On Thu, 18 Oct 2007 00:28:32 EDT, wrote:

However, didn't the examiner have to use at least some judgement as to
whether an applicant's Morse Code copy was 'legible', and whether his/
her sending was OK?

Going back before my time, when the exams involved writing essays,
drawing diagrams and showing how an answer was derived, didn't the
examiner have some judgement as to whether the applicant had properly
answered a question?

Welllll....yes.

We're even! ggg
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net

"Phil Kane" wrote

Steve, I think you're right - very right - especially after reading Jim's
posting that followed yours. It's an experience that few of us hams share
any more.

So very true. For most hams that was the first one-on-one contact
that they had with the FCC and being told that one passed the exam
made it a positive contact.

Oh, it was a positive contact, all right. (I got to have two of them, both
in the NYC office.) I remember more the FCC men who set my friend and I up
with the headphones to listen to the 13 wpm tape. They were very nice to us
teenagers. It's not to say that others, who got their tickets from VE's,
don't have fond memories of *their* experiences. It's just that this was,
well, the official place, #2 pencils and all that... ;-) And it was in a
time (1963) when authority was respected a lot more than it is now.

Seriously, I attended a W5YI VE session here in Tucson about 14 years ago to
take my Extra exams. It was in someone's house, and it was so noisy, they
were having what amounted to a party while the exams were being given! I did
pass the 20wpm (it was given in a separate room), but I failed the
written.... in the party room. I was appalled at the "QRM" atmosphere. Give
me the quiet, sterile FCC exam room anytime.

Howard N7SO

wrote in news:1192669855.352467.256260
@z24g2000prh.googlegroups.com:

On Oct 17, 2:51?am, Phil Kane wrote:
On Sun, 14 Oct 2007 10:14:05 EDT, wrote:
What was intimidating was the fact that the Examiner was The Man From
FCC, who had sole power to say "You passed" or "You failed".

It was the applicant who determined if the result was passing or
failing. The examiner merely reported the results.

Bwaahaaahaaa! I walked right into that one, Phil!

However, didn't the examiner have to use at least some judgement as to
whether an applicant's Morse Code copy was 'legible', and whether his/
her sending was OK?

Going back before my time, when the exams involved writing essays,
drawing diagrams and showing how an answer was derived, didn't the
examiner have some judgement as to whether the applicant had properly
answered a question?

--

The way I recall it, the examiner I met wasn't so much trying to
intimidate as to simply let you know that this licensing stuff was
serious business.

This kind of got me to thinking. Perhaps the judgement part is one of the
reasons that essays went away. In a related situation, the first time I
took my driving test, I went before a steely eyed Examiner, a state
policeman by the name of Nix. I aced the written part of the test, and
aced the driving test too. Then on the way back to the building where
they were headquartered, he suddenly yelled out STOP NOW! I did so
immediately, thinking there might be an emergency situation; after which
he looked at me, grinned, and said "Congratulations, YOU flunked!" When I
asked what I did wrong, He said "You didn't use your turn signal." My
test was already over, and I did everything asked, and yet I couldn't do
a thing about it.

I am a big supporter of the tests the way they are now.

- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -

On Oct 12, 6:25 pm, wrote:
Forty years ago today, October 12, 1967, FCC issued a Novice license
to a 13-year-old kid in the 7th grade. The license arrived two days
later, and the kid (me) went on the amateur bands for the first time
October 14, 1967.

Jim, October 14th is special for me, too. That's the date I entered
active duty.

Since then, I've has had three amateur radio callsigns, six
"permanent" QTHs, a long list of rigs, antennas, parts and test
equipment, awards earned, articles published, and tens of thousands of
QSOs. Many things in amateur radio are different now than they were
then, many things are the same.

While serving, I had seven ranks, 10 PCS moves, including two
unaccompanied short tours (12 months in 1979 and another 12 months in
1988), one long tour (1989), several deployments, lots of awards, and
got to play radio, too.

One thing that hasn't changed is that ham radio is sure a lot of fun.

Doesn't seem like 40 years, though.

In ham years, you're just getting dried behind your ears... Enjoy
anther 20 or 30 or so...

What do others remember?

73 de Jim, N2EY

I remember passing my novice test 20 years ago last November. In ham
years, I'm a rank beginner..

73, bb

On Oct 19, 10:56?pm, Mike Coslo wrote:
wrote in news:1192669855.352467.256260
@z24g2000prh.googlegroups.com:

Going back before my time, when the exams involved
writing essays,
drawing diagrams and showing how an answer was
derived, didn't the
examiner have some judgement as to whether
the applicant had properly
answered a question?

This kind of got me to thinking. Perhaps the judgement part
is one of the reasons that essays went away.

I agree. Your story about the driving test shows how arbitrary that
judgement could be. Things like handwriting legibility and how good
someone is at English composition could make the difference.

Another issue is the need for examiners who knew the material
well enough to grade the tests. Anybody with the right answer key
can grade a multiple-choice test but essays require a grader that
knows the stuff - and has the time.

Historically:

- Novice was always all multiple-choice.

- the pre-1953 Advanced had essays, diagrams, show-your-work problems
and multiple choice. When it was revived in 1967, it was all multiple
choice. (No Advanceds were issued from 1953 to 1967).

- Technician/General/Conditional and Extra had essays, diagrams, show-
your-work problems and multiple choice until about 1961, when the old
blue-book tests were replaced with all-multiple-choice tests.

There was not a single changeover date from blue-book to multiple
choice exams, because the examiners
were instructed to use up their existing stock of old exams before
starting to use the new ones. So depending on where you went for
the exam, you could get one or the other. I suspect that busy exam
points like NYC used up their stock of old exams very quickly, while
a less-busy place might have used them for quite a while after the
new ones came out.

- For the first two years of their existence (1951-1953), Novice and
Technician were tested at FCC offices unless the examinee could meet
the "Conditional criteria" of distance or physical disability.
After that time, those exams were issued by mail using a single
volunteer examiner, regardless of distance.

From what older amateurs have told me, the reason FCC made the
switch was that the exam points were being inundated with people,
particularly teenagers, coming to take the exams without adequate
preparation. The tests were free in those days, and a kid on summer
vacation could show up at the FCC office three times in a summer
with the 30 day wait. IMHO the FCC wanted to both reduce their
workload of failed exams and reduce the number who passed simply
because they'd gone back so many times that they'd seen all the exam
versions.

The by-mail exam process slowed things down a lot because there
was a 6-8 week processing delay at every step, plus all the work was
at FCC Hq.

All the amateur radio written exams I took were multiple choice.
None of them were difficult at all, IMHO. They did require knowing
some radio theory and regulations governing the ARS, though.

I am a big supporter of the tests the way they are now.

Two things I would change in the exam *process* (not *content*,
but *process*):

1) I would go back to the way things were in the late 1970s,
when FCC conducted the exams, both in their offices and by
request at hamfests, club meetings and almost anywhere that a
certain minimum number of examinees could be guaranteed.

2) I would make the exams themselves 'secret', that is, no more
open question pools.

Of course 2) would depend on 1). The chances of either actually
happening are probably 'slim to none'.

73 de Jim, N2EY

"Howard Lester" wrote in message
...

"Phil Kane" wrote

Steve, I think you're right - very right - especially after reading Jim's
posting that followed yours. It's an experience that few of us hams share
any more.

In the mid 70's I took the first class phone exam in front of a FCC examiner
in Cincinnati.
Since there wasn't an FCC office in town they held the exam at a suburban
hotel in one of those meeting rooms where they pull out a divider to
subdivide the room. Unfortunately there was a Mary Kay Cosmetics meeting
being held on the other side of the ballroom, and every five minutes or so
Mary Kay ladies would start clapping and singing, just like camp meeting.

No "quiet, sterile FCC exam room " that day.

Dan Yemiola AI8O wrote:

Unfortunately there was a Mary Kay Cosmetics meeting
being held on the other side of the ballroom, and every five minutes or so
Mary Kay ladies would start clapping and singing, just like camp meeting.

No "quiet, sterile FCC exam room " that day.

At least they tried, sort of.

My General class exam was held in the Federal Building in Knoxville, TN.
I've seen other articles here that described using headphones for code
exams; we did not have them. The room was one of those sterile 1960s
government classroom/conference rooms, and the echo was horrendous. It
was kind of like copying cw through QRN on 80 meters, which is just what
I had been doing for the past few months, so I did pass the test. But I
do wonder why headphones were provided for some exam locations, but not
for others.

73, Steve KB9X

On Sat, 20 Oct 2007 11:49:24 EDT, wrote:

Another issue is the need for examiners who knew the material
well enough to grade the tests. Anybody with the right answer key
can grade a multiple-choice test but essays require a grader that
knows the stuff - and has the time.

That was the main reason. The Commercial Radiotelegraph Operator
exams has diagrams to the end, and we always had to call an engineer
to grade those questions.
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon

e-mail: k2asp [at] arrl [dot] net

In article ,
Steve Bonine wrote:

Dan Yemiola AI8O wrote:

Unfortunately there was a Mary Kay Cosmetics meeting
being held on the other side of the ballroom, and every five minutes or so
Mary Kay ladies would start clapping and singing, just like camp meeting.

No "quiet, sterile FCC exam room " that day.

At least they tried, sort of.

My General class exam was held in the Federal Building in Knoxville, TN.
I've seen other articles here that described using headphones for code
exams; we did not have them. The room was one of those sterile 1960s
government classroom/conference rooms, and the echo was horrendous. It
was kind of like copying cw through QRN on 80 meters, which is just what
I had been doing for the past few months, so I did pass the test. But I
do wonder why headphones were provided for some exam locations, but not
for others.

73, Steve KB9X


I took my General Test at the FCC Office in the OLD Federal Office
Building in Seattle, Washington, from the Steelie Eyed, Old Crone
named Gertrude Johnson, who was the Office Secratary. She did a
REAL Good impression of "Librarian from Hell". NO talking, no noise
of any kind, if your eyes even left your desk, you FAILED. She was
Code Proficent, clear up to 35WPM, and the EIC, Bob Deitch, was even
Better. I took my First Class Radiotelephone Exam in the same place
the next year, and Ms. Johnson was still there.
Years later, when I took the Advanced Exam, in the NEW Federal
Office Building, Bob Zinns was the examiner, and they just made you
erase all the memory in your calculator. I had it a lot easier
then, as I had been doing Marine Ship Inspections, with Inspectors
from the Seattle Office for a couple of years, and had a good
relationship whith all of them.
A few years after that, I was approched by the FCC Region X Director,
Bill Johnson, and was offered a position with the Commission as
a Resident Field Agent for Southeastern Alaska, attached to the
Anchorage Office. I spent 5 years working for them, untill the
ALGORE BloodLetting, that destroyed Field Operations as we knew
it.

Bruce in alaska AL7AQ
--
add path before @

Steve Bonine wrote:
Dan Yemiola AI8O wrote:

Unfortunately there was a Mary Kay Cosmetics meeting being held on the
other side of the ballroom, and every five minutes or so Mary Kay
ladies would start clapping and singing, just like camp meeting.

No "quiet, sterile FCC exam room " that day.


At least they tried, sort of.

My General class exam was held in the Federal Building in Knoxville, TN.
I've seen other articles here that described using headphones for code
exams; we did not have them. The room was one of those sterile 1960s
government classroom/conference rooms, and the echo was horrendous. It
was kind of like copying cw through QRN on 80 meters, which is just what
I had been doing for the past few months, so I did pass the test. But I
do wonder why headphones were provided for some exam locations, but not
for others.

73, Steve KB9X

I took my exam in Philly in the same era. Fortunately the headphones did
help
with the jack hammers going outside.
John