"KØHB" wrote in message
ink.net...

"KØHB" wrote

|
| In addition to this ill-conceived notion of free upgrades, we have
| looming another proposal for what amounts to an "Applicance Class"
| license. NCI has polled it's members on that gem also, and heaven
help
| us if I'm again a "stark minority" in opposition!
|

On reflection, Mike, it seems there's some hope on this one. I found
this encouraging item:

I agree with you that we should vigorously resist classes
that legitimize "know-nothing appliance operator" status
.. and any form of "type acceptance" as well ...

73,
Carl - wa6vse

And, Hans, I don't believe that the ARRL proposals do anything of the sort
.... what they propose is a novice test that is more like the novice test of
old than today's (more difficult) Tech test as the "entry point" - and to
give the holders of that license enough privileges (access to HF) to allow
them to be "mainstreamed" and "get a taste of what 'real ham radio' is
like," so they'll remain interested and have an incentive to learn and
upgrade, rather than becoming bored and dropping out. (I would find it
boring if I lived in a place where there were few hams, fewer repeaters,
etc. - basically nobody to talk to - and I was restricted to VHF/UHF.)

There is no proposal to reduce the level of difficulty or comprehensiveness
of the General or Extra tests.

A majority of NCI's members opposed the NCVEC proposals for "commercial gear
only" and "low (=30V) finals only" for beginners, so it appears that they
want (or, more accurately, want beginners to have) the freedom to experiment
and tinker - as well as the opportunity to be able to pick up that "first HF
rig" as a hamfest special (maybe even a "fixer-upper") that's older,
cheaper, and has tube finals ... (and I would have concerns that a
"commercial only" limitation could eventually lead to "type acceptance"
requirements - which would drive up the cost of gear considerably)

While my personal comments supported the ARRL proposals (except, of course,
for the "keep the code test for Extra" part), I also in my *personal*
comments opposed those NCVEC proposals ... but if NCI's membership had
"voted" the other way in the survey, NCI's comments would have reported the
numbers accurately even though *I* would have disagreed.

There is a misperception that NCI members are all "newcomers who want
something for nothing" ... in actuallity, I think many, if not most, readers
here will be surprised to know the breakdown of how long the NCI members who
responded to the survey have been licensed:

Not licensed yet 1.3%
0-1 years 4.7%
1-2 years 7.6%
2-5 years 22.3%
5-10 years 23.6%
10-20 years 30.3%
20 years 10.3%

So, over 40% have been licensed for over 10 years, and just barely shy of
2/3 have been licensed for more than 5 years ... with another 22% between 2
and 5 years.

So you can see that we're not exactly "over-run with newbies wanting a
freebie ..."

73,
Carl - wk3c