Nancy,

NB>Thank you for the translation... my knowledge of Morse Code is very
NB>rudimentary, as I've never gone for a ham license...  

  The FCC dropped the Morse Code requirement for getting a ham radio
license in February, 2007. Now, folks are learning Morse Code because
they WANT to...and NOT because they HAVE to.

NB>Was that your choice, or was the the usual assignment for novices...?

  The FCC normally issues callsigns in a sequential format...such as
N5VLX, N5VLY, N5VLZ (which was my first callsign), N5VMA, N5VMB, N5VMC,
etc. The 1x3 calls (1 letter, a number (the callsign district) and 3
letters) have all been used, but are still available in some cases as
"vanity callsigns". One no longer has to pay a fee for the vanity
callsign, but there's a 21 day waiting period after requesting one.
Also, the first callsign a ham radio operator gets is
"sequential"...they have no choice in that one.

NB>And bbsing isn't quite the same either, not being time-dependent for
NB>connection...   But it's the same echo, anyway.... 

  That's why I like QWK mail...where I can spend my time offline reading
and replying...saving my online time for games. That was more important
on a dial-up BBS, but there aren't many of them left (I think less than
20 still exist). There's around 400 telnet BBS's around the world, and
those can be accessed from anywhere, without long distance
charges...unless they have to pay long distance to reach their ISP.

Daryl

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