"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
...

Indeed, if we support the lowered power limits, and all, is there a
good argument for simply letting Novices on the air with no
requirements? Learn as they go?

- Mike KB3EIA -

If the new "Novice" or "Communicator" proposals get instituted, I will tell
any beginning class that I teach that we are going to go all the way to
General. It won't be worth my time to teach otherwise.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

"Jason Hsu" wrote in message
om...
"Bill Sohl" wrote in message
link.net...

Is the No-Code Technician license THAT hard to get?

I would venture to say it is harder to get than the Novice (if we
still had novice testing) . That's the
problem as percieved by ARRL, NCVEC and other.

Granted, a No-Code Novice (if it existed) would be easier to get than
a No-Code Technician license. But if the No-Code Technician license
was too hard but the Coded Novice license was easy to get, then why
didn't more new hams get the Novice license first and then upgrade to
Technician Plus later?


A very large part of the reason was that to get on 2m FM, which is your
"local watering hole" you have to be a Technician. So people took the Tech
route and then upgraded to Tech+ to get HF privileges if interested. Many
instructors actively recommended that route rather than going Novice and
then upgrading to Tech+.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

"Robert Casey" wrote in message
...
[snip]
Whatever entry level license is proposed or is established should be
achievable by teenagers who are able to do fairly well in school. You
don't have to be a genius honor roll student to get it, but you should
have
more smarts than Beavis and Butthead can muster....


This means that all the tests need to be harder as ordinary youths even
below the teen age level regularly pass the Technician and General class
exams. With a little extra elmering, some pass the Extra exam.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

"Robert Casey" wrote in message
...





I still think that the Technician license is fine as an entry-level
license and that the Technician exam isn't terribly hard - just an
extended version of the old Novice exam.

The Tech exam is what, roughly equivalent to an honors level high school
physics
exam and history exam (I mention "history' as that requires memorizing
random
information, names and dates equivalent to frequency bands and such
rules). Not
the inner city non-honors public schools where if you can write your
name you
graduate)... The Extra exam might be roughly equivalent to an exam for
a 3 credit
college class.


Not hardly. The Tech and General exams are no harder than the material that
students are learning in junior high if they are going to even a halfway
decent school. The Tech and General exams require nothing harder than
adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. I certainly hope our junior
high kids of average intelligence and standard class room training can
handle these basic math functions. The Extra exam couldn't hold a candle to
the exams that I had to take in college for a 3 credit course. Although
covering material that is not a typical school subject, it's no harder than
standard high school (non-honors physics).

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE

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

"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
...

Indeed, if we support the lowered power limits, and all, is there a
good argument for simply letting Novices on the air with no
requirements? Learn as they go?

- Mike KB3EIA -

If the new "Novice" or "Communicator" proposals get instituted, I will
tell
any beginning class that I teach that we are going to go all the way to
General. It won't be worth my time to teach otherwise.

Do you really believe that bringing in a new ham at the
proposed novice level isn't worth it?

My goal or objective would be to encourage
as many new people, especially kids, to get a novice license
and just see how it goes from there.

Cheers,
Bill K2UNK

The Tech exam is what, roughly equivalent to an honors level high school
physics
exam and history exam (I mention "history' as that requires memorizing
random
information, names and dates equivalent to frequency bands and such
rules). Not
the inner city non-honors public schools where if you can write your
name you
graduate)... The Extra exam might be roughly equivalent to an exam for
a 3 credit
college class.




Not hardly. The Tech and General exams are no harder than the material that
students are learning in junior high if they are going to even a halfway
decent school. The Tech and General exams require nothing harder than
adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.

I was thinking of the part where you have to decide when and what to
add, multiply, etc.

I certainly hope our junior
high kids of average intelligence and standard class room training can
handle these basic math functions. The Extra exam couldn't hold a candle to
the exams that I had to take in college for a 3 credit course.

Most 3 credit classes are harder, but I had a few that were
"give-aways". Maybe
I should say "as hard as an easier hour test taken early in a freshman
college class".

Jason Hsu wrote:




Granted, a No-Code Novice (if it existed)

Still tougher than a CB license (if they still did those).... ;-)

"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
...
Jason Hsu wrote:
The ARRL and the new NCVEC petitions call for creating a new Novice
class and upgrading Technicians to General. (I already commented on
the ARRL petition to the FCC.)

I'm not upset with the ARRL about this. The directors did what they
felt they had to do. But I'm still puzzled by parts of the proposal.

The highly controversial proposal of upgrading Technicians to General
is the result of insisting that all license classes be merged into
just 3 without downgrading privileges for any class. It's a game of
License Class Survivor, and all classes but 3 have to be voted off the
island. General and Amateur Extra are (correctly) considered too
important to eliminate, and Advanced licenses get upgraded to Amateur
Extra. So only one more license class can remain, and the ARRL and
NCVEC think that the Novice should remain and be reopened, and the
Technician license should be voted off the island. Because of the "no
downgrade" condition, Technician licenses are upgraded to General.

Interesting take on the issue, Jason.

My main concern is that there is a precedent in the proposed mass upgrade:

If the existing Technicians are upgraded to General, this means that
after we do this, we are discriminating against all that come afterward.

Mike, that is absolutely false as an argument of any substance.
Government has given temporary waivers in many areas and no one
has ever been able to say that after the door closed on a particular
waiver, they should be allowed a similar waiver afterwards.

There will be a *powerful* argument that "The Tech elements were good
enough for the majority of hams to become General, so why should I have
to take a harder test?"

They can argue that until hell freezes over and it won't stand up in
any court. A one time "free pass" based on a legitamate FCC goal
of license and rules simplification is ample justification.

And although there is really no test process needed at all to get on HF
(witness CB'ers that run illegal power levels) I believe that we should
foster technical knowledge qualifications for the ARS.

No argument there...BUT the process still needs a solution and the
hodgepodge of 6 licenses and 6 sets of rules today just isn't needed.
That is why both ARRL and NCVEC have proposed almost identical
3 license plans with the "free" upgrades.

Is the No-Code Technician license THAT hard to get? During the years
when both the Novice and No-Code Technician licenses were available
for new hams, the new hams (including myself) overwhelmingly chose the
No-Code Technician.

Not difficult at all. Many people have taken and passed the test. I
can't think of any good arguments for reducing it.

Think of a very basic entry level that more than just extraordinary
bright kids can take and pass.

What's now the Technician exam was two separate
tests back then - Novice and Technician. Both the Novice and
Technician licenses required passing the Novice exam plus one more
exam. For the Novice license, the 5 wpm Morse Code exam was the
additional exam. For the No-Code Technician license, the Technician
exam was the additional exam. By at least a 20:1 or 30:1 margin, the
new hams chose the No-Code Technician exam. The new hams (including
myself) clearly thought that preparing the Technician exam was MUCH
easier than preparing for the 5 wpm exam. But in spite of this, the
ARRL thinks that the current Technician exam (a merger of the old
Novice and Technician exams) is too hard but says that the 5 wpm exam
is quite easy and uses this view as a partial justification as keeping
the 5 wpm exam requirement for the Amateur Extra license.

5WPM is easy for some, and not at all easy for others.

Agreed.

The record is clear. The No-Code Technician license made the Novice
license obsolete. In the 2000 restructuring, the FCC closed the
Novice class for the same reason GM closed Oldsmobile - not enough
takers to justify the administrative costs and labor required.

Given all this, is it SO necessary to bring back the Novice class at
the expense of the Technician class? Why didn't the ARRL propose a
4-class system so that the popular Technician class could be kept?

My theories on why the ARRL thinks the Novice license is more
important than the Technician license:
1. The ARRL directors couldn't agree, so they proposed a compromise
that they felt would promote good PR. I don't think they seriously
expect the FCC to approve it.
2. Nostalgia about their Novice days led them to want to reopen and
reintroduce the Novice class.

That is a pretty good assessment, Jason.

I have already disagreed and said so in a different email.
I would especially doubt the ARRL expects a non-approval from
the FCC. The ARRL has a long standing positive relationship
with most, if not all, those in the FCC that will be assessing the
petitions. If there's any doubt in ARRL's mind, it is (IMHO)
likly tied to doubt that any code test will remain as opposed to
even having only a 5wpm test for Extra.

Cheers,
Bill K2UNK

Dee D. Flint wrote:

"Mike Coslo" wrote in message
...


Indeed, if we support the lowered power limits, and all, is there a
good argument for simply letting Novices on the air with no
requirements? Learn as they go?

- Mike KB3EIA -



If the new "Novice" or "Communicator" proposals get instituted, I will tell
any beginning class that I teach that we are going to go all the way to
General. It won't be worth my time to teach otherwise.

Dee D. Flint, N8UZE



I would agree, *if* you mean that you will do a class where people,
partway in your
class, get the "Novice" or whatever it's called, and then continue on to
General.
How to enforce "no drop-outs" is another question....

"Robert Casey" wrote in message
...
:

If the existing Technicians are upgraded to General, this means
that after we do this, we are discriminating against all that come
afterward. There will be a *powerful* argument that "The Tech elements
were good enough for the majority of hams to become General, so why
should I have to take a harder test?"

And although there is really no test process needed at all to get
on HF (witness CB'ers that run illegal power levels)

Well, they're not *legal* and should not be there.

Absolutely agree.

And legal CB operators are not supposed to
talk internationally.

I know there's a distance limitation...but what about a
legal CBer in the USA talking to a legal Canadian CBer
over a distance of less than the specifid threshold limit?

Cheers,
Bill K2UNK