This is the best site review I can have from someone who is slightly illiterate and is taken from the link I have on the eHam.net website. I am confused by them using the word “obsolete” as I thought it meant no longer manufactured or no longer used but in the Morse context it is certainly the wrong word to use.
If I used obsolete in the same context as my reviewer then all amateur radio is obsolete as it is easier and more reliable to use the Internet to communicate than buying expensive equipment and stringing out bits of wire all over the place for a communication method that can be very unreliable and outdated.
The next reviewer on eHam.net makes doing this site and helping others worthwhile “Great reading for one who wants to learn CW This obsolete mode will out last the Number 1’s” so I don’t think I will roll over and give up yet I will still keep pounding away on my pump handle.
Since the comment originated at the eHam site, I think I’m safe in assuming it was from one of my fellow Colonists here in the USA. Your comment about being slightly illiterate is probably a bit off, and might better have been stated as “considerably ignorant”. We’ve undergone a considerable dumbing-down of the amateur radio hobby here in the past few years, partly attributable to the ARRL’s efforts to increase the number of licensees without regard to the quality of the recruits.
Anyway, even after more than a half century of using Morse code, I’m still amazed at how effective it is today on the CW bands and how I can exchange information with others whose weak signals can barely be heard in the noise.
The idea that Morse is obsolete has been around for a long time. My feelings are that it comes from people who cannot be bothered to learn the code and therefore have no real idea of what it is about. The increasing popularity of the mode suggests it is far from obsolete so lets keep pounding away and ignore such ill informed comments.
Obsolete – no way! Is walking obsolete because we have cars? BTW I have my occaisional correspondent K1OIK Burt to thank for that metaphor. I’m not in the first flush of youth, OK I’m 45, but I am a new ham and CW is fascinating to me for historical reasons, and reasons of it being such an effective and yet simple mode. No computers are needed. Just a radio, key, tuner and antenna and a noptepad and pencil. I hope to be operating from a campsite in a few years time…
all the best, Scotty
Morse code obsolete? Ever think that other people think that Ham Radio is obsolete? I guess anyone who thinks the code is obsolete has never been in a remote location in a disaster area and had every method of communication fail, prior to plugging the paddle into the keyer. I have. There are AM ops on the air…RTTY…heck I’m a Winlink op but I don’t think other modes as obsolete.
It’s a hobby…not a mission to Mars.
CW (Morse Code) is deffinitely ‘Obsolete’ this person has no idea whatsoever. How much power does he need to reach 5 or 6000 miles away using a wire antenna? I use 30 watts Max on CW and get a 599 report everytime even with qrm (Interference from other users) can he do the same using SSB? I doubt it very much. Also does he know that there is a Key jack still installed on the radios in commercial airplanes, just in case the voice side breaks down.