"KØHB" wrote in message hlink.net...
K4CAP/K4YZ wrote: (about license fees)

I think fees in the $25/year range would not be inappropriate.

So let's take a poll:

Q1: If it cost $250 (plus testing fees) for a 10-year license would you
have become a new amateur radio operator?

Taking your poll at it's face value I would never in this world have
been able to come up with an inflation-adjusted $250 spot cash back
for a ticket back when I got mine. A drop-dead one year Novice
ticket?? How would that have worked?? I was a teenager with just a
paper route for income and you can bet there were both kids and
retirees out there who would have had the same problem.

--- or ---

Q2: If it had cost $250 to renew your license each time over your ham
radio career, would your license have lapsed by now?

Absolutely not but I'd be screaming and hollering.

Here are my responses:

Q1: Not a chance.

Q2: When raising a family, spending $250 on a discretionary avocational
item would have been out of the question.

Depends on young family income levels which varied all over the scale
then and which varies even more today.

73, de Hans, K0HB

w3rv

Subject: License Fees --- a poll
From: (Brian Kelly)
Date: 8/11/2004 7:28 PM Central Standard Time
Message-id:

"KØHB" wrote in message
thlink.net...
K4CAP/K4YZ wrote: (about license fees)

I think fees in the $25/year range would not be inappropriate.

So let's take a poll:

Q1: If it cost $250 (plus testing fees) for a 10-year license would you
have become a new amateur radio operator?

Taking your poll at it's face value I would never in this world have
been able to come up with an inflation-adjusted $250 spot cash back
for a ticket back when I got mine.

That was the absolute "under these one set of circumstances" answer he was
looking for...And in ONE set of circumstances, he would be right.

A drop-dead one year Novice
ticket?? How would that have worked?? I was a teenager with just a
paper route for income and you can bet there were both kids and
retirees out there who would have had the same problem.

Come on, folks....2004...NOT 1974...

--- or ---

Q2: If it had cost $250 to renew your license each time over your ham
radio career, would your license have lapsed by now?

Absolutely not but I'd be screaming and hollering.

Here are my responses:

Q1: Not a chance.

Q2: When raising a family, spending $250 on a discretionary avocational
item would have been out of the question.

Depends on young family income levels which varied all over the scale
then and which varies even more today.

Like I said...there's always options. This isn't a definitive or final
option.

73

Steve, K4YZ

Brian Kelly wrote:

"KØHB" wrote in message hlink.net...
K4CAP/K4YZ wrote: (about license fees)

I think fees in the $25/year range would not be inappropriate.

So let's take a poll:

Q1: If it cost $250 (plus testing fees) for a 10-year license would you
have become a new amateur radio operator?

Taking your poll at it's face value I would never in this world have
been able to come up with an inflation-adjusted $250 spot cash back
for a ticket back when I got mine. A drop-dead one year Novice
ticket?? How would that have worked?? I was a teenager with just a
paper route for income and you can bet there were both kids and
retirees out there who would have had the same problem.

--- or ---

Q2: If it had cost $250 to renew your license each time over your ham
radio career, would your license have lapsed by now?

Absolutely not but I'd be screaming and hollering.

Here are my responses:

Q1: Not a chance.

Q2: When raising a family, spending $250 on a discretionary avocational
item would have been out of the question.

Depends on young family income levels which varied all over the scale
then and which varies even more today.

73, de Hans, K0HB

w3rv


I'm with you on both questions, Brian. Besides, I figure those charged
with administering and enforcing amateur radio are already drawing a
paycheck. Aside from Riley Hollingsworth, those who are charged with
amateur radio testing are already getting a free ride. Let the no-loads
have a go at doing what they're supposed to be doing. Why should radio
amateur volunteers do their work for them?

Dave K8MN

On Thu, 12 Aug 2004 22:33:16 GMT, Dave Heil wrote:

I'm with you on both questions, Brian. Besides, I figure those charged
with administering and enforcing amateur radio are already drawing a
paycheck.

The license fees collected have no relationship to the "salary and
expenses" portions of the FCC budget. In fact, it works in reverse.
The Vanity processing fees do not go to the Commission, but the work
of processing them gets done by regular employees as part of the job.
It's just another siphon from the public's pocketbook invented by The
Congress. The FCC was very happy not having to collect and process
fee payments in the decade or so when they were suspended.

Aside from Riley Hollingsworth, those who are charged with
amateur radio testing are already getting a free ride. Let the no-loads
have a go at doing what they're supposed to be doing. Why should radio
amateur volunteers do their work for them?

If you are referring to the former field office examiners, those
positions were abolished in the early 1990s after all amateur and
commercial examination functions were privatized. The employees
affected either retired, were transferred to other open clerical
slots, or were RIFfed in the Great Debacle of 1996. The examiner at
my office became the office secretary when the former secretary
transferred to another agency in 1991 but retained the tail-end
examiner work until the privitization was finalized.

As I have stated here quite often, I am in favor of the FCC
"unprivatizing" the examination function, but the chances of that
happening are somewhere between none and zero.

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane