[AMRadio] Re: AMRadio Digest, Vol 46, Issue 107

[D. Chester]

> Don...Did you forget us guys
> in the 50's  that had Extra
> Class Freq's as Generals and
> that we got sold down the
> river
> With Incentive Licensing????
> You talk about not getting
> kissed. All of a sudden we
> were looking at a 20WPM
> test...Just to gain back what
> we had!!! Took me till late
> 80's to get there...
>
> Bob W1PE


But that has nothing to do with the AM power issue, and happened 20 years 
earlier.

I already had my extra when it went into effect, so it didn't affect me 
personally, but I liked the way things were before incentive licensing far 
better than the way they turned out afterwards. What good did the "extra 
class" frequencies do me, if I couldn't find anyone I wanted to work inside 
those segments?

In any case, IL was a dismal failure in terms of its originally stated 
purpose, to increase the technical competence of the amateur radio 
community.  If anything, it accelerated the trend we have seen going on for 
decades, that has turned amateur radio away from being a 
technically-oriented pastime, into a plug 'n play "communicator's" hobby. 
Compare the technical competence of the typical ham to-day to what it was in 
1968.  When IL went into effect, it practically killed overnight in one 
swoop what little was left of AM and homebrewing at that time.  I don't know 
why the FCC even bothers to maintain the pretence today that the incentive 
licensing concept still exists, by continuing to maintain licence-class 
subbands. I suspect they simply don't want to admit that a mistake was made 
back in 1968.

Don k4kyv