From: trey@ut-emx.uucp (Trey Garlough)
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.misc
Subject: Re: ARRL Bulletin 68 ARLB068
Date: 24 Jul 92 15:15:02 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas

In article <1992Jul22.211331.18117@news.acns.nwu.edu> lapin@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Gregory Lapin) writes:
| I agree with this - the absurdity is that, at least concerning my 9 year
| old, young people have no problem with CW - my daughter took one day to
| memorize half the alphabet and still remembers it a year later with very
| little practice in between.  The written exam is another issue. 
| 
| I expect to see most kids in that age range to enter ham radio as Novices.
| No-code tech is best for those who are old enough the understand the
| technical questions and don't care to learn CW.

Yep.  This is exactly the way it is.  Of course there are now question 
pools and stuff that help overcome the difficulty of the written exam,
but all we had back in the early 70's was the ARRL License Manual, and
it was *crraap!*  I wanted to learn the stuff I needed to know to get
my ham ticket, but it was really hard.  When I would ask other hams
(grown ups, of course) what I could do the learn the stuff, they would
say things like "read the ARRL Handbook."

I took this advice to heart and started reading.  The Handbook is a really
cool book, but not for kids.  One of the things I had a big interest in
was how to make worldwide contacts on the radio.  People would say
things like "15 and 20 are good during the day, 40 and 80 are nighttime
bands" and I thought "this stuff is great -- how do I learn more?"
And I was told "read the ARRL handbook."  So I did.  Imagine your
eight year old child trying to read this stuff, ugh.  This is the
first part of the first section of Chapter 19 of the 1973 Handbook.

Characteristics of Radio Waves

"Radio waves, like other forms of electromagnetic radiation such as light,
travel at a speed of 300,000,000 meters per second in free space, and can
be relflected, refracted, and diffracted.

"An electromagnetic wave is composed of moving fields of electric and 
magnetic force.  The lines of force in the electric and magnetic fields
are at right angles, and are mutually perpendicular to the direction
of travel.  A simple representation of a wave is shown in Fig. 19-1.
In this drawing the electric lines are perpendicular to the earth and 
the magnetic lines are horizontal.  They could, however, have any
position with respect to earth so long as they remain perpendicular
to each other.

"The plane containing the continuous lines of electric and magnetic force
shown by the grid- or mesh-like drawing in Fig. 19-1 is called the wave
front.

"The meduim in which electromagnetic waves travel has a marked influence
on the speed with which they move.  When the meduim is empty space the
speed, as stated above, is 300,000,000 meters per second.  It is almost,
but not quite, that great in air, and is much less in some other 
substances.  In dielectrics, for example, the speed is inversely
proportional to the square root of the dielectric constant of the 
material."

and so on.

I don't think the math was much of a problem.  I knew what a square
root was when I was eight.  I think the language was more of a 
problem.  I could look up "dielectric" and "constant" in the 
dictionary, but I really had no feel for what a "dielectric constant" 
was.  I have seen enough of this language now that I no longer permit
myself to be buffaloed by it.

I am also a lot smarter now about how to read things than I was back
then.  When people said "read the Handbook" I felt I needed to read
*all* of it, so I would start and the beginning of a chapter and plow
ahead.  Now I am old enough to realize that the material cited above
is *crraap* and that I should have really skipped ahead a few pages
to the section called "Propagation in the bands below 30 MHz."

When I hear people starting to get shrill about getting youngsters
involved in ham radio, I often take note, especially when they start
talking about CW being an obsticle.  I think this problem with the
heavy language is much more of an issue than CW for kids.  CW is
a closed thing.  There are about about 40 symbols you need to learn
and either you can send/copy it at 5 WPM, or you can't.  The technical
stuff is much more open ended.  Nobody every really learns all of it.
Figuring out what you need to know and what you don't need to know is
much harder at that age.

--Trey, WN4KKN/6
  trey@tgv.com
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.misc