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Speak Out: VE Experiences

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K6RAH on 2009-11-03
I have had three recent VE experiences at two different local clubs in North Texas. All three exams were conducted in a very professional manner and there were no disputes or problems.

I passed my Technician exam in early August at the McKinney, TX club. I passed the General exam in late August at the Plano, TX club. I passed my Extra Class exam on November 1st back at the McKinney club.

The exams started on time, the VEs were friendly, yet reserved, and the examinees were quiet and probably nervous!

It was particularly significant that the VEs gave up watching Sunday afternoon football to provide a convenient exam opportunity. I made sure that I thanked each person, individually, for their dedication to the ham radio hobby.

I hope that some of the earlier horror stories are rare exceptions. I know that I felt a lot more comfortable taking my recent exams from fellow hams than the one conducted by the downtown FCC office back some 54 years ago in California.

Let's have a big round of applause for all those who serve as VEs around the country!

KL2TC on 2009-08-18
I would like to compliment the VEC examiners with the Anchorage Amateur Radio Club. Very nice fellows and very professional. They shared a lot of information with me after my tests. Information that has been very helpful. Thanks guys!

KR4WM on 2009-08-16
I'm not a VE or a member of any VEC, and have never participated in any test sessions other than the ones where I took my tests, but we had a very interesting thing happen at one of our local test sessions. I was made aware of it as an officer of the local club. A person did not pass their test, and made physical threats to the VE team. Later, he left physically threatening answering machine messages on Riley Hollingsworth's voice mail. He made false claims of racism to the FCC, and really made a big stink. He later showed up at another club's VE test session with a falsified CSCE certificate, which got caught by the FCC. I won't disclose who this person is, but you can look back at FCC letters on line and see that he was recalled for re-examination. After a few years, he demanded to join our local club, was voted down, and the president of our club at the time threatened to quit if we didn't let him join. Only a couple of months later this fellow was arrested for criminal domestic violence of a high and aggravated nature with a $10,000 jail bond! I realize it's impossible to know in advance who you are putting yourself in contact with, just be careful! As with all walks of life, you just never know what kind of person you're going to run into.

AH2AZ on 2009-08-15
Horror Story:

This is NOT about what happened during an exam, but AFTER the exam.
The test session went fine, the person passed both Technician and General exam.
Not a bad day, but the fecal matter hit the rotary curculation system in the two weeks that followed.

After a week, the person began to call and ask why it had not received it's callsign. I explained that it should wait until the postal system delivered it's application to the VEC. This had little effect of helping the situation out.

After two weeks, the person called and begin to vocalize it's displeasure to me about not having it's callsign. I tried to tell it that I have no control over the postal service and I had been in contact with the VEC to see if they had received the packet. They had not.

Three days later, (mind you it was only 2.5 weeks) this person called me up and threatened to sue me and the other examiners and the VEC because it didn't have it's license. It was then that I found out that this person had been calling the FCC, the VEC, and myself wanting to know what the status of it's license two days after it had taken the exam. It had even gone out of it's way to claim that I had failed to mail the documents because I was incompatent and mentally inept.

I contacted the VEC, (who had just gotten off the phone with the person) and asked what I should do and advised them of the threat. I was advised to reconstruct the packet from the copies I had kept. (reminder - Keep a copy of everything) I sent the reconstruct off to the VEC and they went ahead a processed it's license, I also was advised to resend all the paperwork as well, which I did the next day.

The person later called me up to let me know that it had received it's callsign and thanked me for all my help. I politely told it, "do not to grace my presence with your shadow." It then sent me an email stating that I was rude. Imagine that.

Here is the clincher. The exam took place on 6/20/09. The package was mailed on 6/23/09. The postmark was 6/25/09 and the date it was actually recieved at the VEC was 07/25/09.

The other package that I mailed was sent via delivery confirmation and was supposedly delivered 2 weeks after I had mailed it.

While this is the short version of the story, it goes to prove that sometimes things can go wrong beyond your control and in most cases keeping your perspective can be the correct thing to do, others are not so easily satisfied by your efforts. I did change the gender as to keep it's privacy intact.

PLANKEYE on 2009-08-14
AI2IA on 2009-08-10
Out of respect for the many people who took the tests and passed or failed, and returned or never returned, and for the other VE's who gave their time and their efforts, and put up with many an irritation, I think it is best to leave whatever happens at a VE session at the session after the papers are collected, the logs entered, and the tables cleared.

As a VE I have never discussed any test taker's behavior during or after a session. I just did what I was there to do, and if I talked to other VE's or to anyone, it was in a subdued voice so as not to disrupt the session in progress.

As a VE, you do your job, and you move on. This topic may disparage some folks, test takers or VE's, may give rise to anti-VE session rants, and may give a false impression of the VE program. I certainly hope not, because it is a good program. I leave the tale telling to others.

_____________________________________


PLANKEYE:

Ray, I agree with you on this 100 Percent!!

I liked what you spoke about in your post, and I feel it was very thought out and insightful.

The downside is some folks remember when you post in a mild state of insanity.

Ray, you do have an odd way of balancing out to zero.

Smoke one for me Ray.

You still owe me Breakfast!!

PLANKEYE

W5DQ on 2009-08-13
When I took my Advanced Class test at the Dallas FCC office many years ago, the young lady grading the tests took my paper and grabbed a grading sheet. She ran down the column of open holes indicating correct answers and then paused, looked a the IDs on the test and the grading sheet to make sure she had got the correct pair. She then ran her finger down the column again slowly the second time to ensure what she was seeing. She stopped at the bottom agian and turned to me with a really bewildered look her face and said with a puzzled tone "You passed and didn't miss any questions". It was like she could not believe it. She then said she had been working there for a long while and had never seen anybody ace any of the tests, which I found hard to believe but the look on her face showed she was serious. It was as if she was sure she had made a mistake in grading the test and I was supposed to have at least missed one or two.

I said to her "That's great!" followed by "and for icing on the cake, I didn't even have to study". It just so happened that I was a junior in college majoring in EE and had been a ham for a few years already so I was familar with the rules and had taken my General test a year or so earlier.

Of course I didn't explain any of that to the young lady and as I left, she was really looking puzzled then.

KL7 on 2009-08-13
I had a similar experience years ago when I took the Advanced test at a big-city FCC office. It was one of my first experiences with federal bureaucracy. The test-checking lady obviously had the wrong answer key. When I pointed this out, I got a lecture - "When you grow up, YOU can check the tests!". It was only by luck that the supervisor walked by, noticed the disagreement, and produced the correct key. The I got, "You passed, but just barely". Well thanks! After that I always wondered how many people went home from the FCC empty handed after getting checked with the wrong key. All my other FCC experiences were positive, but this was a good lesson in bureaucracy.

N2XK on 2009-08-12
Well I went to take my extra test. I took the test but when the VE scored it I didn't pass. I knew there was noway I didn't. I asked them to look at it again, of course they did and still said I didn't pass. I asked how many did I get right, they replied 4. Then the head VE said something is wrong here as he looked at the test and said he knew I had more then 4 right. He then looked at the answer key and it was the wrong one. The funny part was he didn't have the right one with him. I was lucky in that he didn't live too far away so the VE's and me drove to his house. He did find the right answer key and low and behold I had pass it.

W3WN on 2009-08-12
Quite a few years ago, a "friend" of mine (and former coworker) showed up at a VE session with a small group of Boy Scouts that he had been teaching the Technician theory to.

Unfortunately, one of the young men did not bring with him any documentation that could be used to satisfy the ID requirements.

My friend offered to "personally vouch" for the young man. Got quite vehement about it, especially with me since he knew me personally. However, I wasn't the one in charge of the test session (it wasn't even my club, I was just lending a hand because they were short of VE's that day), and the VE in charge was being very strict and by-the-book about it.

I suggested to my friend that he call the young man's house to see if the parents could locate something (such as a library card), and could run it down to the test session. I was willing (as were the other two VE's present) to stay and wait if needed.

Sadly, he told me to perform an anatomically impossible personal act on myself, and left in a huff.

Meanwhile, the young man had called his parents from a phone, and they arrived shortly with the needed documentation.

When I left the test session, I discovered that my windshield was cracked.

And I haven't heard word one from my "friend" since then.

Almost as bizarre? The fellow who flunked his 13 WPM code test because he didn't fill in the blanks correctly (he 'corrected' the spelling on some of the items instead of entering what was sent). When we checked his copy for 1 minute solid, he'd added punctuation to make the sentences look correct grammatically, even though they hadn't been sent.

He did pass, though, at the next quarterly test... grumbling about bad spelling and grammar as he turned his paperwork in...

AC5UP on 2009-08-12
As many of you may recall, in December of 1999 the FCC announced that as of April 15th, 2000 the CW requirement would become 5 wpm.

In the spring of 2000 a friend of mine went in to test for Tech and I showed up to offer moral support and a last minute cram before the test. This was also the last local VE session before the 13 and 20 wpm CW tests would be dropped.

Another OM showed up wanting to test for Extra before the rules changed.

The VE's hadn't given any 20 wpm CW tests since December and couldn't locate their answer key sheet. Since all three were Extra class CW advocates, I offered to take the applicant for a leisurely stroll around the parking lot while they transcribed the tape.

Nope... Can't do that, rules say they have to grade based on the official text.

Not a problem.

Being the creative type, I asked if they had the answer key for the 5 wpm test. Yup, they had that one. So....... Why not give the five wpm test four times ???

They didn't go for that idea either.

As it turned out they eventually found the 20 wpm answer key and gave the test as intended.

;)

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