There was an archery exhibition/demo at a summer fete earlier in the summer that I was watching
and these folks had serious skill! I know very little about it, but the distance they were from the target
was a lot further than I would of imagined. And as John mentioned, the ages that were doing the show
ranged from teenagers to people well into their 70's. I was tempted to have a go when they offered,
but was dragged away by my 3yr old so he could get his face painted
From what I can gather, the morse requirement was dropped because back when it was a necessity,
the services that we shared our bands with still used morse, so it was needed so we could hear them
telling us to get lost and we could reply that we understood what had been asked of us. Mainly shipping.
Now that the majority of services that used morse use other digital modes or have left HF altogether,
the morse requirement was dropped. Though some countries still keep this as a requirement for a license.
Funnily enough, the amount of people wanting to learn the code now because they want to, has risen!
Probably, because as its no longer a legal requirement, the pressure is off and it can be done because
you want to.
I still hear and know people who work far far more stations using morse than voice as regardless of how old it is,
it works when most other modes fail. A simple on and off is a lot easier to de-cypher when the bands are noisy.
I do agree with Peter though, that it should have been/will be replaced with something similar.
Maybe a segment on PSK,RTTY,SSTV or other data modes. Ones that effectively took their place.
Author
Topic: Amateur radio and Archery (Read 4621 times)