On Jan 23, 6:23*am, "KH6HZ" wrote:
wrote:
"No matter what employment, education, life experience or
government/military service a person has, if that person
disagrees with any of Len's views, or corrects any of Len's
mistakes, he/she will be the target of Len's insults, ridicule,
name-calling, factual errors, ethnic/gender/racial slurs,
excessive emoticons and general infantile behavior."That's way too much for me toparseat 5am.

Let me see if I can put it in simplier terms

"If you don't kiss Len's ass, expect to be the target of his vitriol".

Looks like a pretty accurate parsing job...

Yeah, that sounds about right.

The explanation is simple: You were/are a target because you
disagreed with Len.

I laugh about it to this day. Thousands of pages of comments, hundreds (if
not thousands of hams) responding, and Lennie

Heck, Len's comments and reply comments alone amount to dozens if not
hundreds of pages.

Consider that some poor soul at FCC had to read all of that...

What I find most amusing is that he took all that trouble to Reply
Comment to you, when your comments were so solidly in the Nocodetest
camp.

Well, we agree on the desirability of better written tests. We
disagree on the Morse Code test in that you support complete
elimination of that test and I don't.

Something a few of the posters here (oddly enough, the most vocal/rabid
members of the No-Code Agenda, it would seem) cannot simply seem to grasp is
that gentlemen can agree to disagree without resorting to ad hominem
attacks.

All sorts of reasons for that. Some consider acting civilized to be a
sign of weakness. Others consider being proved wrong to be a
humiliation, and lash out at the messenger.

I am not entirely opposed to having a "skills test" in addition to a theory
examination. There is precedent in other testing scenarios maintained by the
government. For example, to get a pilot's license, you not only take a
written test, you also have to take a 'hands on' test.

Of course, CW is a very easy method "skills test" to implement, which makes
it a natural selection for the that component in ham radio testing.

Plus the fact that Morse Code is widely used in amateur radio.


I can understand why you would support such a test. This is, IMO, a
legitimate course of reasoning on your part and I can understand the
viewpoint.

TNX

While I agree with it in principle, personally, I do not feel that a morse
test is a good selection for a skills test.

Why not?

Furthermore, I cannot think of a really good alternative, either. Thus,
until someone can present a very concise idea on how to implement a
pertinent skills test in the ARS today, I'll fall back to the side of having
none.

Seems to me that the rational compromise would be to offer a variety of
skills tests.

For example, imagine a simple test of voice operating skill where a
person being tested has to send a message in standard form and receive
one, using standard phonetics and good amateur operating practice.

The other ideas on written test improvement were ignored by FCC

Unfortunately, the trend with licensing in ham radio is very similiar to the
trend we saw wih CB radio licensing back in the mid 70's. It concerns me
that testing gets more and more lax.

Me too.

Another disturbing trend is the desire to modify our licensing standards for
"quantity". Everyone focuses on license numbers, and continuing to grow the
number of licensed amateurs. I believe the majority of changes in our
licensing system over the past 15 years has been directly related to
people's desires to 'swell our ranks'.

I would say 25 years.

I've always been a proponent of quality over quantity. I would rather have
one person interested in learning radio electronics, antenna theory, etc.
over two people who are nothing more than glorified applicance operators.

I think one of the reasons for the recent lack of growth was
the popularization of amateur radio as a personal radio
service in the 1980s and 1990s. There's nothing wrong
with using amateur radio for that purpose, and the
repeater/HT/autopatch boom of those years made it practical

A lot of folks who started out that way turned out to be really good
hams. Some branched out into other areas of amateur radio, others did
not.

But with the proliferation of inexpensive cell phones, that source of
new hams has been greatly reduced. Some of those who did get licensed
for personal radio reasons have
let their licenses lapse because the cell phone does the job now.

You mean you haven't got it "right out of the box"?

I may no longer be a member. Years ago Carl threatened to throw me out of
NCI over my criticism of NCI publically, under the guise of me "really not
being a no-code test advocate". What Stevenson really wanted was an army of
little mindless zealots who reguritated what they were spoon-fed by NCI -- *
something I was not.

That's the old Carl.

The new (post-2001) Carl is a much nicer guy. Very reasonable and well
behaved, whether you agree with him or not. Look up some of his
more-recent posts and see.

See the paragraph above about Len's behavior here. All anyone has
to do is disagree with Len, or correct a mistake he makes, and it's
showtime.

Lennie's fun to wind-up. Every time I post, you know his blood pressure
rises a couple of points. He can't resist the urge to throw out some acerbic
comments.

What will he do after Feb 23?

73 de Jim, N2EY

wrote:

Plus the fact that Morse Code is widely used in amateur radio.

Yes, but that IMO doesn't justify it as a skill test with a pass/fail
result.

In fact, with the largest license class being the Tech, it would be more
logical to suggest an operating mode commonly in use by the vast majority of
techs -- FM voice.


Why not?

Several reasons. First, CW is but one of many modes in use in the ARS today.
I do not feel it is appropriate to weight the CW test heavily in testing,
such that it becomes a pass/fail element. Simply put, some people may have
no interest in operating CW.

Offhand, I do not recall the percentage of hams actively using CW. I vaguely
recall there was a study in the mid 90's. A quick google only yielded one
recent survey, and that was hardly scientific. W5ALT presented some
interesting numbers, but likewise those are questionable and only represent
activity observed, not necessarily the preferred operating mode of
(non-actively-transmitting) hams.

Falling back to 97.1, while CW facilitates an amateur to meet all those
goals, so does every other operating mode.


Seems to me that the rational compromise would be to offer a variety of
skills tests.

Perhaps. Unfortunately, a skills test requires a greater effort on the part
of VEs to implement, test, and grade. It is highly unlikely we would ever
see *ANY* suggestion that makes testing "harder" ever implemented by the
FCC. Fact is, it is politically incorrect to "fail" people. We will never
see the return of a skills test to the ARS. That's the sad reality of the
situation.


For example, imagine a simple test of voice operating skill where a
person being tested has to send a message in standard form and receive
one, using standard phonetics and good amateur operating practice.

I'd almost like to see a form of Elmering system, where as a new ham your
first few contacts are handled under the watchful eye of an older, more
experienced ham, who can show you the "ropes". Naturally, we can do this
today without any rules changes on the part of the FCC.


I would say 25 years.

I believe you've been licensed longer than I. My introduction to amateur
radio really didn't occur until 1982. I wouldn't argue your point. In the
past with the "private" question pools and examination guides, certainly
testing became "easier" when the pools went public (before my time). My own
observations since becoming licensed in the early 90's is the testing
infrastructure has been continuously weakened.


I think one of the reasons for the recent lack of growth was
the popularization of amateur radio as a personal radio
service in the 1980s and 1990s. [...] Some of those who did
get licensed for personal radio reasons have let their licenses
lapse because the cell phone does the job now.

Unfortunately true. The problem the ARS will face now is people will point
at the dropping number of hams as a reason why we have to "fix" the
licensing/testing system by dumbing it down even further.

The new (post-2001) Carl is a much nicer guy. Very reasonable and well
behaved, whether you agree with him or not. Look up some of his
more-recent posts and see.

Maybe he's mellowed with age. I have.


What will he do after Feb 23?

He'll find something to complain about. That's all he really wants to do...
bitch moan and complain. A sad cry for attention in his sunset years. We can
only hope cable internet at the retirement home drops out for a period of
time

73
KH6HZ

"KH6HZ" wrote in
:

wrote:
Seems to me that the rational compromise would be to offer a variety
of skills tests.

Perhaps. Unfortunately, a skills test requires a greater effort on the
part of VEs to implement, test, and grade. It is highly unlikely we
would ever see *ANY* suggestion that makes testing "harder" ever
implemented by the FCC. Fact is, it is politically incorrect to "fail"
people. We will never see the return of a skills test to the ARS.
That's the sad reality of the situation.



Just a comment about this part of the thread.


Once you get away from distinct skills such as Morse code acumen,
you get into a grey area. I'm trying to envision a test where one VE
wants only plain english and another one thinks it is cool to say things
such as QSL, QTH, or HI-HI on voice. So much subjectivity.

Operating practices are OUR responsibility to teach the new guys.
The idea of having to know it at the time of testing is not entirely
realistic.

- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -

"Mike Coslo" wrote:

Once you get away from distinct skills such as Morse code acumen,
you get into a grey area. I'm trying to envision a test where one
VE wants only plain english and another one thinks it is cool to
say things such as QSL, QTH, or HI-HI on voice. So much
subjectivity.

You're right. This is why I do not (currently) support any type of "skills"
test. Although I am not opposed to the idea, I cannot think of a way to
implement one fairly. Instead, I feel the focus should be on "strengthening"
(not read: make more difficult) the theory examinations.

73
KH6HZ

"KH6HZ" wrote in
news
"Mike Coslo" wrote:

Once you get away from distinct skills such as Morse code acumen,
you get into a grey area. I'm trying to envision a test where one
VE wants only plain english and another one thinks it is cool to
say things such as QSL, QTH, or HI-HI on voice. So much
subjectivity.

You're right. This is why I do not (currently) support any type of
"skills" test. Although I am not opposed to the idea, I cannot think
of a way to implement one fairly. Instead, I feel the focus should be
on "strengthening" (not read: make more difficult) the theory
examinations.

Wouldn't it be cool to have (whenever possible) a small station set
up at exams? Even a FT817 and a miracle whip antenna. Get the successful
testees the chance to get their first QSO as a new Ham. Start the
Elmering process right away. At that point the plain speech ham can give
their opinion on how to talk, and the HIHI ham can do the same, without
affecting the test process.

- 73 de Mike KB3EIA -

Wouldn't it be cool to have (whenever possible) a small station set
up at exams? Even a FT817 and a miracle whip antenna. Get the successful
testees the chance to get their first QSO as a new Ham. Start the
Elmering process right away. At that point the plain speech ham can give
their opinion on how to talk, and the HIHI ham can do the same, without
affecting the test process.


You'd need to have a stack of callsigns that could be handed out to the
successful test takers. Like the stack of license plates at the DMV
when you register a car you just bought.

Or a control operator could let the new ham without callsign try his
legs on the air, but it really wouldn't be his first real contact. He'd
use the control op's callsign.