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#11
January 28th 07, 02:46 AM
posted to rec.radio.amateur.policy
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Those Old Study Guides
Mike Coslo wrote:
wrote in oups.com: On Jan 25, 9:26 am, Cecil Moore wrote: wrote: 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. Thanks Jim, for the history lesson. You're welcome, Cecil. Thanks for reading. The old Conditional was preceded by the Class C, which was essentially the same license with a different name. Early 1930s until the 1951 restructuring. Some folks think that the 1964-65 rules Conditional changes really cut into the growth of US ham radio. After those changes, a ham who wanted a renewable license with HF privileges pretty much had to go to an FCC exam point unless s/he lived *way* out in the boonies. Just getting to the exam could be a major journey, depending on where you lived. I understand what you say here Jim, but I don't agree. If a person can go to the trouble of learning Morse code, they should be able to go to the trouble of traveling to the FCC exam points. It's a completely different situation. Learning Morse Code is directly related to getting the license and what is done with it. Traveling to a distant city back in the days before the Interstate Highway System isn't. I can't imagine that a peron who went to the trouble of learning the material would feel otherwise. I can. And it's not about how anyone felt - it's about the reality of the requirements. It all depends on the situation, Mike. Consider the case posed by K8MN, which was very common in the 1950s and 1960s. How was a young 1950s ham supposed to get to a license test session 120 miles away, and be there before 8 AM on a weekday morning? Remember too that the distance rule was "air line", meaning straight- line distance on the map, not actual distance on the road. In many places, 125 miles air-line could be twice that on the road. More than three hours at the common speed limit of 40 mph - if everything went according to plan. For me, the biggest difficulty in getting to the FCC office was the fact that tests in the Philly office were only given on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays - which were all school days. Young hams like me had to wait for summer, or a school holiday that was not a Federal holiday. (There was no way a school kid would skip school for a day to take a ham radio exam!) With the 30 day wait to retest, there was a real incentive to pass on the first try. I was lucky - all I needed was decent shoes and a couple of subway tokens. Three quarters of a mile to the 69th Street Terminal, the Market-Frankford Subway-Elevated to 2nd Street, and a block south to the US Custom House. I travelled about 120 mikes fro my Tech, about 300 for my General written CSCE, a mere 20 for my Element 1, and aroud 70 for my Extra. Round trip or one way? Weekday or weekend? Did you have to be there at 8 AM or be turned away? Most of all, note the wide variation in distances. I'll bet you went to different VE sessions at various hamfests, some close to home, some not. You went when it was convenient for *you*. My point is that in the Conditional days there was no choice. You went to the FCC office, on their schedule, unless you lived beyond the Conditional distance. And note this most of all: FCC didn't change the distance in 1954 because of concern for hams having to travel long distances to get to an exam session. FCC changed the distance to reduce their workload giving the exams! 73 de Jim, N2EY |
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