On Sep 24, 9:00*pm, AJ Lake wrote:
wrote:
A weeder test can be relevant.

The trouble seems to be that we have different ideas of what a "weeder
test" means. I could find no specific definition in any reference
material, so I'll just no longer use the phrase.

Simply put, there is no reason for a code test in the modern world.

Yes, there is. In ham radio, anyway.

The reason is this:

A license test for an amateur radio operator license should test
things hams actually do on the air.
Hams use Morse Code on the air in 2008.

If
someone wants to use CW he simply learns it or fires up his computer.

That same logic can be applied to anything in the written test too, so
why have a written test?

There once were valid reasons to learn the code, but they haven't
existed for decades.

Some reasons have gone away. Not all. And it hasn't been "decades",
either.

That the code test survived so long was simply ham politics.

Not really. The treaty wasn't written by hams.

By testing, we make people prove they actually learned a few things...

When an 8 year old child can pass the Extra exam, I think you can
safely say that it can be passed without *knowing* the electronics
theory that it pretends to test for.

How do you know for sure that the 8-year-old didn't know the material
on the test?

Bit of history:

Way back in 1948, the old Class B exam was passed on the first try by
Jane Bieberman, W3OVV (sk), at the Philadelphia FCC office. She was 9
years old at the time.

In those days, the Class B exams we

13 wpm Morse Code receiving, minimum 1 minute solid legible copy out
of 5 minutes
13 wpm Morse Code sending with a straight key
50 question written exam that included:
- essay questions
- draw-a-diagram (schematic and block) questions
- show-your-work calculation questions
- multiple-choice questions

No published question-and-answer pools. No partial credit. No CSCEs.
No Bash books.

Now maybe W3OVV didn't understand every subtlety of every question,
but she did well enough to satisfy the FCC examiner.

But having observed what happens when people
are trusted to learn on their own, (cb as one example),

Darn, if only they had started out with a CB code test
*all would be well now...

Yes, it probably would be.

Do you think amateur radio should be more like CB? One license class,
no tests, everybody the same, people trusted to learn what they are
interested in and not have to learn stuff...

Yeah, that's been shown to work really well in radio.

73 de Jim, N2EY