Tim Shoppa wrote:

The controversy in the 70's was the Technician license, a ticket that
required no code,

Interestingly in the 50s the Technician (and Novice) was given
by mail. And any ham friend could give you the code test.
Anyone else could proctor your exam and certify that you
were honest. However I'm sure it won't surprise you to learn
that there were many Techs who never took a code
test and had open book exams.

I always wondered why if the Tech was an experimenters
license as the FCC claimed it was, why they required a code
test.

The Tech was a very popular license, especially in the
late 50s when we had the best sun spot peak on
record. I had a modest Globe Scout 680 with about
20W out on 6 meters to a 5 element Taco beam
up about 30' , AM of course. The Rx was a war surplus
BC455 (7$ brand new mail order) and an International
Crystal 6 meter converter. The Tx was crystal controlled
so you called CQ and then tuned the lower band for
an answer. The band was open stateside every day
and my state count on 6M was in the 40s before
I got my General and moved to 10M which was even
better. DX openings were often and my country count
was in the 50s. That was indeed a fun time...

On Sep 9, 1:52*pm, AJ Lake wrote:
Tim Shoppa wrote:
The controversy in the 70's was the Technician license, a ticket that
required no code,

The Technician required 5 wpm from its creation in 1951 until 1991.

Interestingly in the 50s the Technician (and Novice) was given
by mail. And any ham friend could give you the code test.
Anyone else could proctor your exam and certify that you
were honest. However I'm sure it won't surprise you to learn
that there were many Techs who never took a code
test and had open book exams.

From 1951 until about 1953 or 54 the Novice and Tech were given at FCC
offices unless you lived beyond a certain distance from an FCC exam
point.

But the new licenses made so much work for FCC that they changed the
rules and made both those licenses "by mail".

There was also the by-mail equivalent of the General license, called
the Conditional. In the mid-1970s it was merged with the General.

I remember that when it was announced that the Conditional was being
phased out, there was a false rumor that FCC would require all
Conditionals to retest. You should have heard the cries of anguish! I
found that puzzling because the tests weren't *that* hard. Now I have
a little better understanding...

I always wondered why if the Tech was an experimenters
license as the FCC claimed it was, why they required a code
test.

Because the international treaty required it. Over time that changed,
but in the 1950s any license that allowed a ham to use the bands below
1 GHz required a code test.

73 de Jim, N2EY