[ARC5] OT - FCC Will Soon Consolidate Commercial Radiotelegraph Certificates

[Richard Knoppow]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Morrow" <kk5f at earthlink.net>
To: <milsurplus at mailman.qth.net>; <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2013 7:25 PM
Subject: Re: [ARC5] OT - FCC Will Soon Consolidate 
Commercial Radiotelegraph Certificates


>
>> It's "bad", but not quite that bad.
>>
>> The Amateur Extra code credit requires that the Amateur 
>> Extra Class
>> license had been granted before April 15, 2000 which I 
>> believe is
>> the cutoff date for the 20wpm cw test. (Ref 47CFR 13.9)
>
     FWIW, this is from _The Radio Manual_ 2nd edition 
(1929) George E. Sterling.  The book has a section in the 
back with regulations including the requirements for 
commercial licenses.  There are three classes of telegraph 
licenses listed: Commercial Second Class; requires 
transmission and reception of Continental Code at 16 WPM 
code groups, 20 WPM plain language.      Commercial First 
Class; requires the applicant to have been an operator in a 
station engaged in public correspondence for at least 12 
months. The code test is 20 WPM code groups and 25 WPM plain 
language Continental Code.  The holder can act as chief 
operator of any station.
     Commercial Extra First Class:  Applicant must have held 
a Commercial First-class license and must have been actually 
engaged as an operator at stations engaged in public 
correspondence for at least 18 months during the previous 
two years.  Code test requires transmission and reception of 
at least 30 WPM _code groups_ (I think these are probably 
reversed) in Continental Morse and 25 WPM in plain language 
in American Morse.
     No time for the tests is given.
     The code tests are in addition to a technical exam. It 
does not appear from the information in this book that any 
additional privileges are given.
     Now, there are two classes of Broadcast licenses 
listed; unlimited and limited. The unlimited license 
requires a code test of 16 WPM Continental Code for code 
groups and 20 WPM plain language.
     No test for the Limited license.
     There is also a Radiotelephone license which has no 
code test. It was required to be an operator of a licensed 
station other than broadcast or amateur with less than 300 
watts input.
     The highest amateur license was the Extra-First-Class 
with a code test of 20 WPM plain language and 16 WPM code 
groups, Continental Code.
     There are a bunch of combinations and permutations 
given and conversions from older licenses.
    I suspect a survey of requirements from that time to now 
would show a steady easing of requirements.


--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL
dickburk at ix.netcom.com