Thank you Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, and fellow CW enthusiasts. Mr President, may I congratulate you on your elevation to the presidency, and also the First-Class CW Operators' Club on its 70th anniversary – a remarkable milestone. I need hardly tell you how much this award means to me, especially when I see the list of previous recipients.

I've always liked awards – for a long time I imagined that some day I'd be an Olympic champion, waving from an open-top bus to the cheering crowds along O'Connell Street. Of course, my options are more limited these days. Anything that needs running, jumping or lifting is probably out of the question. Perhaps I'll try pistol shooting. Apart from a little practice, all you need is a steady hand and a good eye – and I have two of each.

If things don't work out in the Olympics, there's always the Nobel prize – but which one? Chemistry or Physics might need a bit of work, and Economics is hardly the flavour of the month. The Peace Prize used to be a convenient option for Ireland, except that peace has already broken out there – so maybe the time isn't right.

In any case, there are hundreds of Olympic and Nobel medallists, whereas the Al Slater memorial is a lot more exclusive, even if it doesn't pay quite as much.

I met Al G3FXB only once. It was at the 1991 HF Convention in Daventry. Al gave a presentation on contesting, and the one thing I remember is that he didn't appreciate anything that might slow the QSO rate; he didn't like anyone wishing him "good luck in the contest" – luck had little to do with it. In early 1992, I sent Al a copy of SD – I hoped he would try it and maybe endorse it. It was no use, he logged everything by hand. I sometimes wonder how long he would have held out against computers in contesting, and what he would have made of the internet, but we will never know.

The internet has changed everything. Amateur radio used to be straightforward. What set it apart from all other radio services was that amateurs accepted they wouldn't always get through, or complete a QSO, never mind start one. For the other services, let's call them professional radio, failure is not acceptable – either there will be hell to pay, or someone will not pay.

Amateur radio, and especially CW, is as much an art as a skill, and we take our chances with the elements, as do other enthusiasts like fly-fishermen or sailors. Imagine going to sea in a boat with no engine, and throwing yourself at the mercy of the wind and waves. Who in their right mind would do something so foolish? Yet thousands do, they even call it fun. They go sailing for its own sake, and happily put up with the inconveniences. They know that if they resort to new technology and get a tow or use an engine, they may still be boating but they are no longer sailing. For all human activities, certain technologies are inappropriate once they change the fundamental nature of the activity – the very thing that gives it its name.

But what is happening now in amateur radio? We expect national societies to be self-regulating and to always do what's best for us.

We know that building societies lost the run of themselves when they decided to become banks, and play financial hardball. We have seen how financial deregulation can lead to chaos. Anyone who opposed new and exciting products was held to be against progress. Principles were cast out in the pursuit of ever-greater profits and dividends – the system must be right, wasn't everyone winning? Well, now we know it was an illusion, because they ignored fundamentals.

I believe something similar is happening in amateur radio. Some national societies feel they must appeal to a wider range of interests. After all, they have to grow; there are jobs at stake, and no future in depending on the dwindling ranks of G3s and 4s for their income. The answer is obvious – it's the internet. It appeals to everyone, especially the youngsters.

There is plenty of evidence that national radio societies are preoccupied with membership numbers, and are quite prepared to compromise on fundamentals. We have ARRL openly promoting internet modes and, only last month, praising the role of EchoLink in letting HQ staff keep in touch with emergency nets in Texas. That's not amateur radio, any more than phone-patch is amateur radio. Closer to home, we have RadCom, with reviews of weather stations and internet audio devices, looking more like Popular Electronics than the amateur radio magazine it once was. There's a weather station here as one of the raffle prizes, but it says "wireless" on the box, so it must be OK.

At the 1996 IARU Region 1 Conference in Tel Aviv there was a proposal to encourage the further integration of amateur radio and the internet – what the IRTS delegation felt was the equivalent of turkeys voting for Christmas. IRTS was the only Region 1 society to vote against integrating amateur radio and the internet.

At the 1999 conference in Lillehammer, Ireland and Iceland were the only countries to oppose the abolition of the morse test. The ability to communicate, by ear, with CW used to be the one thing that set amateur radio apart from all other radio services. We are the custodians of the code – if we don't fight to preserve it, no one else will. CW is not just another data mode, as some distinguished contesters have claimed. Sure, anyone can devalue it by decoding it with software, but that does not, in itself, make it a data mode. And yet we, collectively, have done away with the CW test as a condition for licensing. Why? – to make it easier for newcomers to get licences. And yes, there are more licences, but is there more activity? Probably not. If you want to be a juggler, you learn to juggle. If you want to be a comedian, you tell jokes. If you want to be a radio amateur, you learn CW and get on the air.

Of course, people who go on and on about this are probably old and grumpy. They're only half right, because I'm not old, well not too old, but boy am I grumpy! I am proud of the way IRTS voted. Regardless of how other societies saw it at the time, IRTS was trying to maintain standards, rather than dumb-down amateur radio. Does anyone here believe standards have been improved by EchoLink, APRS, D-Star and no-code licences?

I acknowledge the good work done by national societies. That's why I'm a member of ARRL, RSGB and IRTS, and looking forward to half-price RadCom in a couple of years. However, to me, it is inexcusable of some societies to willingly accept the internet as a replacement for RF. It seems that any new technology is instantly embraced as if we, the amateurs, had the right to adopt it in any way we see fit – and still call it amateur radio. Before long we will likely hear claims that radio amateurs were internet pioneers.

Look at what seems to be "normal" these days.

In contests, we have spotting. It is web-based and used, within the rules, to find multipliers in the major contests. Here we have an independent, 100% reliable communications mode – a professional mode used in parallel with amateur band RF to improve scores. That's not amateur radio.

What's even more depressing, to me at least, is that some contest organisers assume, by default, that all contesters use spotting networks. I don't, I can find new stations to work all by myself. It seems the original justification was that spotting networks were hosted on packet cluster, which was developed by amateurs. That may have had some relevance 15 years ago, but it has none now.

And then there is remote control. When you hear of an operator in California openly firing up his station in Prince Edward Island, 3000 miles away, to hand out Canadian multipliers, you don't need to be a genius to realise that something isn't quite right – and yet it's been happening for years. We don't allow repeaters in contests, so why do we allow remote stations, which are no more than private repeaters, networked via the internet. I don't see a significant difference between remote control operation and what Don Millar used to do.

The internet is a communications weapon of mass destruction. For most people or businesses it has replaced telex, fax, and short-wave broadcasting. It is well on the way to replacing the telephone, and perhaps even amateur radio. It has nothing to do with amateur radio; it is a separate technology.

Before long, everyone will have access to cheap, or even free, worldwide person-to-person communications. And where will that leave amateur radio? What schoolboy would bother with it while it looks just the same as the internet – only slower and less reliable? Amateur radio has little chance of survival as a separate identifiable radio service in the context of integration with the internet. Rather, we must emphasise the differences between it and the internet.

Over the years I have been involved with various special-event stations open to the public. My experience has been that no one pays any attention to someone sitting in front of a radio or computer with a pair of headphones and a mike, no matter what country they're talking to – we can all do that at home with Skype. But play morse code over the speakers and the reaction is instant – you are bombarded with questions. "Can you understand that?" and "What are they saying?"

For my own part, I enjoy the internet. I use it every day, and could hardly imagine not having it. But I know it's not amateur radio.

The FOC has international influence way beyond its numbers. I hope the Club and its individual members will use their influence to defend amateur radio, to fight anything that replaces RF between the operators concerned, and to find new ways to encourage newcomers to use CW on the air.

I'd like to acknowledge some people who helped me along the way. I owe a lot to Barney Patterson GI3KYP, former President of both RSGB and IRTS. Barney organised theory classes and invited all new licensees to field day outings in the 1960s – and that's what gave me the taste for CW. Thanks also to the Five Star DXers Association for including me on their teams to 3B9C and 3B7C in the Indian Ocean: to Seamus McCague EI8BP who helped me to get started on SD, and to all SD users out there for your encouragement and support over the years.

Once again, congratulations to FOC on your 70th anniversary and thank you for this great honour you have granted me.