To do or not to do

I have been wondering if I should renew the ham radio license which expires this August. There were a few reasons why I felt reluctant to do so. It is the very first time that I wondered about renewing the license in my career of ham for the past 55 years except during preparing for the entrance exam for med university and studying medicine there.

One problem is that there are too few who enjoy conversational CW. This is the theme I have repeatedly mentioned in this blog. CW itself is declining as a communication mode. If I could find someone who speaks on CW, not just exchanges codes as symbols, he or she seldom converses with me. If I should be luckily able to run across with a ham who converses on this mode, he or she talks about him/herself one way in all likelihood. There could rarely be any dialogue between us. Of course, I know I expect too much to the others. Someone may blame me making monologue by myself, I know. It is still a reality that I feel biting something tasteless when finishing a QSO with such a person. I have been trying to make each QSO meaningful but, so far, am not successful to reverse this overwhelming trend of CW.

The other reason is that the bureaucracy of the governmental office is becoming even worse and there are people devouring the concession of the licensing system. These people are retirees from our FCC or former directors of JARL. I have mentioned of the terrible new regulation of spurious emission by the authority elsewhere in this blog. They require us to pay some "fee" to guarantee the spurious emission below the level ITU has indicated. It is for some old equipments which have not been qualified to fill the spurious emission level by ITU. The problem is that they "guarantee" that only by paper work. Too ridiculous! The license system is leaving further from the ideal comprehensive license system. It is all for the concession for the certain group of people mentioned above. I am feeling disgusted at them.

I thought I had had other things to do for the time I spent for ham radio as well. I am feeling I got mentally as well as physically less capable of things like playing cello, reading or writing etc. I wondered if I should concentrate on those things other than ham radio.

I have told a few friends of mine that I could not decide to quit ham radio or not. They kindly encouraged me to renew it this time. Vic W9RGB told me to "endeavour  to persevere" this situation. Even if I could do with the trend of declination of conversational CW, I might be able to enjoy good chats with friends. I may quit ham radio any time in the future while it might be difficult for me to come back once I do so. It is only a boring conclusion but I decided to renew it this time. For the coming 5 years while the license is valid, I would see what goes on in the license system as well as in the conversational CW.

So I have done it a couple of days ago. For the coming 5 years, if I stay fine, you may hear this call on some bands.