And the main point remains: The percentage of US hams back then who did not
face the steely-eyed FCC examiner was quite high. I'm pretty sure that in some
parts of the country, "tested by mail" hams were the vast majority.


Back in 1976 when I tested for my tech license, I faced a steely-eyed
black woman FCC examiner. Who knew what she was doing, and could
copy code (I had to send code to her).

The FCC was giving out recycled call signs that year. Someone
else once had WA2ISE before I was given it. My father had
WB2JIA a few years before I got mine, so in a sense I was
"out of sequence". Maybe the FCC didn't want to hand out
"WC"s as people would use phonetics like "Water Closet ..."