[CW] FCC Actions - OOOOPS?

[N2EY at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/16/06 4:22:18 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
k4kyv at hotmail.com writes:


> >From: N2EY at aol.com
> 
> >As for Incentive Licensing, it was actually a return to the earlier system
> >that existed before 1953.
> 
> Not entirely.  Before 1953 (or was it 1951?),  the "Class A," later renamed 
> "Advanced" ticket was required to operate phone in the 75m and 20m bands.  
> Lower class  licensees could use the entire band, operating any mode but 
> phone.

My point was that before the "Great Giveaway" of 1953, there was a form of 
incentive licensing in place for many years. 

It should also be remembered that in those days, the 30, 17, 15 and 12 meter 
bands were not allocated to amateurs.
> 
> Up until right after the War, 40m was CW only, so there was no phone band 
> there.  There was no 15m band at all until some time after the War. 

1953 or 1954.

 So 
> 
> Generals (Class B) were limited to 160 and 10m for phone  operation.
> 

Also 11 meters, which was a ham band from the end of WW2 until 1958. 


> But after the war, LORAN had about taken over 160m and there was serious 
> consideration to delete it as an amateur allocation altogether.  The only 
> thing that saved it was the tenuous agreement to finally let amateurs share 
> the band with LORAN on a very limited basis.  Loran was placed on 160m 
> mainly because amateurs had been shut down for the duration of the War, and 
> 160m was a convenient vacant spot to put it.  It originally was supposed to 
> have been taken off the band after the war emergency, but ships and boats 
> mainly in the Gulf of Mexico had grown accustomed to it during the war, and 
> the Coast Guard pressed the FCC into allowing it to continue after the war.
> 

It was placed there in part because of the ground wave propagation, too.

> Interestingly, according to articles in early post-War QST's, one of the 
> FCC's justifications for granting amateurs the 15m band was "partial 
> compensation" for the loss of 160m.
> 

The 15 meter allocation came out of the World Radio Conference (Atlantic 
City) of 1947. But US hams didn't get it untilt the early 1950s.

> So essentially, between the end of the war and 1951(or 53?), Generals had 
> access to phone only on 10m, and of course that band is closed over much of 
> the sunspot cycle.
> 

Yup. 

> In 1953(?) the FCC decided to open all phone bands up to Generals.  The 
> Advanced was continued, much as it is today, with no further new licences to 
> 
> be issued.  Extra was a trophy licence to hang on the wall for the ego, but 
> carried no additional operator privileges.
> 

But that's not the whole story.

The old ABC system was in effect from the early 1930s until 1951. Then there 
was a major restructuring. The existing ABC licenses were renamed Advanced, 
General and Conditional, and three new license classes were added: Novice, 
Technician, and Extra.


The Extra was meant to replace the Advanced, with the same priviliges. 

FCC announced that they would stop issuing new Advanceds at the end of 1952. 
Those who had Advanceds could keep them, and full privileges, but those who 
didn't would have to go from General to Extra in order to get full privs. 

That was the plan all through the latter part of 1951 and 1952. A lot of hams 
back then got Advanceds before the door closed at the end of 1952.

This was the "incentive licensing" of those days. There were several classes 
of license, and getting full privileges meant getting the highest class of 
license.

But then, in December of 1952,  the FCC did a complete about-face. They 
announced that all hams except Novices and Technicians would have full privileges 
effective February 1953. The Advanced and Extra carried no additional operating 
privileges at all after that date.


> After about 10 years of unrestricted licensing, amateur radio had gone 
> through a growth spurt as a result of the creation of the Novice class, 
> under the same proceeding in 1953.  

No.

The Novice was added in 1951, as part of the restructuring that created the 
Extra and Technician.

The bands were getting crowded and it 
> 
> appeared that operator proficiency was decreasing, so some of the folks at 
> ARRL began to question whether we should go back to the  restricted phone 
> bands, as before 1953(?).  The ARRL petition for rulemaking proposed to do 
> just that.

The original 1963 ARRL proposal would have done two things:

1) Reopened the Advanced to new issues

2) Required an Advanced or Extra to operate 'phone on 75, 40, 20 or 15.

And that was it.



Some reports say that FCC asked for ideas, because they were concerned about 
the widespread use of manufactured gear by hams, and the lack of upgrading 
beyond General/Conditional. 

It should be recalled that those were the days of "Sputnik fever", when the 
USA's self-concept as the scientific and technological leader of the world were 
shaken by the USSR's early successes in space.
> 
> But the FCC decided that instead of going back to the concept of "Class A" 
> phone bands, they created the present licence class subband segments.

Not exactly.

After the ARRL proposal was given an RM number, there was a call by FCC for 
other proposals. FCC wasn't just going to rubberstamp the ARRL idea.

The result was at least 10 proposals that got RM numbers. They came from 
groups, individuals, and magazines like CQ. They contained all sorts of ideas, 
from the 2 year Novice to the subbands-by-license-class idea to the 
restricted-cw-subbands idea.

FCC took ideas from several of them and came up with a 1965 proposal that 
went like this:

1) Advanceds demoted to General

2) New license class called "Amateur First Class" with 16 wpm code test and 
written test between the General and Extra. 1 year experience as a General 
required.

3) All license classes to have distinctive callsign groups.

4) Subbands-by-license-class that were much more restrictive than what was 
finally adopted.

ARRL and others fought for modifications of the 1965 FCC proposal. The 
biggest issue was the demotion of existing Advanceds, which was finally abandoned by 
FCC.

> 
> This is quite a different concept from the original ARRL proposal.
> 

Agreed. 

> IMO what the FCC should have done was to basically adopt the ARRL proposal 
> for restricted phone bands, but grandfather all existing Generals to full 
> phone privileges, requiring the higher grade only for new  licences granted 
> after the effective date of the ruling.  

A lot of folks felt that way.

But what it would have amounted to was a free upgrade of all existing 
Generals and Conditionals to Advanced without any more testing. That would defeat 
FCC's goal, since their problem was that *existing* hams needed a higher level of 
knowledge and skill. Giving them all a free upgrade to Advanced would mean 
the improvements caused by the new system would take a very long time to become 
effective.

There would also be the problem of implementation. Suppose the new system 
went into effect on January 1. A ham who passed General on December 30 would get 
a free ride to Advanced, but a ham who did so on January 2 would not. Why is 
the December 30 amateur qualified but not the January 2 amateur?

Most of the hard feelings regarding 
> 
> Incentive  Licensing were from Generals who lost existing privileges and had 
> 
> to upgrade to get back what they already had.
> 

Yup. 


> Under the pre-1953(?) system, Incentive Licensing would not have affected 
> CW 
> operation at all.
> 

That was the original plan. 


> I need to dig out the old QST's and see whether the  change went into 
> effect 
> in 1951 or 53.  I  seem to remember 1951, but that was a  long time ago and 
> it's been a long time since I have even thought about it.


You are confusing two separate changes: the 1951 restructuring and the 1953 
Generals-get-it-all announcement. They are not the same thing.

One other factor came into play: the Conditional license.

Before 1954 (IIRC), all hams had to be tested at FCC exam points unless they 
lived more than 125 miles "air-line" (map distance, not road distance) from a 
place where FCC conducted exams 4 times per year or more. This included 
Novices and Technicians. 

If a ham lived beyond the 125 mile distance, s/he could get a Novice, 
Technician, or Conditional "by mail". But the Advanced and Extra could only be had by 
FCC examination. And if the ham moved to within the 125 mile distance, s/he 
had 90 days to show up at an FCC office and retest. 

No credit was given for exams given by mail - if a Conditional went to the 
FCC office to get the Advanced, they had to retake 13 wpm code and the General 
written fbefore trying the Advanced.

All that changed in 1954 (IIRC). The FCC changed the "Conditional distance" 
to 75 miles, and dropped the retest requirement. All Technician and Novice 
exams were given by mail, regardless of distance. The number of Conditionals grew 
like mad as a result. 

Then in 1964 or 1965, FCC increased the "Conditional distance" to 175 miles 
and increased the number of exam points so much that almost all of CONUS was 
not "Conditional country". Incentive Licensing, if adopted, meant that those 
Conditionals would have to journey to an FCC office to upgrade. Not a popular 
thing for those folks!


For a detailed history, see:


http://groups.google.com/group/rec.radio.amateur.policy/msg/5e237c8d619c6a90?d
mode=source&hl=en

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.radio.amateur.policy/msg/932c3e0a55b5cfda?d
mode=source&hl=en

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.radio.amateur.policy/msg/711fd670748942ff?d
mode=source&hl=en


73 de Jim, N2EY