Mike Coslo wrote:
wrote in
oups.com:
On Jan 25, 9:26 am, Cecil Moore wrote:
wrote:
Your recollections are correct, Cecil, with minor corrections to
the Conditional distance. Which changed right around the time you
got the license, as did the retest rules.
Thanks Jim, for the history lesson.
You're welcome, Cecil. Thanks for reading.
The old Conditional was preceded by the Class C, which was essentially
the same license with a different name. Early 1930s until the 1951
restructuring.
Some folks think that the 1964-65 rules Conditional changes really cut
into the growth of US ham radio. After those changes, a ham who wanted
a renewable license with HF privileges pretty much had to go to an FCC
exam point unless s/he lived *way* out in the boonies. Just getting to
the exam could be a major journey, depending on where you lived.
I understand what you say here Jim, but I don't agree. If a person
can go to the trouble of learning Morse code, they should be able to
go to the trouble of traveling to the FCC exam points. I can't
imagine that a peron who went to the trouble of learning the
material would feel otherwise.
Just for grins, Mike, make the applicant 12-14 years of age. Put him in
a family with one automobile where the father works during the day and
the mother doesn't drive.
I was lucky - all I needed was decent shoes and a couple of subway
tokens. Three quarters of a mile to the 69th Street Terminal, the
Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated to 2nd Street, and a block south to
the US Custom House.
I travelled about 120 mikes fro my Tech, about 300 for my General
written CSCE, a mere 20 for my Element 1, and aroud 70 for my Extra.
The nearest examination point when I was a kid would have been better
than 50 miles each way, in a time before there was an Interstate Highway
anywhere nearby. The journey each direction would have taken at least
an hour-and-a-half over two lane mountain roads. The examination point
was one of those which the FCC visited quarterly.
Dave K8MN