"Moreover, for the Commission to order an exemption to our
Element 3 General Class examination for our 350,032 Technician
and Tech Plus operators would sully our reputation for
excellence. After all, the Commission would have excused from our
examination over 70% of our General Class licensees. More than
two operators out of three, therefore, would be unqualified for
their privileges.

This would be a serious issue at the FAA for pilot licenses or even at your
local DMV for truck or bus driver licenses, but, really, from a safety and
regulatory standpoint, there isn't a whole lotta difference between HF
and VHF.
Sure it's good to know what HF band will have decent propagation at what
times, but if you did make a poor selection the worst that happens is that
you get no answer to a CQ. The regulatory rules (no pecunary business
comms, don't maliciously interfere, nobody owns any one frequency, and such)
are pretty much the same regardless of the band.






"This commenter takes issue with the petition's plan that would
have the Commission upgrade our 84,563 Advanced Class operators
to Amateur Extra Class without proving to our amateur service
community that they are qualified to hold this -- our most
prestigious class of operator license. To adopt this proposal
would be highly unfair to our most dedicated and most highly
qualified 107,313 Amateur Extra Class operators who have expended
the time and effort to master the necessary qualifications. By
climbing to the top, step-by-step, they have demonstrated their
unqualified support for the objectives of our amateur service in
our United States. Our Advanced Class operators -- for whatever
reasons. have stopped short of the top rung of our ladder. To
implement any such plan would diminish the reputation for
excellence associated with our expert class. It would incur the
disapproval of the very amateur operators who have so faithfully
passed all of our examinations. It would, therefore, be
detrimental to the future well being of our amateur service and
for maintaining harmony and goodwill within our amateur service
community. This commenter, therefore, asks respectfully for the
Commission to dismiss this aspect of the proposal."

Except for a few medical waviers, every Advanced had to pass a 13 WPM
code test.
I'd be willing to equate that to passing the old Extra element 4b written.
Advanceds' and Extras' passed element 4a. But newer Extras (I'm an
"Extra Lite" didn't have to pass 20 or even 13 WPM. So:
element 4a + 4b (nowadays just element 4) + 5 WPM = element 4a + 13 WPM

Oh, there'd be two varities of new extras (written extra and code extra)
but I don't
see a need to keep track of which one any one extra is. This would get
us to
one less license class for the FCC to deal with.

By extension, they could also be done to make old novices to become no-code
techs. But that might mean making them give up the HF novice subbands in
trade for VHF and above. Not sure if that's such a hot idea..... Are
there
any truely active novices who haven't upgraded to general or extra by now?




I want to shake this dude's hand! It's almost like something MEANS
something! Like our licenses.

Getting a "gold star" is nice, but there really isn't anything a general
can't do that an extra
can do, except operate on certian subbands. Otherwise it's all the same
modes and power
levels. So what does the government (FCC) get out of it? The subbands
are a "carrot"
to get people to upgrade, but I'm not sure what the FCC gets out of it.



That is one of the saddest things about the Giveaway...oops,
the one time adjustment. In the end, all it does is dilute the service.
More General glass ops? sure. But if most of them are Technicians,
that will dilute the average amateur to the Technician level.


How many other hobbies require licenses to do the hobby? Model railroading
doesn't have novices, techs, generals and extras. Or amateur astronomy.