[CW] Dissing the ARRL

[Donald Chester]

> > > I strongly believe the questions and answers should
> > > NOT be available, but the candidate should have enough
> > > knowledge of theory, regulations, etc, to pass  a REAL test.
> >
> > Unfortunately,  there is some Federal Law or regulations
> > which stipulates that the "question pool" for ANY Federally
> > mandated examination be published and available to the
> > public.
>
>It is the Freedom Of Information Act which is supposed to make almost
>every federal document available to the general public. Blame Congress
>for this, not the ARRL or FCC.

I'm not certian that FOI requires verbatum publication of questions and 
answers.  Many FOI requests are denied, and it is the government that 
decides what is appropriate for release and what is not.  They could release 
question pools and response choices without exact word-for-word publication. 
  My understanding is that the FCC gave up after the advent of the Bash 
study guides, which acquired and published the exact questions and answers, 
and decided it would be better if they did the job themselves and simply 
published them outright.

The same thing happened with the Morse requirement.  As a result of the 
Amercians with Disabilities Act, the FCC was required by law to provide 
exemptions for persons whose disabilities precluded passing the traditional 
code test.  They came up with a system of waivers, allowing persons with 
certified disabilities to qualify with a 5 wpm code test.  When it became 
clear that there was widespread cheating, mainly by having legitimate 
medical doctors who were totally unfamiliar with the nature of Morse 
telegraphy sign the certification form, the FCC "solved" the problem by 
throwing up its hands and giving everyone the "waiver" regardless, by simply 
lowering all code speed requirements to 5 wpm.


-k4kyv

_________________________________________________________________
Let the new MSN Premium Internet Software make the most of your high-speed 
experience. http://join.msn.com/?pgmarket=en-us&page=byoa/prem&ST=1