Today at the Hamfest I finally picked up a handheld transceiver a year after taking the test. It's a Yaesu VX-2R. I haven't done much transmitting with it, but I've been playing with the wideband receive. It's convenient that they have presets for weather radio, marine radio, and shortwave, but that just makes me wish they had made presets for TV audio.

So, for some reason I've been looking at some of the data modes that they have for amateur radio. It turns out that all of the interesting modes they have for data are on HF which my license doesn't cover. Of course, to upgrade my license, I have to learn Morse code, which is about the only HF mode I have no interest in. They might as well just get rid of the code requirements, since they now have modes which are more noise resistant and lower bandwidth than Morse code. About the only arena where code is still king is equipment simplicity.

http://www.remote.arrl.org/fcc/fcclook.php3?call=KC0OIH