Rd., Mason, OH 45040 Tel.: 513-459-0142; E-mail: k8je@arrl.org ARRL: The reason Amateur Radio Is! MEMBERS: The reason ARRL Is!