Well, the Morse requirement is going to go sooner or later. We might as well face it, and tell our members that that's how it's going to be. I think we should expend our efforts in areas where we may ultimately prevail, like spectrum protection. What we might do is roll out some programs for the preservation of Morse. We do some of this already - code practice runs and so forth. We should be creating or beefing up some voluntary certifications. We should be developing programs for the encouragement of its use. And we should have some of these in the works BEFORE we announce an official Board position. Since we ought to have that position prepared by the time the July meeting is complete, we have about 3 weeks to get this all together. Waiting until December to establish a position would be more of the "reactive rather than proactive" stuff for which we have become so famous. Mike K1TWF ----------------------------------- Law Office of Michael N. Raisbeck Phone: (978) 250-1236 Fax: (978) 250-0432 Web: www.mraisbeck.com Email: k1twf@arrl.net CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This email may contain privileged and confidential information intended only for the above-named recipient. If you have received this in error, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, or copying is strictly prohibited. In such case, please notify us by reply email and delete this message. -----Original Message----- From: W5JBP@aol.com [mailto:W5JBP@aol.com] Sent: Friday, July 04, 2003 10:26 AM To: arrl-odv Subject: [ARRL-ODV:8991] Re: Morse requirement Yes, Dave, tomorrow we would not. I do have a question however, when did you "abstain" on a vote regarding 25.5? I was not aware of such a vote at the WRC. The question is to each of you on the board, what do you want to do? You know as well as I, come Monday there will be a number of petitions submitted to the FCC for elimination of element 1. This is another opportunity to be as popular as we were during the implementation of incentive licensing. Damned if we do, damned if we don't. Those who will be petitioning the FCC know that we will be having a board meeting in a few weeks, and will have to deal with the issue one way or the other. Time to put on the kevlar. Jim Haynie, W5JBP