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Old September 6th 03, 02:19 PM
N2EY
 
Posts: n/a
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In article om, "Dee D.
Flint" writes:

Both the pool AND answers are published.


And how do we convince FCC to change that?

Let's take a typical question:

What is the length of a dipole for 14.240Mhz?


I assume you mean "half wave"...

What kind of half wave dipole? Made of wire or tubing? Of uniform thickness or
tapering? In free space or near other objects?

The answer depends on a bunch of things!

Now since the questions AND answers are published, the prospective test
taker can simply memorize the numerical answer instead of having to learn
the appropriate equation and how to use that equation. Using the memorize
the numerical answer approach, the new ham has passed the test but is unable
to calculate the dipole that he/she may actually want to build for operating

Exactly!

Now suppose we rewrite the question to:

"What is the formula for computing the length of a half-wave dipole for 14.240
MHz, if the dipole is made of #10 wire and is in free space?"

The person being tested then memorizes the formula from the choices in the pool
but doesn't necessarily know how to use it. Same problem.

For another example, knowing that E = IR and P = EI doesn't guarantee that
someone will have the sense to realize that they should not try to use 50 feet
of #18 zip cord to connect a 100 watt transceiver to its 13.8 volt power
supply.

73 de Jim, N2EY