[GreenKeys] RTTY HF technician license? Not so fast.

[Eugene Hertz]

Well, as I am studying in my ARRL "Now Your Talking" book, I read something very dissapointing that I did not realize. 

Many of you have been hams for a while and may not be aware of this. There were some recent changes in the licensing structure and now there are 3 licenses granted, technician, general and extra. The technician allows only VHF and above, unless you also pass the 5 WPM code test which will give you (so I thought) several HF bands to use. 

What I just discovered was that there is only one HF band that I will be able to use with RTTY. It is 10 meters with about 400Khz of band availble. You might disagree with me, but why not allow a new technician plus (assuming I can pass the test) to use any mode on the HF bands that are permitted for technician plus? I think its a jip. 

Let me tell you sometime -- this technician license test is no cake walk. If I didnt already have a college level background in electronics, this thing would really be brutal (yes, I know. Nine-year-olds have passed it. How, I can't imagine). I can not imagine how hard the general test would be to get me the proper ability to use RTTY on HF (and run my model 28--ok, this message is only "near-topic").

Very dissapointing and a little discouraging :(
Eugene
PS Maybe after I study and get my technician plus license, the FCC will let me run RTTY on the citizens band. (just kidding)