On Oct 13, 9:29?pm, "Howard Lester" wrote:

That white shirt and tie was pretty intimidating, wasn't it?

Not at all. Not to me, anyway.

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".
And if you failed, it was a 30 day minimum wait until you could try
again, plus another $9 fee.


but the man in the white shirt went over my answer sheet and
casually said,
"You passed." "I DID!?" was my trembling response....
"Yeah." Oh. I
walked out of the exam room, went down the hall, threw my pencil
in the air
over my back and kept going.

I think I had a built-in advantage.

As a kid in school, taking tests was something I was used to, at least
weekly. One or two more tests was no big thing in itself.

Once the two-year experience requirement was met, I went for Extra.
Late summer 1970, same FCC office, same examiner. I was by far the
youngest person in the crowded waiting room that day. When The Man
opened the exam room door at 8 AM sharp and asked for anyone taking
the Extra, I was the only one trying for it.

He led me to the code test table and proceeded to open a locked filing
cabinet and take out the little code machine and the paper tapes it
used that contained The Actual Test. Plus 'phones, a legal pad and #2
pencil.

That little code machine used different-sized drive rollers to change
speeds, btw, and there was a stack of test tapes for it.

I got the standard instructions: Test is five minutes of code,
examiner must find 100 consecutive correct legible characters (which
amounts to 1 minute at 20 wpm) to pass, when the code stops put the
pencil down immediately or you fail.

Examiner asks if I'm ready, I manage a "yes" and put on the cans. He
says "Go!" and starts the machine.

I started right off copying in block letters. The code is loud and
clear and machine made, easier than copying off the air. After a bit I
settle down and start to think that it's easy - I'm getting every
letter!

I see out of the corner of my eye that The Man is looking out the
window, then over at me, Then he comes around and looks over my
shoulder as I copy. Bends down to get a better look.

Then he walks around the table and shuts off the machine, even though
the code has only been going for less than two minutes.

I look up, startled. I'd heard they always gave you the full five
minutes....

"That was easy, huh kid?" asks The Man.

"Uh, yeah..." is all I can manage.

"It should be" says The Man. "That was only 13. Here's 20"

And he swapped drive spindles on the code machine and started it
again.

Yes, I passed.

Now exams are given in people's living rooms....

Nothing new about that. I took the Novice tests in K3NYT's dining
room. Spring-summer 1967.

Tomorrow it will be 40 years since the license arrived in the
mail...

Which makes it today..

Congratulations, Jim. It's quite a "club" we belong to.

Yup. But consider how few we are.

There were about 250,000 US hams back then. If we lost just 1% of
those licensed then per year, only about 167,000 of us are left, out
of over 655,000 US hams today.

If we lost 2% per year, only about 111,000 of us are left.

73 de Jim, N2EY

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.
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

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

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

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.

--

One more story:

In those days (1967-1970) the written exam questions came in a booklet
and there was a separate answer sheet for your answers. They made a
big deal about having two #2 pencils, filling in the little box
completely, erasing completely, not making stray marks on the paper,
do not bend, fold, spindle or mutilate, etc.

I'd had similar standardized tests several times in school, and there
was always an air of mystery about how the tests were graded. It was
implied that they were fed into a computer that had a no tolerance for
those who didn't follow instructions.

Being a curious sort, I asked how the machine worked, but got no
information. Top secret?

It seemed to me there were two possibilities: either there was some
form of photoelectric system that shone a light through the paper, or
there was a grid of contacts (gold plated?) that detected the answers
by the conductivity of the graphite pencil marks.

The photoelectric system seemed more workable, but the grid-of-
contacts system explained the insistence on #2 pencils.

When I went to take the test at the FCC office, I thought I might get
a glimpse of the grading machine. But there was nothing that looked
like such a device in the exam room.

When I handed in my completed written test, the examiner's assistant
pulled out what looked to me like a manila file folder. She opened it
up and slid the answer sheet inside - behind a piece of paper with
holes punched in it. She counted up the holes with marked boxes behind
them, then pulled out the answer sheet and looked for any questions
with more than one box filled in. Whole operation took very little
time. She said "You passed" and that was it.

What a letdown! No fancy machine, no photocells or gold-plated
contacts, no computer, just some pieces of paper with holes in the
right spots.

I got the distinct impression that I'd seen something I wasn't
supposed to reveal to others.

The phrase "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" took on a
whole new meaning that day.

73 de Jim, N2EY

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

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 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

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

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

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.

Actually they were processed at the License Center in Gettysburg, PA
which still processes all licenses, inputting the data into the ULS
and printing/mailing the actual document.

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'.

The success of (2) depends on the willingness to prosecute any and all
persons who reveal or possess the contents of any examination without
authorization. Does the name "Dick Bash" ring any bells? It's still
a sore point with me.

The chances of either actually happening range from "none" to "what
world are you on".
--

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:
wrote:

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


The success of (2) depends on the willingness to prosecute any and all
persons who reveal or possess the contents of any examination without
authorization. Does the name "Dick Bash" ring any bells? It's still
a sore point with me.

The chances of either actually happening range from "none" to "what
world are you on".



You could get the same result, effectively, by increasing the size of
the question pool. Just go from the present 8 or 10 to 1 ratio (pool
size to test size) to something larger. It could be easily accomplished
with the issuance of the next set of pools.

--
Klystron