On 10 Feb 2004 20:13:36 GMT, Alun wrote:

snip

But as of now, Carl has not made a convincing case for free upgrades.

73 de Jim, N2EY


I have said as much before, but a real overhaul of licencing will probably
require all new grades of licence with all new names and all new test
elements. Having read the mail on this proposal, I am convinced that this
is the only way to remove the perception of free upgrades. It is only a
perception really, as after you change things the same name no longer
really means the same thing anyway.

Precisely. The Extra being issued today bears little resemblance to
the licence of the same name that was issued years ago. Hence the
hostile attutude toward the so-called "Extra-lites".

Renaming and redefining the levels would fix that - although I suspect
that none of the old Extras would ever accept the new category, and
continue to use the old classification as long as they could work a
key - which would by inference make the Superior into the equivalent
of the old Advanced category.......

As an aside - I've been reading through a 1975 copy of the "ARRL
Operating Manual" that I picked up at a hamfest this weekend. Wow -
it was a different world back then in Amateur Radio! Clearly, from
the amount of text dedicated to Morse, message relay, traffic handling
and other such topics, code was king back then! Worth a read, if you
can find one.


Just for a laugh, let's call the new licences Entry, Average and Superior,
just for the sake of this discussion. The Entry licence could have a low
power restriction and limit HF operation to a few specific subbands. The
Average licence would give everything else, except, say, a short callsign,
which would be reserved for the Superior hams, whilst those of us who know
we really are superior could keep the calls we have, ROTFL!

Of course, there would have to be rules to determine what class of licence
we all end up with. Advanced or Extra would get a Superior licence,
Generals would get an Average licence, and Novices would get an Entry
licence. There would be, say 18 months notice of this coming into effect,
and 12 months experience as a Tech would be required to get an Average
licence, Techs licenced for less than 12 months getting an Entry licence
(which would give them something like Tech+ privileges anyway, but would
probably be a reduction in power). Element 1 would, of course, be abolished
next Tuesday!

That's an interesting idea. I'll bet that you're gonna be told why
it's a bad one soon enough, though - many times, too, I'd reckon.....



Have fun replying!

73 de Alun, N3KIP

73, Leo