[kp4-genie] Re: [CW] One Day to Extra Class

Mon, 22 Apr 2002 20:41:57 -0400

I totally agree with Pedro. This attitude of complaining over the ease of
the FCC requirements and allowing less-than technical people into the hobby
is a reflection of the changing face of the world. You don't need to be a
broadcast enginner to be a ham! Nobody repairs their radios anymore (who can
deal with SMT?) and many newcomers care less about CW. Yet there are alot of
interested people who want to learn about ham radio and would like to join
the "hostile" ranks.

What happens when ham's turn their backs at newcomers? You end up with
people turning over to CB's and DXing in the 27.415 to 28Mhz "freeband"
segment. Why is the "Gruppo Alpha Tango" so huge? Look at their web site at
http://www.alfatango.org and you'll see where "hams to be" end up, when they
could have done perfectly fine as a CW-less novice ham.

Let new hams into the hobby and you'lll find new uses for the radio
spectrum. But keep the old-fashioned 1950's attutude and FCC requirements
and you'll get a bigger "Gruppo Alpha Tango".

73~

----- Original Message -----
From: "Pedro J. Santa" <[email protected]>
To: "Donald Chester" <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>
Cc: "kp4-genie" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2002 10:57 PM
Subject: [kp4-genie] Re: [CW] One Day to Extra Class

> As a subscriber to this CW reflector, and as an Extra Class Operator who
was
> required to pass the 20 WPM test (but only seven years ago--before the
> "downgrade" that now prevails) I am compelled to respond to the various
> comments in this reflector which criticize the present Extra Class Exams
and
> are meant to revive times when passing amateur rardio exams entailed
showing
> up at an FCC office to face ruthless war veterans who were eager to avenge
> their war miseries. I suggest we all drop that kind of diatribe, for the
> good of our hobby.
>
> I'm a firm pursuer of the goal of attracting the best motivated and
smartest
> young people we can to this past time, recognizing that the hobby faces
> competition that's extremely hard to beat.  Let's face it, friends, ham
> radio no longer attracts the bulk of the highly IQ-ed technically-oriented
> persons it might have lured in times past (although even then those who
> ventured into this hobby were viewed as "spooky" by other equally talented
> youngsters). What the "old timers" miss today is the fact that present
> technological and communications reality has rendered totally absurd the
> type of "quasi-doctoral tests" for amateur radio operators like the exams
> which some of the writers here have self-servingly described (Come on,
don't
> exaggerate; many "regulars" were able to pass those tests without loosing
an
> eyebrow!). The fact is that in those past times amateur radio licensees
were
> deemed to be grantees of a highly-prized governmental privilege, bound on
> the emergency-driven nature of the service, when CW reigned and
> opportunities for worldwide communications through the phone wall outlet
> were not even a notion among regular citizens.
>
> It's simply absurd to gauge our present realities against the backdrop of
> what is now, so soon, the equivalent of a "jurassic" period in the century
> that just passed.
>
> I, for one, am a fervent CW operator (no CW keyboards here, uggghhhh!),
and
> will continue to relish the notion of pure, traditional wireless
> communications. But to insist on the kind of examinations that were
tailored
> to an era that is GONE, period... is pure and simple nonsense, unless we
are
> just set on ensuring a sooner death knoll for our hobby than the one
that's
> looming out there and is inevitably approaching. Let's welcome reality,
> fellows, and let's try to keep our hobby attractive to as many motivated
and
> talented youngsters as we can, while we can...
>
> 73 Pedro KP3X..
>
>
>
>
> >>Seems to me that what the "one day extra" class really shows is that the
> >>tests have been watered down to the point where a reasonably intelligent
> >>person with a little background can pass them with just a one-day cram
> >>course.
> >
> >That's exactly what happened to the old first class commercial
> >radiotelephone licence.  It was needed to opreate a broadcast station.
> >Station managers didn't want to pay the salary for a station engineer, so
> >they started looking for disc jockeys with 1st phones to legally opreate
> the
> >station.  They didn't care if they didn't know a tube from a resistor.
> >
> >Companies soon sprang up offering cram courses, with money-back
guarantees
> >if the candidate didn't pass.  These became known as "30-day wonders" in
> the
> >broadcast industry.  I recall that the FCC acknowledged being aware of
what
> >was going on, and abolished the 1st class phone ticket, along with the
> >requirement for any commercial FCC licence to operate a broadcast
station.
> >Stations no longer had to hire engineers.  They just operated, and now
> >mostly depend on on-call "consultants" to repair things when something
> >breaks down.  The "chief engineer" at small town broadcast stations is
now
> a
> >part of radio  history.  With the new more trouble-free solid state
> >broadcast equipment, the FCC feels a resident engineer is no longer a
> >necessity.
> >
> >Don K4KYV
> >
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