"N2EY" wrote


And the alphabetic order of license told who was an OT and who was a
newbie.
W3ABC was an OT compared to W3YIK. W3YIK was an OT compared to K3NYT.
K3NYT was
an OT compared to WA3IYC. Etc. Usually, anyway.


Not necessarily. Since we all got a new call sign everytime we moved, we
might trade an 'old' call in Minnesota (W0ABC) for a 'new' call in Virginia
(WA4ABC). Not only couldn't you tell how long we'd been licensed, but you
couldn't tell our license class (except for Novices with KN, WN, or WV
prefixes). My mentor, W0VDI, was licensed at a Tech in 1952 and went SK 50
years later with the same call and the same Tech license.

If everything was so nice, why was FCC so unhappy with the way things were
going?

It wasn't the FCC who was unhappy. The unhappy folks were a few resentful
and vocal OT's who felt disenfranchised because a nubby new guy could
operate phone on 20M, not having first passed the old class A exam like he
had to. The march to disincentive licensing moved to the beat of drum being
banged up in West Hartford, CT. I know it's hard for you to accept that,
given that history is written by the victors.

73, de Hans, K0HB
--
"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds
himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people
who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
-- Bokonon