[ARC5] Commercial radiotelegraph code requirement, AE, etc etc

[Mike Morrow]

> Aircraft endorsement on 2nd class required the higher code speed.

Plus one had to pass commercial exam element 7, which was 100 multiple-choice
questions, IIRC.

The Aircraft Radiotelegraph Endorsement (ARE) was still available through the
1980s, but I've never been able to find out when the actual use of such operators
on commercial flights ended.  I suspect it was in the 1950s.

I considered trying to get this endorsement 30 years ago, just for the anachronism
of it even then.  I even made a copy of an old ARE exam study guide I found in
some library.  But I never got serious enough about it to go to any more trouble,
especially after the FCC turned all the commercial testing over to commercial
organizations.

Today, element 7 is the main part of the GMDSS Radio Operator license exam, which
also requires element 1.  The license is issued for lifetime.

I have a very good friend (Al/W5KGM, 96 years old) who was a commercial telegraph
operator from the mid-1930s until the 1970s.  He served as a merchant marine
radio officer in the Atlantic during WWII.  For all the years that he was a
radiotelegrapher, mostly working for US airlines on the ground, he never operated
a station open to public correspondence.  Thus he was never able to get the service
time at such a station that was required for the grant of a First Class license.
He could carry on at 55 wpm or greater.  But it took some friendly goading from me
to get him to upgrade to Extra more than 32 years ago, when he was just a youngster
at 64 years old.  :-)

73,
Mike / KK5F