RadioBanter - Feb 23 is the No-code date

On Jan 28, 11:03�pm, Mike Coslo wrote:
wrote roups.com:

On Jan 27, 10:20�pm, Mike Coslo wrote:
wrote
roup
s.com:

On Jan 27, 8:11�pm, Mike Coslo wrote:
wrote
roup
s.com:

* * * * a most interesting history lesson snipped for brevity

Generals. This was in the era when FCC not only had many
scheduled exams, but would also send out traveling examiners
upon request if a minimum number of examinees could be
guaranteed. Ham exam sessions were being conducted by FCC at
hamfests, conventions, and club meetings, and the perceived need
for the Conditional disappeared.

---

Your recollections are correct, Cecil, with minor corrections to
the Conditional distance. Which changed right around the time
you got the license, as did the retest rules.* * * *

* * Although I can see a few quirks here and there, I would have
to * * say
* * that overall the testing, requirements, and methods have impro
ved
* * over the years, rather than regressed.

On what do you base that conclusion, Mike?

I see the accessibility of the tests as improved. But that's about
it.

* * I had to chuckle at some of
* * the early stuff, which was awkward, and most arbitrary.

Like what?*

I'll answer this and the last question at one time. 75 miles, 150
miles. mail in tests, move closer than the "limit" lose your license
if you don't retest. Don't move, keep it. *That's just a little bit.
It all seems arbitrary, and almost capricious to me. YMMV.

The idea was that the FCC was balancing access to the test sessions
with maintaining control over the process. They were very concerned
about the whole process back then.

Remember that we're talking about 50+ years ago. Back then, there
were very clear memories of spy activities during both World Wars
where radio was used. (A US *amateur* discovered one during WW1
and brought it to the attention of the authorities by recording the
transmission). The '50s were the Cold War and the McCarthy era, too.

Maintaining control over every step of the licensing process was a big
deal to FCC back then.

It may seem arbitrary and capricious today, but it didn't back then.
Don't leave CONUS without a passport, btw.

It was committee work, and reeks of committee work

Actually I think it's more a patchwork job instead of a comprehensive
one. Like the person who patches up a leaky roof rather than redo the
whole thing from the rafters up. The patches cost less at the time,
but you have to keep patching.

The whole 125-75-175 mile Conditional distance thing looks like a
regulatory patch job. FCC restructured the ARS license classes in
1951, did the Great Giveaway of 1952, then found their offices flooded
with amateur exam-takers. So they reduced the Conditional distance and
made Novice and Tech by-mail-only to lighten the load.

* * Some of
* * those tests amounted to "open book" tests, which are surely
easier * * than Open pool tests.

How?

The old tests were definitely not open book in any sense of the
word. You weren't even allowed to bring your own pencils in some
cases.*
* * *

Mailing the test in? At least ther was no chance whatsoever of
looking up the answer in the book, eh?

The way it worked was that you found a volunteer examiner (note the
lack of caps) and *s/he* sent away for the exam and the other forms.

When the test came from FCC in its special sealed envelope, the
volunteer examiner would not open it until the actual exam session
began, and would seal it up in another special envelope and send
it back to FCC. There was a form that had to be notarized, where
both the examinee and the volunteer examiner swore that the exam
was conducted according to the rules. Most people took such things
very seriously back then, particularly when the Feds were involved.

This may seem wide open to corruption, but I do not know of *any*
cases where the by-mail exam process was compromised. Rumors
of cheating do not count.

I don't know of any cheating either. But I don't think that this
generation has a monopoly on abberant behavior.

Of course not. But things do change over time. For example, the
Watergate scandal
changed the way a lot of Americans loooked at the Federal government,
and how much
it was trusted by them.

Remember too that this was in the days before copy machines were
common, and getting a "photostat" was a big deal.
I took the Novice exam from a local volunteer examiner back in 1967.
He took the process very seriously, as did I. He wanted to help new
hams,
but he wasn't about to compromise the process or risk his license, a
fine *and a prison term.

How about a question like this:

"A manufacturer guarantees his crystals to be within .01% of the
marked frequency, when used in the recommended circuit at 20
degrees C. The crystals have a negative temperature coefficient of
50 parts per million per degree C.

What is the lowest whole-kilocycle frequency that should be ordered
for a 40 meter crystal, if the crystal is to be used in the
recommended circuit over the temperature range of 5 to 35 degrees
C? Allow 1 additional kilocycle to allow for crystal and component
aging.

Show all work."*

That was an important thing at that time.

Still is, in a way. The question could be modernized to calculating
the
dial setting on a ham rig where the temperature coefficient and
possible
error of the reference oscillator are known.

Would you put that question in an Amateur Radio test today?

I'd put a modernized version of it. Something like this:

Suppose a ham rig has reference-oscillator accuracy of .001% when new,
and the output frequency can be considered as accurate as the
reference oscillator. Suppose also that the rig has a negative
temperature coefficient of 2 parts per million per degree C over the
range from 5 to 35 degrees C, and the display can read out to 10 Hz.
What is the lowest indicated frequency on the 15 meter band that a
General class amateur should use for Morse Code operation, assuming
the worst temperature condition and allowing 500 Hz for aging and
other factors?

And to be honest, I would
have to look a few things up to give a reasonable accurate answer.
But
the math is not that difficult, unless I am way off.

The point is that the person taking the test did not have those
options. They'd have to answer that sort of question with just pencil,
paper, and
maybe a slide rule. And the actual exam question would be similar, but
different - maybe it would state that a certain crystal was on hand,
and then ask if it met the criteria to be inside the band under all
operating
conditions. Maybe the temperature coefficient would be positive above
a certain temperature and negative below. And that would be *one*
question on the 50 question General test.

* * * * Wow, is this going to degenreate into how much easier people have
it today since we can use calculators?

No. I'm just pointing out how different it was.

I can use a calculator, I can do
longhand, I can even do a sliderule - ours was the last class in school
that had to learn to use them.

I never "had" to learn to use a slipstick - we were told to get one
and learn to use
it on our own time.

I could give an
answer I had around 50 percent confidence in now, but if I was wrong,
it would be like the guff that Dave has to take with his "out of
band frenchmen". Mike the dumb nickle Extra that couldn't answer a
question from an old test! ;^)

I am confident that if you studied the concepts in that question, and
worked out the answer to it and similar questions a few times, you'd
be OK. But that's not the point.

* * * * Would seem like it. But while I could likely do the math from the
question, I don't know that much about crystals that maybe there was
something else that the student needed to know. to get a correct answer.

Can you see that being given a study question like that, and having to
work out a similar but different question during the exam, is a
completely different thing from a multiple choice public pool test?

* * * * Frankly, I don't see much of a difference.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree about that.

If I know that the
remight be a question regarding temp cofficient of quartz crystals on
teh test, I'd learn about them.

And that's a Good Thing.

But unless the question isn't from any book, or just somehow shows
up on a test with no references anywhere to be found, I'd do a bit of
research and the answer would be forthcoming. Hard? Not in the least.

The research would have to be done before the test, though.

* * * * I did research before my tests.

And it's not about "hard". It's about how much the examinee has to
actually understand the material, and be able to demonstrate that
understanding.

No open book, no cheat sheets, no formulas given - and that's just
one question on the General exam.* * *

Maybe the steely eyed FCC examiner watches you take the test you
mail in so that you don't have to take the test in front of the
steely eyed FCC examiner?

See above about cheating.

* * * * Certainly if there were only a few exams existing for
the
*different
* * levels, it would be very important to be hush-hush about the
* * contents of those exams. It certainly would argue against
those
few tests being so much superior.

How would the existence of a few tests argue against that?

Jim, am I being obtuse or what? Seems to me that if there are only a
couple tests, that cheating would be much easier, that retesting
would likely expose the applicant to the same test again, and that
your "buddy" could give you some valuable hints.

There are ways to cheat almost any system. Do you know of any
actual cheating under the old system? There have been documented
cases of suspected cheating under the VEC system, where the FCC
caleed in hams who then flunked the retest.

* * * * Good, glad they were caught.

Some passed, some didn't. Some didn't even show up or reply to FCC.
Automatic flunk.

One of the interesting things about
people when they get to be curmudgeons is that they use present day
exposures and punishments as some sort of evidence of corruption as
compared with the good old days, when there was apparently no corruption
because there wasn't any expose's of the wicked.

Good point!

One of the big changes that Watergate and similar scandals (remember
that guy who was found drunk in the reflecting pool with a woman named
"Fannie Fox"?) brought was that the mainstream press would publish
those stories instead of hushing them up. The personal foibles of
government officials used to be considered off-limits, but not any
more.

Your argumen could be
used as saying that there was no steroid abuse in baseball before the
first person was caught....

Agreed!

But at the same time, it is an equally flawed argument to say that
there was as much cheating then as now, without any evidence.

I saw the same question from
your 1960's essay type question, and my 1950's guide. Unless we are
arguing extremely small points here, any differences between the
tests of the good old days and now just aren't big enough to be that
concerned about.

The process is a big part of it. But as I said before, the old exam
process is gone and won't come back any time soon - if ever.

* * * * This ham is glad of that. If that makes the old timers better than
me, then so be it.

In fact, as this discussion goes on in here and outside of this
group, I am more and more convinced that an equally acceptable
explanation is a sense of nostalgia, a yearning for good old days
that perhaps never really existed, and the fact that middle aged men
are capable of becoming *upset about just about anything.

Well, I'm not upset at all. Just accurate. Some people don't like
accuracy.

* * * * Jim, You are exxpressing an opinion.

I'm also expressing factual information as to how the tests used to
be, compared to
how they are now.

That you choos to describe
your opinion as accurate, then I guess it follows that you think (know)
that my opinion on the matter is innacurate.

My use of the word "accurate" is meant to refer to the factual
information as to how the tests used to be, compared to how they are
now - not the opinions surrounding them.

Sorry if that wasn't clear.

* * * * Innacurate is a present day euphemism for lying.

It can be. Inaccurate can also mean a lot of other things. "Lying"
generally means the telling of an untruth where the teller *knows*
what is being told is untrue, but says it anyway with the intent to
deceive the listener.

I don't think you are trying to deceive anyone.

* * * * I would hope that you are not accusing me of lying when I'm simply
offering my opinion.

In all my years on rrap, I have not accused *anyone* of lying. Telling
untruths isn't necessarily lying - the teller could just be making a
mistake.

And I would say that *human beings* - young, old, male, female - are
capable of becoming upset about just about anything.

* * * * Not to the extent that aging men do.

I disagree! IMHO, it depends on the induhvidual.

The most easily-upset person who posts to rrap isn't middle aged -
he's old. Gets upset over *any* disagreement with his views...;-)

* * * * I dont' know if upset is hte correct word.

I think it is.

He's having his version
of fun with you folks that want to argue with him.

I don't argue with him. I correct some of his mistakes and state
correct
factual information, and my opinions. That often drives him bonkers,
but that's his problem, not mine.

Kind of a co-dependency thing. ;^)

I'll stick with my transference and projection diagnosis.

Besides, the person in question won't be posting to rrap much longer,
and won't be in the new moderated group. So it's really a moot point.

Old joke:

Two substance-abusers and a codependent are sentenced to death on the
guillotine by a king.

The first substance abuser is put in the machine, the lever pulled,
the blade comes down - and miraculously stops a few inches above the
condemned substance-abuser's neck.

The king says "it's a miracle" and lets the first condemned person go
free.

The second substance abuser is put in the machine, the lever pulled,
the blade comes down - and miraculously stops a few inches above the
condemned substance-abuser's neck.

The king says "it's a miracle" and lets the second condemned person go
free.

The co-dependent person is led to the machine, but says "I can fix
this!"

(thanks to Cary Tennis on Salon.com)

73 de Jim, N2EY