On Mar 10, 8:21?am, "RST Engineering" wrote:
/So I'll say "THANK YOU" to Dee, and all VEs who help
/with the licensing process. And all who have done so
/for more than 20 years, since the FCC abdicated the
/responsibility of testing for amateur radio licenses.

You're welcome.

Jim

VE-ARRL ($14)
VE-GLAARG ($4)

Jim, this whole thread is NOT really about Volunteer Examiners.
It's just a place to vent spleens about OLD ARGUMENTS from
olde-tymers who are still ****ed off about having their self-
righteous statements be the "law" of this (newsgroup) territory.

I was pleased with my local VE team's performance (all four,
not just three) and congratulated them after the testing was
over. [I observed them while they were observing me and the
applicant group] However, that is not extendable to "all" VEs
nor all those involved in this newsgroup. Most of the statements
in this thread about VEs are just using it as a springboard to
talk trash to other old "enemies." :-(

In other words, "politics" as usual...which you may be
familiar with...grin :-)

In an extreme example, amateur radio station N2EY has to
bring up the 1998 ARRLweb story of two FOUR-YEAR-OLDS
who "passed" a Technician and Novice class written exam
(respectively) as well as the required low-rate morse code
test. An accompanying picture in the web story shows one
of the VEs, of kindly grandfatherly mien, with arms around
both of them. Obvious one-hankie kind of "feel-good" story
that is no stranger to journalistic media everywhere.

Four year olds capable of responsible cognition of the
written-English test material? Ask any working teacher
of K to 3 classes if any of their students have either
cognition or sense of responsibility about such test
material. The end result will be an almost unamous
NO, the won't. I've asked three that I know, plus one
who was then a grade 4 teacher but later moved up to
middle-school level when I had met him. What is
rather obvious is that there was some "mentoring"
during the actual test, not allowed nowadays (nor in
1998 according to all the law-abiding whosis in here).
Ah, but the least little hint of "fraud" involved evoked a
storm of PROTEST from the Believers of the League,
angry denunciations of anyone who would DARE say
nasty of their beloved ARRL.

On an almost constant irregular basis, amateur station
N2EY has to bring this tidbit out in the open...and has
for 8 years. It gets inserted into threads which don't
involve VEs or testing as the general subject. Some in
here burn and burn inside for the longest time...perhaps
of unrequited spite that must have retribution.

The other "subject" is "Robesin," a soubriquet bestowed
on one Steven James Robeson, licensee K4YZ - once
K4CAP - then back to K4YZ. In all his 8-year-long
claims of "18 years active military service in the USMC"
he has never offered nor put on any public view location
any documented evidence of such service. Yet this
"Robesin" has constantly hurled a stream of invective
and personal abuse against anyone disagreeing with
him, even to a minor degree. That has been going on
for at least eight years in here, him turning the newsgroup
into some personal battlefield where he thinks he is
vanquishing his foes. "Robesin" claims to be a VE also,
yet hasn't shown us any documentation of that.

Brian Burke, USAF veteran and licensee N0IMD, has been
unfairly treated to invective and personal abuse by this
"Robesin" and many other anonymous sociopaths in here.
His complaints are direct and justified...by all the archives
of this newsgroup.

Let's take a realistic look at Volunteer Examiners. Are all
VEs "saints?" No. They are human beings. Are they
"exceptional" human beings? Perhaps, but exceptional in
that they volunteer their time to proctor testing. Volunteerism
happens in MANY different human endeavors, not just
amateur radio. Do VEs need exceptional training to perform
their tasks? No. All it requires is attention to paperwork,
using the correct template to score test sheets, filling out
the correct blanks on forms, keeping the test papers for an
individual in order, double-checking each (in a team) other's
work, making sure a test session's paper packet gets sent
quickly to a VEC center for final processing (for big VECs)
or direct to the FCC (for small VECs). Part of a VE team's
task is to simply observe applicants, make sure they do not
cheat, make sure they behave during a session, check their
identity by other documents.

Is the example of one VE team applicable to the entire VEC?
No. None in here have presented any current time test
session operations except Dee Flint and a couple of
anonymous pseudonym individuals. All the rest is either
blanket cheering and rah-rah ambiguous phrasing (that looks
just like political spin operating on emotions) or the bringing
to life of very dead-horse beating from years in the past.

Did the FCC do a "bad thing" on the "abdication" of government
run radio operator testing? No and yes...it isn't a black and
white issue. The FCC simply privatized the license testing
process. The FCC has privatized many other tasks, notably
frequency coordination among several other radio services,
done by government and industry groups IN those radio
service environments. The FCC was never chartered as an
academic institution and "THE TEST" was never a certificate
of either knowledge or experience in radio, nor of any kind of
expertise. That was true of the FCC's predecessors all the
way back to 1912. The FCC uses licensing as a tool of
civil radio regulation, nothing more than keeping information
on the type and kind of RF emitters, and where they are
located, what particular activity they are involved in, and so
forth. Being granted a license is NOT a diploma, NOT a
degree, NOT a prize or notable achievement of mankind. It
is simply recognition of being granted permission to emit
a certain kind of RF energy as regulated by law using
allocated modes and frequencies and at what maximum
RF power levels and subject to all other regulations of that
particular radio service.

We could sum that up in a single word...POLITICS. As far
as I know you are the only one in here who has been really
involved with THAT, eh? :-)

73, AF6AY