Dave, Art and Rick,
I have to agree. As a new General-class licensee in 1966, I lost
privileges to Incentive Licensing shortly thereafter. I upgraded to
Advanced in 1968, but it wasn't until 1997 that I upgraded to Extra and
finally had all of the frequencies back that I had lost.
I valued my short time as a Novice, and appreciated all of the ops in
higher classes who ventured into that region of the spectrum to help me
to learn proper procedure.
It seemed to me that we should have been "grandfathered in," or at least
had a couple of years grace period to upgrade.
While I took the 13-wpm code test and the General and Advanced written
exams before The Man in Detroit, I got my Extra via the VE system.
While the 20-wpm code test was equally hard, I thought that the theory
portion was a joke. Not once did I have to reach for my calculator.
Yes, the written exams have been greatly dumbed-down. Still, I sat
there as a VE and watched the same people fail the *Technician* exam,
month in and month out.
Last time I was in HRO, there were all sorts of pre-cut dipoles and G5RV
antennas, packaged and ready to go. Not that they couldn't be built
from the various components for far less money, while the builder also
learned something about antennas.
I wonder what sacrificed its shelf space to make way for these?
I can see the point of getting new blood into the hobby. After all,
none of us are getting any younger. I'm 65 now, coming up on 50 years
of being licensed.
73 de Jim - AD6CW
On 6/15/2013 12:55 PM, Arthur Lewis wrote:
Dave,
You are right on. The idea of incentive licensing was to promote a
higher level of radio knowledge, but I guess that was lost. Now the
tests are made to get as many people on the air as quickly as
possible. Somewhere down the road we will all pay for this easy entry.
I am 76 and I will also be out of the way soon.
73 de Art WA8VSJ
Time for one of my favorite rants.
I miss the novice bands. It's not about CW vs. Phone. It's about
giving new hams a set of frequencies with reduced privileges where
new hams and experienced hams could be sure to connect. I learned a
lot from the old timers on those novice bands with reduced power,
before I was allowed to move on to everywhere. Many of us earned our
stripes there and learned to listen and operate correctly.
I wish we could go back to an entry level license. It could be SSB if
you like, but limit power and frequency availibility for a mandatory
year. Say 100 watts on the old novice CW frequencies and a matching
set of phone frequencies on 80, 40 & 15. A place for new guys to get
their feet wet. Yes, there would have to be tolerance and Elmering by
those of us who are now old timers.
We've dummied down our tests and then opened up the whole world to
those who are not ready for that. It's not the fault of the new guy
who hasn't learned. The FCC took away the training ground
Just my rant. That's OK, I'm 69 and will go away in time
Thanks for the bandwidth .
Oh, yes, Bob. I loved the story. You always have great input and
info. Maybe there is something to having been at it a long time. And
I am happy with the audio on my Omni VII & Orion II & still learning
from others
73
Dave
WA3F
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