"Dee D. Flint" wrote in message
y.com...

Keeping the "orpahned" classes has the advantage
that they could easily be re-opened if
they should decide that they made a mistake.

Three classes is plenty and I doubt there's
any regrets at reducing the number of licenses.
It remains now as to what the best three are
to be as per the RRL and NCVEC which are
pretty much unified as to eliminating Tech and
Advanced. Does any other country also have
three classes?

With today's computerized databases, it just isn't that difficult
to keep the "orphaned" classes.

It isn't just record keeping...it is also about keeping
the rules and regs that are unique to those two
classes on the books and subject to enforcement.
Of course, another means is to leave Advanced and,
rather than a free upgrade, just indicate that the
privieges for Advanced are now identical to
Extra.

I suspect within the next few years, the Novice
licenses will diminish greatly anyway due to lack of renewal.

There are only about 32K now.

The simplest thing would have been to simply decide how many, if any,
classes would keep the code and leave the structure otherwise unchanged.

That has been done by ARRL (three classes and
only Extra would be code tested) and NCVEC (three
licenses and NO code test at all).

Cheers,
Bill K2UNK