In article et, Andy
Ball wrote:

If a "new Tech" passes the code test, does he or she get
Tech Plus priviliges, or are those solely for people who
earned that license when it was current?

Andy-

It doesn't work that way now. However you can probably pass the General
Class test with only a little more effort than for the Technician test.
Many years ago they were the same test except for code speed. Check out
the practice tests at http://www.qrz.com.

You may be interested to know that the FCC has issued a proposal to
eliminate code from all Ham tests. It will take a while before all the
comments have been submitted and resolved. If you want the HF license now
without waiting, you'll need to pass the code test.

73, Fred, K4DII