Rick, that wording was adopted in Guatemala in 2001 and was unchanged in the revised Resolution. It was taken from the IARU Region 3 Darwin Conference recommendation in September 2000, which reads in part: "IARU Region 3 strongly supports Morse code as an effective and efficient mode of communication. However, it believes that the position of Morse as a qualifying criterion for an HF amateur license is not relevant to the healthy future of amateur radio." Dave K1ZZ -----Original Message----- From: Roderick, Rick (aol.com) Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2003 11:59 AM To: arrl-odv Subject: [ARRL-ODV:9406] Re: Other IARU AC actions In a message dated 9/11/2003 11:21:19 AM Eastern Daylight Time, dsumner@arrl.org writes:

further recognizing that the position of Morse as a qualifying criterion for an HF amateur license is no longer relevant to the healthy future of amateur radio,

Oh bull. CW is the second most used mode. Come on. I think this wording stinks and I'm disappointed you and Rod didn't do something about the wording short of standing on your head. Some other wording could have been used, or simply these words not said at all, and achieved the same result. Abstain votes makes it look like we side-stepped the issue. OK, we can say we didn't vote "for it" per se, but we sure can't say we voted against it, either, and for that reason it will look like we endorse the notion that CW "is no longer relevant to the healthy future of amateur radio." 73, K5UR