"Carl R. Stevenson" wrote in message ...
"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
et...

And what I'm thinking is that unless it means something again, they
might as well get rid of it. That little sliver of operating frequencies
is not worth it, if increased privileges are the measuring stick.

Actually, the differences in privs from General to Extra are substantial.

Are they? Let's take a look...

What additional frequency spectrum does a General get by upgrading to
Extra?

On VHF/UHF - nothing

On MF - nothing

On HF:

100 kHz of non-phone/image space on 4 bands. This amounts to ~8.5% of
the 1182 kHz of non-phone/image space on the eight HF amateur bands.

350 kHz of phone/image space on 4 bands. This amounts to ~14.8% of the
2368 kHz of phone/image space on the eight HF amateur bands.

Total: 450 kHz of space out of a total of 3550 kHz on the eight HF
amateur bands. ~12.7% more space

What additional frequency spectrum does an Advanced get by upgrading
to Extra?

On VHF/UHF - nothing

On MF - nothing

On HF:

100 kHz of non-phone/image space on 4 bands. This amounts to ~8.5% of
the 1182 kHz of non-phone/image space on the eight HF amateur bands.

75 kHz of phone/image space on 3 bands. This amounts to ~3.2% of the
2368 kHz of phone/image space on the eight HF amateur bands.

Total: 175 kHz of space out of a total of 3550 kHz on the eight HF
amateur bands. ~4.9% more space

Of the 3550 kHz in the eight HF amateur bands, 66.7% - almost exactly
two-thirds - is allocated to phone/image, while slightly less than
one-third is non-phone/image space.

With the FCC no longer issuing Advanced licenses, the only way to
gain access to the "Advanced sub-bands" is to upgrade to Extra.

Said subbands consist of 275 kHz on four bands, all of it phone/image
space.

I'd say that's a pretty good incentive.

There's also the spiffy callsigns.

But it all depends on what it is a ham wants to do.

Back before restructuring, the ham who wasn't interested in
phone/image had no reason to get an Advanced. And the ham who wasn't
interested in CW/data had relatively little reason to get an Extra.

73 de Jim, N2EY