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#21
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Forty Years Licensed
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#22
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Forty Years Licensed
"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 |
#23
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Forty Years Licensed
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#24
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Forty Years Licensed
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 |
#25
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Forty Years Licensed
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 |
#26
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Forty Years Licensed
"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. |
#27
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Forty Years Licensed
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 |
#28
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Forty Years Licensed
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#29
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Forty Years Licensed
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 @ |
#30
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Forty Years Licensed
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 |
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