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What Really Happened in 1936
Morse Code test speeds for an amateur license were
increased from 10 wpm to 13 wpm, circa 1936, at the request of the ARRL president in a letter to the FCC. See Page 82 of "Fifty Years of ARRL" -- that's no deep dark secret. But it's not the whole story. The request was for an increase from 10 wpm to 12-1/2 wpm. The FCC "rounded up" to 13 wpm on their own. The same letter requested more comprehensive WRITTEN exams, updated to the current technology then used by hams. This was also granted by the FCC. There were only three classes of license at the time, and all required the same code speed. The code speed increase is often remembered. The written test improvement is rarely if ever remembered. This whole situation is frequently "spin doctored" by those who say the code test speed was raised to limit the number of amateurs. For example, it was claimed by WA6VSE (now WK3C) back in 1999 that: "The ARRL wanted faster code tests PURELY as a means of slowing growth in the amateur ranks, contending that (with about 30,000 hams at the time) "the bands are approaching saturation" ... clearly a ridiculous claim." The saturation thing was a very realistic claim. And there were 46,000 US hams, not 30,000. Here's "the rest of the story": The ham bands of the time consisted of 160, 80, 40, 20, 10, 5, 2-1/2 and 1-1/4 meters. Nothing else. The bands below (shorter in wavelength) than 20 meters were sparsely populated by hams, due to the difficulty of getting simple 1930s equipment to work at all on such frequencies, and the limited results that could be expected. 160 was popular with 'phone men, but a decent antenna for that band was/is enormous and BCI could be a real devil. 10 was not as popular because of its varying propagation and equipment difficulties. So most hams were on 80, 40, and 20, using simple, Depression era stations. A "pair of tens and a three tube blooper" (push pull self-controlled oscillator transmitter and regenerative receiver) was typical, and many hams did not even have that. Home-made stations were common - a station that had no home-brew was very rare. Yes, crystal controlled, multistage transmitters and single signal superhet receivers were in use, but only by a few wealthy hams. There were even some amateurs using SSB voice, but the cost and complexity of such a station kept their numbers to a handful. Those hams who did use voice were almost all using double-sideband- with-carrier AM, and took up 6 to 10 kc of the band each. In practice, ham QSOs of the day rarely had both stations on the same frequency. Many of the simple transmitters of the 1930s were not designed for rapid QSY, and straying outside the band was too easy. Crystal controlled operation was even less flexible. So most QSOs used up two frequencies - what would be called "split" operation today. This meant that the QRM was twice as bad as if everyone had "zero beat" QSOs. In order to make contacts under such conditions, it was necessary to tune through the band pretty quickly, to hear any replies to a CQ. This meant receivers with fast tuning rates and not too much selectivity. The result was that each QSO required much more room than today. The total available spectrum on 80, 40, and 20 added up to only 1200 kilocycles. (We're talking about the '30s, so I use the historic term). Put 4600 hams (10% of the total licensees) on the air at once and each would less than 250 cycles. The bands WERE approaching saturation. Saturation was not the only problem. There were about 19,000 USA licensed hams in 1929. Their number had grown slowly but steadily from the post WW1 reactivation ten years earlier. In 1929 there came new regs that dramatically cut the width of the bands (40 was once 7-8 Mc., 20 was 14-16 Mc.) and required much cleaner signals from ham stations. Yet over the next few years, in the depths of the Great Depression, the number of US ham licenses almost tripled, to 46,000. In addition, many newcomers left the hobby quickly - at one point in the early '30s, turnover approached 40% per year. That meant most hams were newcomers, often technically and operationally lacking in skills and knowledge. One less-than-knowledgeable ham with a faulty transmitter could make a real mess on the band. Worse, a ham who strayed out of the band could mess up nonamateur radio services in a big way. The very existence of amateur radio in the 1930s wasn't very secure. Even after hams were allowed back on the air after WW1, there were several efforts to kill off or severely restrict amateur radio all through the 1920s. Amateur radio did not achieve international treaty status until 1927, and the price for that status was the extreme loss of bandspace on 40 and 20 meters listed above. The 1927 treaty also required clean signals, Morse Code testing and written testing of all radio amateurs. Those in the 1930s who knew the history understood that if amateurs strayed out of their bands too much, the same forces that had tried to kill off amateur radio in the '20s might well succeed in the 1930s. The idea was to slow the rapid turnover *and* insure that new hams were more operationally skilled and technically knowledgeable, by requiring a little more code speed and a lot more technical knowledge. Today we have far more bandwidth, far more sophisticated equipment, and far more options in choice of band and mode. Before criticizing the actions of almost 70 years ago, one should first get a clear picture of the conditions of the time. Critics of the ARRL action are invited to build an operating amateur station, using only parts and techniques available in the early '30s - and do it on a Depression-era budget, as well. Then try to use said station on the ham bands, and see what conclusions are drawn. The point of all this is that ham radio was VERY different in the '30s, and solutions that seem simple and obvious today were not practical for most hams back then. What is really amazing is that so many hams succeeded, using such simple equipment. A big part of the story was the use of CW, and the operating skills of the hams of the day. But in some circles it is electropolitically incorrect to talk about operating skills in a positive manner. Or to suggest that perhaps the Ancient Ones knew something about what they were doing. 73 de Jim, N2EY |
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