Tell me more, Byron. No Morse code? Things must have changed lately.

To which Byron replies:

Let me gently correct that, just a smidgen. We still have International Morse Code. In fact, it's one of the few modes I'm really interested in these days, although at several thousand characters a minute, via meteor scatter, which IS a radical change.

What I meant to imply is that YOU'RE not required to show Morse proficiency at all. We changed those rules in '91, I believe it was.

When you say data communication, what exactly do you mean?

It's a VERY tough question to answer, since there are SO many kinds of data that you're allowed to send, once you spend the seven bucks on that lifetime Amateur Radio license.

For example, you can send digitized video snapshots (or full video if you wish) of yourself, the inside of your RV, or a passing deer in the campground if you like, to other radio amateurs all over the world. And beyond, actually, given that cosmonauts and astronauts frequently have ham radio gear aboard....

You can't get online can you?

Depends what you mean by "online". We hams have been online for decades before the Internet came along. And, if you think about it, accessing an HTML page would be very simple -- it's only a tiny text page, after all. But if you're anxious to surf the web by way of amateur radio circuits, that's being done in a VERY few communities right now, but generally speaking, it's just not the sort of thing that we tend to make happen.

And I think one of the reasons for that is because radio amateurs tend to be inter-communicating types of people. They want to communicate with each other. And the more difficult (or seemingly difficult) it is, the happier they are. There's not an enormous amount of interest in web surfing on ham radio, because that's just not what we like to do. If we wanted to do that, we'd just pick up the phone and do it. Ho hum. BUT, if we wanted to experience the thrill of using itty bitty amounts of power to talk with, or exchange data or pictures with, an ole friend in Chiba Japan, or Vladivostock -- perhaps with equipment that we built from scratch -- then, well, that's a challenge.

'nuff pontificating for now!

Byron Hurder, KY1T