On 12 Aug 2006 10:58:17 -0700, "an old friend"
wrote:

but there still ramins no need for me to ever know the differentce
between a collpitts and hartely occilator.

There's no *need* for you to even know that you can use a radio to
talk to people.

There's a need, if we want a ham license to say that the holder of
said license has achieved a certain level of technical competence, to
test for that competence. Otherwise all the license says is "I have
this piece of paper with ink on it".