"N2EY" wrote

| How about this one:
|
| "Is it a good idea to have an class of license that does not allow
| homebrewing-from-scratch?"

Here comes Jim with another of his "Appliance Operator Class License"
strawmen. Excuse me while I **** some flaming napalm on it. (ooopppsss,
uh, I musta meant to say "void my bladder for the nursie")

While I can't remember the last "fully homebrew" shack I saw (probably
KG6AIG back in the 60's, and even Luis had *some* commercial test
equipment items lying about), it is extremely uncommon to find a shack
where every item is commercial (or in it's original commercial state.)
Homebrewing and modification to commercial designs is especially alive
and well in the QRP, contesting, satelite, and microwave communities.

The QCAO (Quarter Century Appliance Operators club) and ASSOOBA
(Amalgamated Simple Shacks On Our Belt Association) would love it, but
this idea would put our service on an immediate slide into nothing more
than another consumer orientated Family Radio Service, and the
consequent abolishment of Amateur
Radio.

The *single* unique element which differentiates our service from all
the other radio services is our authority to experiment, build, modify,
and generally tinker around and operate equipment which is not type
accepted. The "technical" aspect of our hobby comprises 3 of the 5
reasons (paragraph 97.1) for the existence of the ARS, and removal of
this requirement for licensing would tear the heart and soul out of the
hobby.

If even a single class of amateurs were to be licensed without any
requirement for electronics knowledge, then it follows that type
acceptance of amateur equipment would be a requirement for sale to those
induhviduals. Used equipment, if sold to "no-Tech" amateurs would need
to be recertified and "mod-free", and repairs could only be accomplished
by FCC-approved service facilities. The cost of new equipment would
rise to commercial-service price levels, because of type-acceptance
issues, and most vendors would probably leave the market.

Code-Free, then Tech-Free .... what next, license free?

73,
de Hans, K0HB ô¿ô
--
SOC # 291 http://www.qsl.net/soc/
FISTS # 7419 http://www.fists.org
NCI # 4304 http://www.nocode.org/