In article t, "Dan/W4NTI"
w4nti@get rid of this mindspring.com writes:

Thats right, my incentive was in 1961 when my mother paid for my ticket to
Pittsburg PA and went along to take my General test.

Just out of curiosity, Dan - where were you living in '61 that made Pittsburgh
the nearest FCC office?

"We ain't doing this again Danny, you better pass it the first time". I
did. At age 14.

I had it easier 'cause I was just a subway ride from the Philly FCC office.
Short walk at each end and a pair of PTC tokens for the trip. Parental units
were *not* involved. Tech and Advanced in '68 at 14 and Extra two years later.

You'll like this bit:

The way they ran the Philly exams was that they did the code first and then the
writtens. And they started with 20 wpm. Better be there on time or you missed
it.

So the day I'm there for the big E, the examiner comes out right at 8 AM and
asks the assembled multitude if anybody is taking 20 wpm code. Turns out I'm
not only the youngest one there but I'm the only one trying for Extra.

Examiner and I go in the exam room, he sets up the code machine, phones, pad
and pencil, etc. You know the drill. Says all I need is one minute solid out of
five. I put on the cans and he starts the machine. I have no trouble copying,
so he comes around and looks obver my shoulder while I write in block letters.
I figure I've got it licked, right?

After about 90 seconds he turns off the code machine. Uh-oh, I think,
something's not right, I've never heard of a test being interrupted like that.

"Pretty easy, huh, kid?"
"Uh, yeah, I guess".
"It should be - that was 13. Here's 20"

And he changed drive spindles and the real test began.

I'll never know if he just forgot to change speeds, if he wanted to make sure I
could do 13 first, or if he wanted to rattle the kid's cage a bit. Didn't
matter, I passed.

Then 20 per with a straight key until he said "OK, kid".

You've been there, Dan, you're just 7 years ahead of me.

73 de Jim, N2EY