True Stories: A few years ago I was at a Hamfest and visiting with an OM who's in one of the clubs I belonged to. We were at a vendor table that specialized in antenna goods and my friend mentioned to the vendor he's been thinking about putting up a dipole for 80 Meters.
Asked the vendor how much wire he'd need.
Long pause in the conversation. All three of us are Extra's. I finally asked the vendor if he had a pocket calculator with him. Yes, he did. Asked him to divide 468 by 3.5... Oh, yeah, that much wire.
D'oh!
In early April of 2000 a dude shows up at a local VE session a few weeks before the CW requirement dropped to 5 WPM. Wanted to take the 20 WPM CW test so he'd be a 'real' Extra. They hadn't done any 20 WPM CW tests since the new rules were announced and couldn't find the Official ARRL answer sheet. Found the cassette but not the text. Four Extra's in the building at the time and I offered to take the applicant for a walk while they transcribed the tape by ear.
Uhhhhhhhhhhh........ No Takers.
Then I asked the applicant if he'd be willing to take the 5 WPM test four times since 5 X 4 = 20. Yeah, he'd go for that. They found the answer sheet a few minutes later. You shoulda' been there.
Let's just say that making Extra doesn't require any Rocket Science and I agree with the previous comments that the license is a starting point on the path to RF Enlightenment... Not a destination!
