[Fists] One-day tickets

[Fred Adsit]

This may in some way duplicate what has been said...

>From the ARRL Letter Vol. 21 No.16:

==>LONG ISLAND CLUB "ONE-DAY EXTRA" COURSE A HIT

New York's Long Island Mobile Amateur Radio Club--LIMARC--reports its
first "one-day Extra" licensing upgrade class was such a success that it's
scheduled additional sessions for later this spring. LIMARC recently
attracted two dozen students to its first Extra class license study short
course, and nearly all who attended walked away with their Extra tickets.

ARRL New York City-Long Island Section Manager George Tranos, N2GA, is
LIMARC's education co-chair. He says the session involves seven hours of
intensive study. Five instructors taught the nine Extra examination
subelements, which include FCC rules, operating procedures, radio
propagation, Amateur Radio practices, electrical principles, circuit
components, practical circuits and antennas and feedlines.

When the session ended, 20 of the 24 applicants had passed Element 4.
Students ranged from a veteran with 50 years' experience as a licensee to
newcomers licensed only about one year. Many said they'd studied for
months prior to the class, but some had spent just a couple of days
reviewing the material.

LIMARC has previously run one and two-day courses for Technician and
General. "Amateur Radio is a wonderful hobby and important national
resource," said Tranos, who helped coordinate the response of amateurs in
his section to the September 11 World Trade Center attack. "Each of us has
an opportunity to learn as much or as little as we want. There are many
subject areas to investigate, and a lifetime of learning is possible."

Now folks, there is something really rotten here. The stupid exams are
jammed with questions to memorize or LEARN the answers to, and they can do
this teaching in a single session?  This happens in at least one other very
well-known place, I am told. And the EXTRA hams I know from there do not
know what I knew when I had my CLASS B - not even close... I don't know how
these slick examiners do it, but I have my suspicions. I learned and got a
Class B and Class A in 1948 and 1949 using The License Manual and The Radio
Amateurs Handbook. I got my Extra after having gotten a BEE from Clarkson
and working for many years, not as an EE, but as a guided missile and radar
systems engineer. Didn't matter. I had experience and did not need to see
the exam questions to get a passing grade. 'nuff said.

Some on here may flame me for this as always. Be my guest. I am back to
where I was before I had a nice-guy attitude about my accomplishments before
that big switch occurred. The gloss has worn off what I knew as ham radio.
The fun that is left is in CW ragchewing, for me. I look back at the good
old days and realize how good they WERE. For me, anyway. I had great
antennas, I did not live in a world of thugs, decadence, and other terminal
illnesses of this world, and I did not need a course in what someone aptly
called knobology to enjoy BOTH cw AND telephony. It is a lot more
complicated than this, and I am just showing my age, I realize. Anything
wrong with that? If anybody thinks so, fine. They have a perfect right to
think it. New hams can't help it if the rules of the ballgame and the rigs
have changed and technology marches on. But in some quarters, I am convinced
cheating is going on. And the hobby's been dumbed down.

I started with a straight key and could not wait to get a bug. I will end as
a Silent KEY, with a lot of great memories of what I did in Amateur Radio
Public Service and of the many fine hams I befriended  because they knew how
to do a professional job of traffic handling and how to carry on an
interesting conversation. About 95% of that friend-gathering and public
service was and is done, by me, on CW. I've tried it all, but always come
back to the code. Now, that is where I stay.

73 ES ZUT! (CW FOREVER)
Fred - NY2V - FISTS #1293
ex-W2ZOJ 1948
W2ZOJ - ZUT ARC - FISTS #7900
A-1 OP
paleo-EXTRA

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