"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

"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

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 @

On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 17:39:10 EDT, Bruce in Alaska
wrote:

I spent 5 years working for them, untill the ALGORE BloodLetting, that destroyed Field
Operations as we knew it.

That was the first time that I heard Internet Al blamed for it.

I had always thought that it was Der Hundt, when The Congress laid the
task of rewriting the Cable TV rules on the agency but refused to
approve any more slots (money) for the reg-writers. and he looked
around to see who was expendable. He had no understanding of what the
field did, no matter how hard we tried, and so the blood-letting of
the field started. The then-Bureau chief (Beverly Baker, one of my
law school mentors) resigned rather than go through with it. She was
replaced by a former Chief Recruiting Sergeant for the Marine
Corps.... (no further comment)

I took early-out 10 seconds after it was offered. That's how good
morale was under that cloud 12 years ago.
--

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 ,
Phil Kane wrote:

On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 17:39:10 EDT, Bruce in Alaska
wrote:

I spent 5 years working for them, untill the ALGORE BloodLetting, that
destroyed Field
Operations as we knew it.

That was the first time that I heard Internet Al blamed for it.

I had always thought that it was Der Hundt, when The Congress laid the
task of rewriting the Cable TV rules on the agency but refused to
approve any more slots (money) for the reg-writers. and he looked
around to see who was expendable. He had no understanding of what the
field did, no matter how hard we tried, and so the blood-letting of
the field started. The then-Bureau chief (Beverly Baker, one of my
law school mentors) resigned rather than go through with it. She was
replaced by a former Chief Recruiting Sergeant for the Marine
Corps.... (no further comment)

I took early-out 10 seconds after it was offered. That's how good
morale was under that cloud 12 years ago.
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

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

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


ALGORE was the guy who was incharge of the "Reinvention Of Government"
movement under the Clinton Administration. The Commission was one of
first agencies that got "ReInvented", and FOB was the first Bureau
that got slashed. It was interesting that the total number of employees
stayed fairly static thru the whole process..... $60K Engineers and
$45K Field Techs, replaced with $120K Economists, and $100K Lawyers....
and this saved money, How? Oh well, I really enjoyed my time with the
Commission, and the friends I made, and still have, some of whom are
still there. Although fewer, each year.

Bruce in alaska
--
add path before @

In article ,
Bruce in Alaska wrote:

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,

Wasn't she just scary?

--
--------------------------------------------------------
Personal e-mail is the n7bsn but at amsat.org
This posting address is a spam-trap and seldom read
RV and Camping FAQ can be found at
http://www.ralphandellen.us/rv

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

On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 17:39:28 EDT, John Siegel
wrote:

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

During most of the 1980s they were tearing up the streets outside the
San Francisco office, and we actually had to find an inside conference
room to give the code tests.
--

73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

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

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

On Sun, 21 Oct 2007 12:38:48 EDT, Steve Bonine wrote:

But I do wonder why headphones were provided for some exam locations, but not
for others.

It all depended on what resources the local office could scrounge up,
because the nickel-nursers at HQ were not of a mind to buy such things
in an era when we had to scrounge surplus equipment from Federal
disposal sites. Other agencies were "retiring" or discarding stuff
that was newer and better than what we had in service. For many years
our non-technical vehicles were the Fords and Chevys seized by the DEA
from low-level drug dealers. The BMWs and Mercedes of the high-level
dealers they kept for themselves.

The FCC was, and to some extent still is, a "pauper agency". They
don't get to keep any of the license fees or spectrum auction proceeds
collected, over and above the actual cost of processing the license or
running the auction.
--

"Stand Clear of the Closing Doors, Please"

Phil Kane - Beaverton, OR
PNW Milepost 755 - Tillamook District