The recovery I'm thinking of is more cultural than mere numbers.
I see, I don't recall ever hearing a "cultural decline" described as a "downward spiral" but OK.
....Amateur radio needs to be about emergency communications, experimentation, and people communicating.
True enough, but then CW is a mode for communicating and in low power emergency situations with no digital modes available it may be the only mode that gets through.
....When someone got to 20 WPM then they "won" and moved on to the next contest....
I can recall many hams achieving CW speeds WELL above 20 wpm. In fact I read one interview where the guy said he wasn't even listening for individual letters but entire words.
When I got my license...
I cannot help but notice you don't have a call sign displayed. I've never met or known any ham who was not proud to display his call sign.
My best guess is that they got fed up with the infighting over Morse code testing and just went off to do their experimentation in Part 15, Part 95, Part 5, in industry, in wired networks...
Possibly....I suppose, but seems highly unlikely. Given anyone doing the experimenting would already be licensed to begin with.
Morse code testing has been ingrained into the culture of ham radio to the point that it is still being brought up more than a decade after it was removed. It's gone, and it's not coming back.
I hardly see a problem with the first part and you're right I doubt seriously a code test will ever come back. But then I never said it was ,I simply lamented that I wish they had not eliminated it completely.
I'll believe that the Amateur Radio Service in the USA has recovered from the shackles of Morse code when people stop bringing up the possibility of restoring Morse code testing by the FCC.
Not to worry, all us older guys fluid in or formerly fluid in CW will die eventually. Fortunately, according to you, the hundreds of thousands fewer Hams are only numbers and won't matter.
Morse code testing was dragging ham radio down.
I assume here you mean the "cultural decline" you eluded to earlier, since the numbers don't matter?
The testing is gone now but the culture of being a "real ham" by proving one's Morse code speed is still tripping it up.
"Cultural tripping" I presume??
If you enjoy Morse code then I'm fine with that.
I did and plan to again. I'm relearning Morse code now that I have the Extra exam behind me. I'll be perfectly content with 10 - 15 wpm.
Just don't expect every ham to be as excited about it as you, and don't consider someone that doesn't enjoy Morse code as some kind of second class citizen within Amateur radio.
Oh I won't
Ham radio will have recovered from this rut it's in when status in Amateur radio is determined by one's technical skill, rather than their Morse code speed.
I assume you mean some manner of "cultural rut".....since the numbers don't matter, of course.
Seems to me CW is a technical skill and a potentially very useful one at that, at any speed.