wrote in message
oups.com...

Dee Flint wrote:

[snip]

Not really. Although as I mentioned earlier, I think under the new
system,
we will gradually drift towards a de facto two class system
(General &
Extra) at least among the hams who are actually active.

I disagree somewhat. Two observations:

1) Notice how slowly the Advanced is declining. 5 years and 3 months
since it was closed to new issues, and yet the number
of Advanceds is about 75% of what it was then. This is despite
the attrition to expirations and the written-test-only upgrade to
Extra.

2) The number of Generals surged after 2000, but is not growing
anymore. General has become a intermediate step on the way to Extra.

What we're heading for may be more of a 4 class system -
Tech/General/Advanced/Extra.

If we do get a de facto 2 class system, it will probably
be more like Tech/Extra rather than General/Extra.

73 de Jim, N2EY


It is very difficult to guess but I would expect a significant number of
people to take the Tech & General at the same time as there is only a small
jump in difficulty level so that their original licenses will be General.
In any classes that I teach, that will be the approach that I take and I
will have a syllabus geared towards that goal. If you are familiar with the
"Now You're Talking" study guides from the 1992 era, you will recall that it
covered both the Novice written and Technician written. It actively
encouraged students to take the road of studying for both writtens (and
code) and take all the tests. I'll take the same approach. This way the
material that is repeated between the Tech & General needs to be studied
only once.

However, it wouldn't surprise me to see Extra eventually become the largest
class under the upcoming system.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE