"Dee D. Flint" wrote:
Yes they can be. I've known several.
They too often fall in the "know it all"
category.
That hasn't been my experience. First, I haven't seen that many rule
violations across the board. Most operators tend to stick to the rules, or
at least make a darn good effort to do so. But, second, I certainly haven't
seen that among those who tend to be technically oriented. If anything, they
tend to go overboard on the rules.
I think 50 to 100 questions ought to
do it. Only the pool would need to
be several hundred questions, just as
today's pools are far larger than the
number of questions actually
occurring on any one exam.
I assume you want an equal number of questions for each exam. If so, you
still haven't answered the key point of my last message. The current exam
concept is basic exams for entry into each license class. Since you're
advocating much more extensive exams, are you saying the current concept
should be thrown away? If not, how do such large exams fit into the current
concept? None of the other FCC licenses, except those professionally
oriented, have such an extensive exam system. Are you advocating that we
turn the exams for the Amateur Radio service into something similar to the
exams for the professionally oriented licenses? If so, are you also
advocating that we change the concept behind our licenses, and, by
extension, the radio service, at the same time - in other words, the
elimination of "amateur" from the Amateur Radio service?
How many questions has she had to
pass to get her law degree and to
pass her bar exam?
It is patently absurd to compare the Amateur Radio license exams to the
final exams for a law degree or any other college degree. I was more than
generous when I compared them to the tests for a single college class. And,
as I said, my wife only had 50 questions on the tests to pass her
international law class.
On the Tech exam there are only 5 rules
questions. That means missing all 5
gives you a score of 30, which is passing.
This gives you room to miss several other
questions on the exam. (snip)
Again, do you have anything to suggest this (a person missing every
question on the rules, yet still passing the overall exam) has ever
happened, much less commonly so? If not, you're doing as some others have
done - offering a solution without evidence of a problem (in other words, an
answer seeking a question).
The current question pool however no
longer includes the data rates for digital.
This is quite important for legal operation
that does not exceed the bandwidths for
these modes. (snip)
Again, is there a widespread problem with this? I certainly haven't heard
any complaints in this regard.
Difference of opinion is fine but don't
assume that the FCC knows what they
are doing. Just because they've said it
doesn't make it true. They have a long
history of mistakes.
Speaking in general (not specifically to you, Dee - your comment just
offered an opportunity to spread this to a wider issue to more directly
address the subject line of this thread), the anti-FCC sentiment now
spreading in the Amateur Radio community bothers me greatly. This same
mentality started spreading in the CB community many years ago, with
disastrous long term results. The FCC isn't our enemy. Any ruling we
disagree with isn't necessarily a mistake and any mistakes they've made are
far outweighed by the good things they've done for us (like the continued
support for this radio service). In many ways, some in this service act like
a bunch of spoiled brats. We have more frequencies, and more privileges on
those frequencies, than just about any other non-government radio service.
But these spoiled brats will never be satisfied - endlessly demanding more
attention from the FCC over often trivial issues and then whining about how
horrible the FCC is when things don't go their way. This behavior is
extremely destructive, both for our relationship with the FCC and for the
spirit of this radio service. And that, in my opinion, is the main problem
with Ham radio today.
Dwight Stewart (W5NET)
http://www.qsl.net/w5net/