FCC Office Testing History
 

In article et, "KØHB"
writes:

"N2EY" wrote


What I find most interesting is the high percentage of "by-mail"
hams in those days - more than 40%! Even if we allow that a
significant percentage of Technicians were FCC-office-tested,
we still have well over 1 in 3 hams of those days with "by-mail"
licenses.


Nobody was tested "by mail".

I got the term from the ARRL License Manual. That's how they describe the
volunteer examiner process.

They were tested by volunteer examiners

One (1) volunteer examiner was required - as opposed to a team of at least 3
Volunteer Examiners today.

(as are virtually ALL of todays
applicants --- what goes around, comes around) who just happened to
obtain the test material through the postal service.

The postal service was an integral part of the process. The volunteer examiner
had to send a letter to FCC requesting test materials, which then came by mail
and were returned by mail in sealed envelopes.

Sunuvagun!

Those volunteer examiners did not prepare or grade the written exams. They
simply proctored the exam, certifying that the examinee did not get any help.

Yes, some volunteer examiners would look over a written test and give an
unofficial pass/fail opinion. But it was FCC that graded the exams.

And the main point remains: The percentage of US hams back then who did not
face the steely-eyed FCC examiner was quite high. I'm pretty sure that in some
parts of the country, "tested by mail" hams were the vast majority.

Not that there's anything wrong with that!

73 de Jim, N2EY

And the main point remains: The percentage of US hams back then who did not
face the steely-eyed FCC examiner was quite high. I'm pretty sure that in some
parts of the country, "tested by mail" hams were the vast majority.


Back in 1976 when I tested for my tech license, I faced a steely-eyed
black woman FCC examiner. Who knew what she was doing, and could
copy code (I had to send code to her).

The FCC was giving out recycled call signs that year. Someone
else once had WA2ISE before I was given it. My father had
WB2JIA a few years before I got mine, so in a sense I was
"out of sequence". Maybe the FCC didn't want to hand out
"WC"s as people would use phonetics like "Water Closet ..."

"Robert Casey" wrote

Maybe the FCC didn't want to hand out
"WC"s as people would use phonetics like "Water Closet ..."

The WC#$$$ call format block was reserved for RACES stations.

73, de Hans, K0HB

Robert Casey wrote in message ...
Wonder how much cheating may have occured, if there was only
one person as the "VE" proctoring the FCC written tests. Seems
that the current VE system would be more secure. Though someone
who cheated to get a ham license won't be as serious a hazard as
say someone who cheated on medical exams to become a doctor.


Seems to me there have been more instances of test fraud committed by
VEs than there were by the old by-mail proctors. By far.

w3rv

More that have been caught, that is. In the old days, it's possible
that the old by-mail proctor takes something "under the table" and
"helps" the applicant take the tests.

I 'spose there had to be incidents like that. I'll further 'spose that
most of it involved buddies doing the proctoring and passing out a
"hint" or two during the exams or some slack on the code tests rather
than getting involved with passing green stamps under the table which
would have been federal felonies.

And without additional proctors
like in today's VE system, how could anyone ever know?

Right: We don't know and never will. Which kinda terminates the
discussion.

It could turn
out that there is less cheating today as the odds of getting caught
may be much higher. And that those who try anyway get caught more
often. In the old days more people could proctor the tests (IIRC
any general, advanced or extra could do it). So it was likely many
proctors did only a handful of tests. And it would be really hard
to tell (at the FCC field office) if a proctor cut someone a break
or not. With today's VE system, a few "proctors" do lots of tests
of lots of people, and if there was a corrupt group of VEs a lot
of people would hear of it and someone would eventually squeal.
And say you're a VE wanting to take bribes, there's a big risk
to even broach the subject with the other 2 VEs in your group.
That should kill off a fair amount of corruption that would have
gone ahead under the old proctor system.

Let's hope so since the only way to get a ham ticket these days is via
a VEC group.

I never paid much attention to any of it back then. The Philly FCC
office was only a 45 minute hop on the Sharon Hill/69th Street trolley
and the Market Street El so "mail order" tests were not an interest or
a concern on my part. I sat for all four of my exams in front of one
of the most notorious FCC Examiners in the biz for my Novice, General
and 14 years later my Extra and Telegraph II when Joe Squelch The
Examiner got to do me yet again.

w3rv

In article , Robert Casey
writes:

Nobody was tested "by mail".

They were tested by volunteer examiners (as are virtually ALL of todays
applicants --- what goes around, comes around) who just happened to
obtain the test material through the postal service.

I think the distinction was that the proctor wans't supposed to look
at the test itself, but just watch the candidate take the test and
attest that he didn't cheat, then have the candidate put the answered
test back in the envelope and the proctor signs off on the envelope or
some such.

That's pretty much how it worked for the written test.

It went like this:

First the volunteer examiner gave you the code test - receiving and sending.
S/he certified that you got the required number of consecutive correct
characters at the designated speed, and could send at that speed as well.

Volunteer examiner then sent a letter to FCC requesting written exam. I think a
Form 610 was used for the purpose.

FCC processed the application and sent an exam package to the volunteer
examiner. Inside the package were instructions, return envelopes and the test
in its own sealed envelope.

The sealed envelope with the test and answer sheet inside was not to be opened
until the actual test began. The prospective ham did the test, put all the
sheets in another provided envelope which was sealed up. Whole mess went back
to FCC for grading and processing.

In theory, the volunteer examiner wasn't even supposed to look at the exam. No
copies were to be made, nor its contents divulged to anyone.

Of course there was nothing to stop people from deviating from the prescribed
path other than their own honesty and the possiblity of being turned in to the
FCC.

I think FCC was between a rock and a hard place on the whole issue. On the one
hand, they were tasked with making licensing accessible to the US population -
all of it, not just those who lived near big cities. On the other, they could
not have an exam point convenient to everyone.

Before 1954, the Conditional distance was 125 miles "air-line" - and this was
before most of the interstate highway system existed. Back then, all hams
closer than the distance had to go to FCC office - even Novices.

In 1954 the distance became 75 miles and Novices and Technicians went to
"by-mail" exams, same as Conditional. But the Novice and Tech "by-mail" thing
was regardless of distance! It is my understanding that this was done to reduce
the workload on FCC exam points, which were being inundated by prospective
hams.

In 1965 the distance went from 75 to 175 miles and the number of applications
for Conditional dropped dramatically.

The proctor wasn't supposed to grade it or anything, and
the appicant wouldn't know if he passed untill some weeks later by mail.

Yep - the old "thin envelope" was what you were looking fo, because it
contained only the license. The dreaded "thick envelope" contained paperwork to
start the whole process all over again. No credit for the code tests - you had
to do the whole song-and-dance from scratch.

I'd call that "testing by mail". Today, the VEs give the tests, grades
them, tells you if you passed or not, and then tells the FCC that you
passed everything to get whatever level of ham license.

Not only that, the VEs *make up* the tests from the pool.

Really a sharp move by FCC - they get unpaid volunteers to do almost all of the
grunt work, from coming up with questions for the pool to verifying CSCEs. Yet
FCC retains all the authority and dictates procedure and the fees VEs can
collect to reimburse their expenses.

73 de Jim, N2EY

Subject: FCC Office Testing History
From: PAMNO (N2EY)
Date: 8/6/2004 8:59 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

In article ,
(Steve
Robeson K4CAP) writes:

Of course he should have specified WHICH woman....Probably Hilliary.
THAT I would believe.

So if the question had been more specific, you'd have believed him?

Not likely.

The list was so long to choose from.

The "read my lips" utterenace was not, in my opinion, a lie, but a bad
decision. Never say never in politics. He got boxed into a political corner
and up the taxes went.

As for the "I am not a crook"...Well, he got caught. I don't think the
price HE was force to pay wqas warranted. Richard Nixon DID get us out of Viet
Nam and opened the China wall, among other political milestones. Had it not
been for a bad political mistake on his part, he would have been enshrined as
one of America's greatest presidents.

Clinton, in my not-so-humble opinon, was (is) one of the singularly most
immoral and incompetent presidents we've ever had. His "credit" was that he
could surround himself with people more able than he who could do the spin
control. Any adult male that can't enjoy some recreational intimacy and keep
it quiet is a fool!

73

Steve, K4YZ

In article , "Phil Kane"
writes:

On 07 Aug 2004 12:14:49 GMT, N2EY wrote:

I think FCC was between a rock and a hard place on the whole issue.
On the one hand, they were tasked with making licensing accessible to
the US population - all of it, not just those who lived near big
cities. On the other, they could not have an exam point convenient to
everyone.

For several years before the FCC abandoned its responsibilities by
turning the function over to the VEs, there was a "pilot program" in
several areas where the U S Civil Service Commission examiners gave
the FCC written tests by prior arrangement at their regular exam
points. This avoided the problem of finding a local ham and vetting
his/her character before sending the exam. (The field office
examiner was supposed to check with the local FCC investigators to
find out whether the choice of proctor raised any "red flags".)

I did not know that! Thanks, Phil!

That program did not yield any better results than the previous
mail-volunteer system and was ended.

Really a sharp move by FCC - they get unpaid volunteers to do almost
all of the grunt work, from coming up with questions for the pool to
verifying CSCEs. Yet FCC retains all the authority and dictates
procedure and the fees VEs can collect to reimburse their expenses.

The only ones "inside" who really wanted the work passed to the
volunteers were those examiners who wanted to do less work (some,
but certainly not all).

But wasn't the FCC, like all agencies at the time, under pressure to reduce
spending? Seems to me that getting unpaid volunteers to take over most of the
work of amateur license testing and test preparation would save some $$. Not
much, but it would be something the top dogs could point to and say "see -
we're saving money and getting the govt. off your back"...

The rest of us felt that it was a bad move,
and would be the start of a very slippery slope of the FCC abandoning
its regulatory responsibilities under the guise of "privatization".
Replacing said examiners with more and different examiners with better
work attitudes would have been a better solution.

Of course, but that was politically incorrect back then, wasn't it?

The brass obviously had their minds made up before they even asked
us about it.....and in fact it was the start of said "privitization"
downhill spiral.

Exactly. Brought to you by which administration?

73 de Jim, N2EY

In article , John Kasupski
writes:

On 07 Aug 2004 18:56:04 GMT, PAMNO (N2EY) wrote:

Once they got exposed to rock'n'roll, blue jeans and McDonald's, they wanted
to
be capitalists. Heck, the Soviets weren't defeated by Star Wars, Radio Free
Europe or Berlin as much as by the Pepsi Generation and Ronald McDonald.

All of this is *way* off topic for this NG and belongs in some
political discussion group.

Thread drift is par for the course here, John.

However...I think the USSR was defeated
primarily because communism as a system of government tends to ignore
the human nature of the governed as well as the political, social, and
economic conditions that exist at any given time.

Agreed - but that's not inconsistent with what I wrote. Once the average Soviet
began to see what capitalism and freedom could do (in the form of things like
rock'n'roll and McDonald's) they wanted that stuff.

And it's not just 'communism' - it's any collectivist system that routinely
requires people to place the good of "society" or "the group" above their own.

Communism is at odds with religion - dooming it to failure because it
is human nature to look for answers to questions that science cannot
answer and thus only religion can provide.

Depends what you mean by "communism". If you're talking about economic
capitalism ("workers own the means of production") there's no reason religion
and economic communism can't coexist. But if you're talking about ideological
communism, where the collective mindset is supposed to replace individual
logic, religion is incompatible because it may set up a different set of
values, ideals, and authority figures.

IOW, ideological communism sets itself up as the 'religion'. And in many ways
it's very similar: Many (not all) religions require blind acceptance of "items
of faith" - ideological communism requires unquestioning acceptance of what is
"the good of the people". Many (not all) religions say they are the *only* way
for humans to live morally - same with ideological communism.

Most of all, many religions require their adherents to "sacrifice" various
earthly delights because they are "wrong" or "for the good of others" - just
like ideological communism.

Communism fails to reward productivity thus removing the incentive to
be productive. This leads to the economic failure of the system.

All collectivist systems do that - some more than others. A nuclear family is a
collectivist system of a sort. But in a healthy family, the rewards for
productivity are not removed, though they may be delayed.

The best description I've seen of why collectivist systems fail is in "Atlas
Shrugged" where the collapse of the Twentieth Century Motor Company is
described - and the reasons for it.

I know that for me, the lying was much worse than the act itself. I think it
would have been much better for all if he'd done one of two things:

1) Said "That's a personal matter - it's none of your business - next
question"

OR

2) Said "Yeah, sure, I shagged her silly. Most of you would have too, given
the opportunity. Big deal, live with it."

I'd have been impressed with the guy if he'd have simply had enough
cojones to say something like, "Yeah, she did it, it was great, eat
your heart out." Lying about it was definitely the worst part of the
whole affair as far as I'm concerned.

We're saying the same thing.

I remember Clinton saying his role model was JFK. Well, JFK was allegedly
involved with Marilyn Monroe, while WJC got Monica. Sigh.

Eisenhower was rumored to have been romantically linked (to be polite
about it) with a female sarge who drove his staff car...

Kate Sommersby

which would
not only be adultery but also violate military protocol since officers
aren't supposed to be romantically involved with enlisted personnel.

Agreed but that was only a rumor. The Monica deal was proven.

Kennedy supposedly had Marilyn Monroe, Clinton had Gennifer Flowers
and later Monica Lewinsky, while for Nixon, there was his dog
Checkers. (snicker)

bwaahaahaa - what about LBJ?

73 de Jim, N2EY

In article , Mike Coslo
writes:

N2EY wrote:
In article ,
(Steve
Robeson K4CAP) writes:

Subject: FCC Office Testing History
From: PAMNO (N2EY)
Date: 8/6/2004 8:59 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

In article ,
(Steve
Robeson K4CAP) writes:

Of course he should have specified WHICH woman....Probably Hilliary.
THAT I would believe.

So if the question had been more specific, you'd have believed him?

Not likely.

So he wqas pre-judged before he even spoke...

The Pubs HATED him so much that they would do anything at all to
discredit him.

The list was so long to choose from.

Yep. He was just following in his predecessors' footsteps...

The "read my lips" utterenace was not, in my opinion, a lie, but a bad
decision.

And what Bill did with Monica was not, in his opinion, "having sex".

This is an interesting point here. There are a lot of young people in
this country that enjoy each others company in that manner, and they do
not consider it sex. In fact they consider themselves virgins as long as
they don't do it in the traditional manner.

And *in their opinions*, they're right!

And the kids these days think THEY have it bad! hehehe

*Every* generation thinks they invented it...

Never say never in politics. He got boxed into a political corner
and up the taxes went.

Papa Bush made apublic promise that he *knew* he could not keep. But he
*knew*
it would help get him elected. That qualifies as a lie to most people.

There's also lying by omission. Remember Willie Horton, and how Dukakis was
blamed for letting him out of jail? Well, the rest of the story is that
Dukakis, as governor, was *required by law* to let Willie out of jail,
because
a program *created by Dukakis' Republican predecessor* REQUIRED it. By
law. No
choice or discretion. That early release program was then dismantled by
Dukakis' administration as soon as its shortcomings were apparent.

Standard Pub tactic. Every election they have a hot button topic, be it
School Prayer, Pledge of allegiance, Flag burning, etc. It is one of
those things that help to divert peoples attention away from issues that
should be debated during the campaign. All the above are perfectly fine
issues - discuss them after the election please!

Fun facts:

- Before the whole Supreme Court case about school prayer, most public schools
in the USA *did not* have school prayers.

- The Pledge of allegiance as originally written *did not* include the words
"under God". They were added because the Knights of Columbus wanted them...

- The *correct* way to dispose of a US Flag is to burn it.

Papa Bush's campaign made a lot of noise about Willie Horton but not about
the rest of the story.

Duh

Shall we talk about faked and misleading pictures of Jane Fonda and other
people?


Richard Nixon DID get us out of Viet Nam

Sure - by simply giving up and walking away. The country rapidly fell to
the
North Vietnamese. What, exactly, was accomplished by all those years, lost
lives, and billions of dollars?

I think that the videos of the people leaving Saigon were one of the low
points of US history.

And that happened under whose administration?

He told us in 1968 that he had a "secret plan" to end the war. Four years
later, that plan hadn't been put into action, but he got reelected anyway.
Then
there was the secret bombing of Cambodia..

Well, there you go!

and opened the China wall, among other political milestones.

That he did.

There were also wage and price controls, which delayed stagflation but
ultimately made it far worse.

What a socialist thing to do.

Most important was that it made the problem worse.

Had it not
been for a bad political mistake on his part, he would have been enshrined
as one of America's greatest presidents.

I don't see how. Not compared to the likes of FDR or Eisenhower, to name
just two.

But there was one important difference, Jim.

Which was?

Clinton, in my not-so-humble opinon, was (is) one of the singularly most
immoral and incompetent presidents we've ever had.

hehe. Your pulling your punches here Jim!

Who, me? I didn't write that. Clinton was not a great president, but he was
light-years ahead of Nixon.

Because he cheated on his wife? Heck, look at what ol' Newt did to *his*
first wife.

But there was a difference, Jim. He's Republican. He was framed or
there was an invasion of privacy or something!

Do you know what he did to his first wife?

His "credit" was that he
could surround himself with people more able than he who could do the spin
control. Any adult male that can't enjoy some recreational intimacy and
keep it quiet is a fool!

So it was OK that he fooled around but not OK that he got caught? I
disagree!

Not to mention, it was not he who blabbed.

Didn't I mention it?

Don't forget that the whole thing opened up when a "nice" republican
lady that Monica thought was a friend went to the people that so badly
wanted to discredit him. So she didn't keep the indiscretion discreet.

Kinda dumb on Monica's part, don't ya think?

For more on that:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/G...220_Tripp.html

Two interesting things here.

This person is *surprised* that no one wants to hire her?

Actually, given the way things often go in Washington, it *is* a bit
surprising.

And the last paragraph quote is one of those that make you shake your
head in disbelief

* Tripp accuses the White House, the Pentagon and two Pentagon
* officials of violating the Privacy Act by releasing personal
* information about her during the Lewinsky investigation.

AT LEAST *SHE* DIDN'T RELEASE ANY PRIVATE INFORMATION ABOUT ANYONE!!!!

BWAHAHAHAHA!

Oh... that's correct..... the other people were those evil democrats!
;^)

In the Pentagon?

73 de Jim, N2EY