On Mon, 26 Aug 2013, Jerry Stuckle wrote:


Hmmm, I don't know about over there, but here in the U.S., the tests were
MUCH harder 42 years ago when I passed my Amateur Extra exam. Tests were
administered by FCC personnel, not volunteer examiners. The question pool
was not published, and you had to actually know and understand electronics
and the laws to pass it. In fact, I found the Amateur Extra to be harder
than either the Second or First Class Radiotelephone (commercial) test i had
passed 9 months earlier (back then you had to have General or above to test
for the Amateur Extra).

Nowadays here you can sit in class, memorize the answers and pass all of the
tests before going home for dinner.

I suspect it's subjective, people not having that vantage point.

I recently saw something in a more mainstream place about the test here in
Canada, and it was referred to as "hard". I find that hard to believe,
since when I took the test in 1972, it gave me full privilege except for
voice on HF. I had to draw some diagrams of simple equipment, and explain
what was going on. I don't really remember the written questions, I think
they were multiple choice. But I had no problem passing the test, except
I had to go back the next month to pass the code receiving test.

Now, the "starter" license doesn't allow one to build a transmitter, so
surely the test was simplified on that tradeoff.

But I guess someone coming into the hobby may see it as "hard" as I did
decades ago, simply because they have nothing to compare it to.

Of course, one difference was that I was actually interested in
electronics and radio, so I read everything I could get my hands on for
the year and a half before I took the test. I didn't really do much
studrying for the test, since at the time you had to be over 15 to take
the test, and I was 12 in 1972. But that rule was dropped in April of
1872, there was some warning, and I went and took the test as soon as I
could, May 1972. I think it would be a different thing if I thought the
test was burden to get over, and I set out to "pass the test" rather than
to learn things.

Michael VE2BVW