"N2EY" wrote in message
...
In article , "Jim Hampton"
writes:

No, Mopar, the VEs charge. It used to be free at the FCC, but, for me at
least, that meant a 60 mile trip (120 miles round trip) to the FCC in
Buffalo, NY, and one minute of perfect copy at 20 words per minute.

It was free at the FCC until 1963 or 1964, when they began charging for
exams
(except Novice). That continued into the mid 1970s. The fee for an exam
started
out at $4 and went up to $9.

Now $9 doesn't sound like a lot today but back circa 1970 it was a lot of
lawns
cut or papers delivered if you were a kid. Even if you were an adult it
could
be a few hours' net pay. $10,000/yr was a good income back then, which
works
out to about $5/hour. Adjust that for inflation and today's VE fees are
cheap.

As AA2QA points out, though, the big expense and effort for many hams
wasn't
the exam itself but getting there. A kid in school had to wait for summer
and
working folk had to take at least a half day off 'cause the exams were on
weekday mornings. No do-overs or CSCEs, either, if you failed by even one
question, or were one letter short of the required copy, you could not
retest
for 30 days.

I was lucky; Upper Darby to the Philly Custom House was just a subway ride
with
a short walk at each end. For a kid in Harrisburg, Scranton or South
Jersey it
was a big deal just to get there.

The end result, though, was that most hams went to the exams extremely
overprepared. Wasn't worth taking a chance on failing.

73 de Jim, N2EY


But you know Jim even if they did prepare, A LOT FAILED, it was really an
exercise in who could overcome the nerves.

I had to take a 90 mile train ride to and from to take my test. I was 13 at
the time, and my mother came along. We spent the night at my aunt and
uncles.

Years later I realized it was the 'original incentive licensing'. He stern
words were " You better pass this thing the first time, we ain't doing this
again". I nicknamed her 'Old Sarge'...but never to her face.. hi. Sure do
miss her.

Dan/W4NTI

In article , "Dan/W4NTI"
writes:

But you know Jim even if they did prepare, A LOT FAILED, it was really an
exercise in who could overcome the nerves.

My sources tell me that the pass rate has been about 2/3 for years and years. I
don't know how true that is. I do know that it's a good thing the exam sessions
are more accessible than in those times.

I recall that one of the major complaints some hams had about incentive
licensing was the travel expense and time. Something like 1/6 of the ham
population back then were Conditionals. Something like 1/3 of the hams of the
'60s had never been to an FCC office exam (Novice, Tech and Conditional were
all by mail). None of the IL proposals included making the Advanced or Extra
available by mail.

For my money, the *best* system was that of the late '70s and very early '80s.
FCC examiners did all the testing and exam preparing, and there were office
sessions. BUT, if a ham group could guarantee a certain number of folks wanting
tests (I think the quororm/minyan was 10) then FCC would send out an examiner.
Most big hamfests had the FCC "traveling road show" giving exams.

Reagan's budget cuts ended all that.

I had to take a 90 mile train ride to and from to take my test. I was 13 at
the time, and my mother came along. We spent the night at my aunt and
uncles.

That's why I said I was lucky. At 13 it was a mile walk to K3NYT's house for
the Novice, and at 14 a subway ride. Nobody went with me, but those were
different times.

And since we were school kids, we were used to taking tests.

Years later I realized it was the 'original incentive licensing'. He stern
words were " You better pass this thing the first time, we ain't doing this
again". I nicknamed her 'Old Sarge'...but never to her face.. hi. Sure do
miss her.

I hear ya!

I recall that the Philly office gave exams on Monday thru Wednesday, and I
think there were no code tests on Wednesday. There was no way a kid would be
allowed to miss school for a ham exam back then. So all testing had to be done
in the summer, or over Xmas break if the holiday didn't fall on the wrong day.
With the 30 day retest rule and school getting out in mid-June, there were at
most three chances per summer or four chances per year - tops.

73 de Jim, N2EY

(N2EY) wrote in message ...
In article , "Dan/W4NTI"
writes:


Us kids who lived virtually within sight of the Custom House had it
made in comparison to the older folk who had 8/5 jobs, we had what . .
three month long summer vacations? The big annual kid crunch at the
FCC office came around Labor Day when kids got home from the shore
just before school started. Very tight window of opportunity. There
was another window of opportunity around Thanksgiving weekend which is
when I took both of my early tests. I guess the Test Room had
different operating hours then. Or maybe I just sed to hell with
school those two mornings and done the do.

73 de Jim, N2EY

w3rv

(Brian Kelly) wrote in message . com...
(N2EY) wrote in message ...
In article , "Dan/W4NTI"
writes:

Us kids who lived virtually within sight of the Custom House had it
made in comparison to the older folk who had 8/5 jobs, we had what . .
three month long summer vacations?

Heck yes, said that in me post. Coupla tokens and good walking shoes
was all ya needed.

The big annual kid crunch at the
FCC office came around Labor Day when kids got home from the shore
just before school started.

Those of us who did not spend summers at the shore had even more
opportunities. Of course there was the 30 day retest wait....

Very tight window of opportunity. There
was another window of opportunity around Thanksgiving weekend which is
when I took both of my early tests. I guess the Test Room had
different operating hours then. Or maybe I just sed to hell with
school those two mornings and done the do.

It was prolly kids like you and King George who caused FCC to change
the rules in '54 so that all Novices and Techs were done by mail,
regardless of distance.....

73 de Jim, N2EY

Those of us who did not spend summers at the shore had even more
opportunities. Of course there was the 30 day retest wait....


Did anyone ever get caught showing up say a week early for retest?
Today you'd
have computers that could spot it, but back in the old days did they
bother to check?

"Dan/W4NTI" wrote in message ...
"N2EY" wrote in message

The end result, though, was that most hams went to the exams extremely
overprepared. Wasn't worth taking a chance on failing.

73 de Jim, N2EY


But you know Jim even if they did prepare, A LOT FAILED, it was really an
exercise in who could overcome the nerves.

Absolute fact!

I had to take a 90 mile train ride to and from to take my test. I was 13 at
the time, and my mother came along. We spent the night at my aunt and
uncles.

Years later I realized it was the 'original incentive licensing'. He stern
words were " You better pass this thing the first time, we ain't doing this
again". I nicknamed her 'Old Sarge'...but never to her face.. hi. Sure do
miss her.

Hee! I was brought up in the same area where Jim lived, the FCC office
was only a trolley & an elevated ride away so neither of us had to
walk ten miles uphill both ways in blizzards to take the exams.

My Mom was brought up under well-heeled circumstances and had an older
brother whom she often referred to as a "ham radio operator". I never
met him because he passed away young around 1922 long before I was
born. He had a whole room full of radio gear and had, as she explained
it, the "first radio tubes in town". I suspected for a long time that
he was an SWL type, not a ham.

Time marched on and it got to be time for me to take my Novice exam, I
was 15-16 and roamed the rails at will by then. I told Mom I was going
downtown to take the gummint test to become a ham radio operator.
"That's nice dear, I don't remember Joseph taking a test though. Be
home for dinner" and that was the end of my folk's involvement to that
point. Until I actually got on the air and tore up every TV set on the
block. Then it became "Joseph didn't do that, turn that thing off!"
Oops. Thus it was that I became the "80M Midnite Stalker", I only got
on the air after midnite when the TV stations were broadcasting test
patterns and/or shut down.

We have a nickname for our Mom too. She has four sets of X-Ray eyes,
can hear whispers six blocks away and has radar the Navy would kill
for. We got away with *NOTHING*. The best way to get any of her ten
grandchildren back in line was to threaten to call Spooky Old Alice
and have her swoop in on her broom and deal with them. OhYeah it
worked! So for decades now she's been known universally as The Spook,
or just "Spook" or "Spooky". Her e-mail address was .
She'll be 90 in a couple weeks. She spends a lot of time in what we
call "Alice's World" these days but she's still kickin'.

Dan/W4NTI

w3rv