NO-CODE INTERNATIONAL
                       Candidates statement, and
                     CALL FOR ADDITIONAL CANDIDATES.

Please pass this message on to other Radio Amateurs, especially NCI members.



                         NO-CODE: THE END-GAME

You may know me: I'm Bruce Perens K6BP. I'm the founder of No-Code
International. Outside of Amateur Radio, I'm probably best known as
one of the founders of the Open Source movement in computer software,
and an early Linux developer. You can read my bio at http://perens.com/ .

When I started NCI in 1997, I never dreamed that we'd achieve our goals so
quickly - but we are most of the way there. Last year, the International
Amateur Radio Union, composed of national radio societies from all
over the world, voted to ask for the removal of the international treaty
provision requiring Morse Code testing for Radio Amateurs. Even ARRL voted
in favor of removing code requirements from the (international) Radio
Regulations. There is no remaining credible opposition to NCI's cause
on the international level. It's certain that code requirements will be
removed during a future World Radio Conference, hopefully the one in 2003.

The battle then moves on to the national front, or should I say 204
national fronts. But this might not be much of a fight. National
Amateur Radio societies that lobbied to preserve code testing would
likely be opposed by their own governments and citizens. The U.S. FCC
has already stated that their only reason for 5 WPM code testing is to
satisfy the international treaty requirement. As its demographics change,
the worldwide Amateur population becomes progressively less enamored of
code requirements. Even pro-code organizations like FISTS have wisely
concentrated on promoting the use of Morse on the air, rather than
on the test. Thus, I don't see it as a winning strategy for any radio
society, even ARRL, to continue to drag its feet on code testing once the
international requirement ends. We won't fall asleep at the switch: NCI
will persevere until the day that code requirements have been eliminated in
every nation. But the end-game calls for a very different NCI from the one
we've had up to now.

NCI has always been an adversary, and now it's time for us to be a
partner. Our opposition has conceded enough that it's time for NCI to
reconcile with them. If we don't do so, we could snatch defeat from the
jaws of victory by motivating new opposition in the no-code battle. But
I am not confident that some of the present NCI directors are ready for
the challenge of cooperation with their old enemies. A number of them
cling to a rabid and vindictive ARRL-phobia in a time when little more
than watchfulness is appropriate. Thus, I am calling for the formation
of a slate of candidates to bring NCI into the future, as a partner in
the rehabilitation of Amateur Radio.

The CW requirements battle, carried on since the 1950's, has been a
crippling one for Amateur Radio. In a time when we should have been
moving the Amateur Service into the future, many of us dug our heels in
to the past, diverting our collective energy from the healthy growth of
our service and the defense of our radio spectrum allocation. We Radio
Amateurs, through our own short-sightedness, took a vital Service and
transformed it into technology's endangered species. But the Amateur
Radio Service remains critically important as an educational tool. Amateur
Radio is still the only practical means of maintaining a worldwide corps
sufficient to improvise effective communications in any emergency, no
matter how large. The social benefits of the Amateur Service, and the
many good attributes of the Amateur Radio hobby, must be preserved. All
Amateurs must unite to achieve that goal.

For NCI to take its appropriate role in the end-game of the no-code battle
means cooperation with national societies like ARRL, and with IARU
on the international front. Although I was bitterly opposed to ARRL's
long-standing policy in favor of high-speed code testing, my goal has
always been to get them to change their minds, not to defeat them.
I've maintained my ARRL membership during the entire existence of
NCI, and was lucky enough to be able to donate $1000 to ARRL's frequency
defense fund last year. Every U.S. Amateur should donate whatever they can to
that fund - go to https://www.arrl.org/forms/fdefense/fdefense.html to do so,
or read about the fund at http://www.arrl.org/news/features/2002/01/14/2?nc=1

It's time to re-build NCI's leadership. Any person who was an NCI
member on December 31, 2001 can be a candidate for director, and can
vote in the election to be held no later than April 30. NCI directors
can volunteer to attend government and radio society meetings on behalf
of the organization, but most of them do little more than discuss the
organization's policy and vote their directions via email. Thus, the
load of being an NCI director is a manageable one for a busy person. We
need new blood, and we need to question our existing leadership about
how they will bring our organization into the future, if they are to
continue in their positions at all.

Please write to me and tell me how you feel about this, especially if
you are willing to serve as a candidate.

	Many Thanks

	Bruce Perens K6BP
	Incumbent NCI Director