Actually, the F.C.C, which licenses hams and (Continued on Page 66) monitors their frequencies, cares not at all what they talk about, so long as they keep it clean and tuneless. Ham etiquette looks down on political and religious discussions, but the F.C.C. prohibits only “obscenity, indecency, profanity”—and music.

MORE effective these days than either government rules or self‐regulation in limiting hams' discussion of politics—or anything else—with the Senator is the eagerness of thousands of them to engage in it. “It's impossible to talk to him,” reports one New. Yorker who has been trying since June. “Since long before the convention, every nut in the country with a rig is listening for his call. On an off‐chance you may hear it, but you haven't got time to answer before a dozen other voices come on trying to respond, breaking in on each other, shouting each other down.”

This is a display of bad airways manners shocking to longtime hams, who regard it as “strictly CB.” CB is the currently controversial Citizens Band, a small number of radio frequencies that were set aside in 1958 for short‐range transmissions (a radius of 20 miles or thereabouts). Intended for emergency use by smallboat owners, outdoorsmen and fire fighters and by businesses that might find what amounts to a walkietalkie setup useful, CB has become to ham radio what Beatles' records are to vintage Caruso.

To avoid excluding potential users who might need it, CB license requirements were made fairly casual. A CB operator need only be 18 and able to spare an $8 registration fee. Most sets are portable—about the size of a lunch box. The chief requirement for operating them is the ability to locate and press the “talk” button when one is transmitting.

IN six years, CB has attracted some 700,000 users—nearly three times the number of hams. Many CB operators have a sense of responsibility, but in some parts of the country they find themselves crowded off the air by CBabies —the operators who take pleasure in interfering with other peoples' transmission or youngsters who find it essential to keep up their end of a beach party conversation while waterskiing offshore. To curtail such frivolities, the F.C.C. recently announced it would cut the number of frequencies available for CB this November.

In contrast to CB operators, hams are governed by a fairly tight F.C.C. code that sets out not only the frequencies in which they may operate, but the procedures for transmitting messages. These, virtually global in application, were worked out 50 years ago in agreements drawn up by various interested nations, which makes ham radio the only hobby ever to be the subject of international treaties.

In addition, all hams must be licensed by the F.C.C. A Novice License may be issued to any citizen who can receive and send International Morse Code at the rate of five words per minute and can pass a test on elementary radio theory. There are no age or other restrictions, and in recent years, licenses have been issued to at least one 8‐year‐old boy and one man of 87. After a year, the novice takes exams for the standard, or General Class, license. This requires the ability to work with code at 13 words per minute and to pass a considerably stiffer written test. Special Class licenses encourage hams to pursue a variety of technical interests.