Trends in USA Amateur Radio License Classes Over Three Years
Created by Len Anderson, AF6AY on 2009-12-06A comprehensive examination of USA amateur radio demographics requiresa reference as to the numbers of the various classes of license. Thereis only one true reference, the public FCC database. Other sources ofstatistics are all derived from this. Two such sites used here areHamdata and ARRL. ARRL statistics show only those licensee numberswithin their 10-year effective period. Hamdata shows all licenseesincluding their 2-year Grace period plus a number of other data as tonew licensees, expirations, and class changes.
For purposes of examination of trends, six dates were chosen at 6-month intervals, the 18th of May and 18th of November, for years of2007, 2008, 2009. The choice of date was arbitrary, picked to begin 3months after the cessation of license examination code testrequirements.* New license classes of Technician-Plus, Novice, andAdvanced would not be granted after USA amateur radio Restructuring. Those three are lumped as one group under the acronym TPNA.
The expected influx of new license applicants did not happen right away after the morse code test was eliminated from license testing on 23 February 2007. Looking at two specific dates, just before 23 Feb 07 androughly 10 days later:
22 February 2007 4 March 2007 ---------------- ------------ Technician 311,851 311,115 General 142,031 142,951 Amateur Extra 111,464 111,559 TPNA 145,886 145,438 Total Individual 711,232 711,063
Majority of number changes seem to be due more to license classchanges made possible by new regulations that eliminated the codetest. This is not proven but justified by the decrease in Technicianclass numbers as well as the TPNA group and a step-increase in Generalclass numbers.
Longer-term class numbers can be examined by the tabulation following. Each month column is taken from the 18th day of that month.
May 07 Nov 07 May 08 Nov 08 May 09 Nov 09 ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------Technician 305,982 309,338 316,662 323,478 336,713 343,256General 151,409 155,099 155,791 156,223 157,082 158,082Amateur Extra 113,383 115,200 117,103 118.665 120,205 121,417TPNA 141,049 133,372 122,696 114,660 100,123 93,595Total Individual 711,823 713,009 712,252 713,026 714,123 716,350
What is interesting from the above is that total individual licenseeschange by +4,527 or 0.64% over three years. Technician class changedby +37,274 or 12.18%. Amateur Extra increased by +8,034 or 7.09% andGeneral class was last with +6,673 or 4.41% increase. Attrition inthe TPNA group seems normal considering that no renewals have beenavailable for years.
A psychologically-sensitive area is Expirations. License expirationsmay be due to death, disablement, or simply from disinterest incontinuing to keep a license renewed. So far, this author has foundthat only Hamdata displays Expirations as well as New licensees, ClassChanges, plus miscellaneous data such as Administrative changes(mailing address changed, name changed, etc.). New licensee numbersare a bellwether datum to indicate interest in joining amateur radio.The following is a tabulation from Hamdata on New, Expired, Class-Changes on the Prior 6-month period at the 18th of each month:
May 07 Nov 07 May 08 Nov 08 May 09 Nov 09 ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------New 14,383 12,180 15,027 12,833 15,027 14,279Expired 14,954 10,828 15,607 11,907 15,607 11,983Class Change 18,510 11,877 11,248 8,977 13,448 7,157
Two things on that tabulation. First, the number of Expirations isnearly that of New licensees. Most of the New group are grantedTechnician class licenses. A general trend seems to be that Newlicensees are beginning to overtake Expirations but that may bepremature. Second, the Class Change numbers took an upward turn rightafter cessation of the code test, changes available through newregulations. However, the number of Class Changes have dropped off inthe three-year period. That may be due to a lessening of amateurradio attractiveness to the general public. A general trend appearsto be that the desire to upgrade is slowly decreasing.
Radio amateurs in their Grace period may be approximated bysubtracting ARRL numbers (10-year term only) from Hamdata numbers. From the ARRL statistics for the 18th of each month:
May 08 Nov 07 May 08 Nov 08 May 09 Nov 09 ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------Technician 287,679 298,385 301,917 310,276 325,181 332,554General 139,545 142,559 143,189 144,314 147,172 150,259Amateur Extra 110,310 111,789 113,627 115.231 117,170 118,967TPNA 117,872 108,797 99,013 92,009 80,822 78,471Total 655,406 655,530 657,746 661,830 670,345 680,251
Doing the arithmetic yields the following including percentage (inbrackets) in their Grace period:
May 08 Nov 07 May 08 Nov 08 May 09 Nov 09 ------- ------- ------- ------- ------- -------Technician 18,303 16,953 14,745 13,152 11,297 10,702 [5.98%] [5.48%] [4.66%] [4.07%] [3.36%] [3.12%]General 10,864 12,540 12,602 11,909 9,910 7,777 [7.18%] [8.09%] [8.09%] [7.62%] [6.31%] [4.92%]Amateur Extra 3,073 3,411 3,476 3,434 3,035 2,458 [2.71%] [2.96%] [2.97%] [2.89%] [2.52%] [2.02%]
As expected, the Amateur Extra, the "hard core" amateur, has thelowest Grace period numbers. Surprisingly, Technician class is nextlowest but General class has the highest percentage within their 2-year Grace period. General class has existed the longest in USAamateur radio history.
According to Hamdata, the peak of ALL USA amateur license grantshappened on 2 July 2003 with a total of 737,938. Total amateurlicense grants have been less than that following that date of 6 yearsago. To get some visibility into which class has risen the most in abit more than 5 years, compare the following Hamdata figures on twodates. Percentage in parentheses denotes total per class relative tothe total INDIVIDUAL license grants. New, Expired, Class Changesoccurred in the 6-month period prior to the column date:
9 May 2004 18 November 2009 Change ----------------- ----------------- -------Technician 284,105 (39.1%) 343,256 (47.9%) +59,151General 146,223 (20.1%) 158,036 (22.1%) +11,813Amateur Extra 107,595 (14.8%) 121,417 (17.0%) +13,822TPNA 188,920 (26.0%) 93,595 (13.1%) -95,365Total Individual 726,843 716,304 -10,589New Licensees 9,723 14,279Expirations 9,786 11,983Class Changes 6,581 7,157
A rather obvious trend seems to be that Technician class is growingthe fastest of the three and those Technicians seem to be STAYING inthat class. Note that Class Changes have slowed down is evident inthe preceding tabulation as well as that above. Another trend isthat total individual license grants are probably slowly decreasing,due to expirations if not from lack of general interest in amateurradio.
An odd bit of miscellany is that Club licenses were 9,008 on 9 May2004 but jumped to 11,066 by 18 November 2009. Club license grantsaren't counted in most of these numbers involving INDIVIDUAL licenses.
As the TPNA group runs its course to zero, the Technician classlicensees will become the majority in the USA. They are within 3% ofachieving that majority NOW. Other than Technician license numbersconstantly growing, plus the spurt in Club licenses, there isn't muchelse changing in the last five years of USA amateur radio licensing;total numbers just aren't keeping up with a continuing USA populationincrease.
73, Len AF6AY
* PDF files of statistics website screenshots on the dates indicated hereinare available from the author via private e-mail attachment; private e-mail requests for this ZIP file (~360KB) may be made to AF6AY@aol.com.These screenshots were done by Printing HTML screens via Acrobat 8. In somecases the HTML screens contain background colors and advertisements which didnot transfer to PDF. In all cases the statistics numbers transferredcorrectly.
| K6LHA | 2010-01-02 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Trends in USA Amateur Radio License Classes Over Three Y | ||
| K5ZTY complained on January 2, 2010: "Regarding the large numbers of non renewals, Amateur Radio, like golf, archery and girl scouts, is not for everyone. However, the ARRL has made it their project to license every person in the world by dumbing down the license requirements beginning with the Volunteer Examiner program in the early '80s." NO way, senior. Privatization of testing was done by the FCC for BOTH commercial and amateur radio operator licenses...for BUDGET reasons. Also done was to establish frequency coordination groups for business band radio users plus a great overhaul of radio licenses for small boats and general aviation aircraft, public safety agencies. The ARRL has NO POWER to make regulations. The ARRL was also among three to govern the NCVEC beginning in 1984. Note: PL 97-239 enacted on 13 Sep 82 made it possible for the FCC to enact privatization. [That's Public Law 97-239 and does not refer to Part 97, Title 47 C.F.R.] ................. K5ZTY: "The publishing of the exam questions and answers has given birth to all sorts of short cuts to obtaining a license. There is no investment in the license other than some memorizing of answers. An applicant doesn't have to learn or display any knowledge of the hobby at all to obtain any class of license." That's your opinion, of course. When did you do your last formal amateur radio license exam? I took mine on 25 Feb 07. For all three test elements then, the Question Pool had an average of 13 times the minimum required pool questions of 10. So, for 120 questions total, there would have to be 1560 questions to "memorize," 6240 answers to "memorize" (have to avoid distractor-worded answers that seem right but are wrong), for a total of 7,800 items "memorized." That's much more than I care to memorize for any hobby test. By the way, the Amateur Extra test element of 50 questions had a tad over 16 times the number of pool questions of 10 so that would have been more difficult for "memorization." ................... K5ZTY: "Hence, no investment, no pride of accomplishment, obtained a license and doesn't know how or why to use it, no interest in renewing." Ahem...the second-lowest "renewal" rate in USA amateur radio is Technician class. General is third. Amateur Extra is first (they are the HARD CORE amateurs). The number of licensees in Novice class, Technician Plus class, and Advanced class have ALL been dropping since 2000. Someone who got their first USA amateur radio license in the year 2007 will have to wait 7 years before they CAM renew. Its the law. As to "investment," the ARRL VEC team of 2007 charged $14 for a test session, for element testing or just for an administrative change not needing testing. I would estimate at least 35 were there on the day of my test, so the team leader locked up (probably) $490 at the end of that day. $14 is the price for a simple breakfast for two at a Denny's. <shrug> [Jimmie M., "Denny's" logo has an apostrophe, "Ralphs" does not, please remember that] "No pride of accomplishment?" That's overly-cynical. I take PERSONAL pride in everything I've set out to do and then complete satisfactorily. I don't work up a big head of steam and go parading it around forums for decades. :-) "Don't know how or why to use it?" Whooo...that's going overboard in a hurry. Unless there is some HUGE revision of Part 97, Title 47 C.F.R., USA amateur radio is NOT a trade, NOT a union, NOT a guild, and cannot be a business/corporation (by LAW). Very few amateur radio RF emitter model numbers have identical controls with identical characteristics. ALL of them require reading the effing manual to USE them. Its the same way with commercial RF emitters, believe it or not. If someone just doesn't know "WHY" to use it, then I doubt they will ever pass a test for it. Just take a look at the current NCVEC QP contents. You should ask WHY they are AT a VEC test site if they "don't know why." That part is a nonsense question. <shrug> ................. K5ZTY: "We need to go back to an entry level license that is good for one year. Upgrade or you're out." By golly, then I "failed" this draconian pecification! I got my amateur license almost three years ago...and I've NEVER upgraded it! I must be one of those "worthless, beginner, know-nothings, ignorant, stupid, etc." beings who didn't DO amateur radio for years before being licensed in amateur radio!!! :-) Ah, no matter, I've been called all of those names by already-licensed amateurs because I've been a professional in radio-electronics since 1952 and just didn't TRY to get an amateur license until age 74. Oh, oh, OH, such a terrible, terrible attitude! :-) Oh, and how did you do in your federal tests for golf, archery, and girl scouting? I'm really interested in HOW you passed the latter...;-) AF6AY Reply to a comment by : K5ZTY on 2010-01-02 Regarding the large numbers of non renewals, Amateur Radio, like golf, archery and girl scouts, is not for everyone. However, the ARRL has made it their project to license every person in the world by dumbing down the license requirements beginning with the Volunteer Examiner program in the early '80s. The publishing of the exam questions and answers has given birth to all sorts of short cuts to obtaining a license. There is no investment in the license other than some memorizing of answers. An applicant doesn't have to learn or display any knowledge of the hobby at all to obtain any class of license. Hence, no investment, no pride of accomplishment, obtained a license and doesn't know how or why to use it, no interest in renewing. We need to go back to an entry level license that is good for one year. Upgrade or you're out. Publish the question pool but no answers. We wouldn't get as many applicants but we would get more Hams. | ||
| N2EY | 2010-01-02 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Trends in USA Amateur Radio License Classes Ov | ||
| KJ4KKI writes: "I was afraid that I couldn't learn code and put off getting my Tech license for several years." But did you actually try to learn it? KJ4KKI: "studying for hours daily, taking numerous on-line exams and answering every question in the back of the book. I also bought a second ham book and read probably over a thousand pages of internet material. I made 100%." GREAT! But it's important to understand that FCC doesn't require 100%, nor even 80%, to pass. IIRC 74% (give or take a fraction) is the passing grade for all the written exams, and has been for decades. KJ4KKI: "I plan to learn code...when I have a time in my life to study it and practice it." 15 to 30 minutes a day. The trick is, do it every day. KJ4KKI: "In my profession and level of schooling, I've been guilty of complaining about "the way it used to be." Then you understand that it's not all without reason. KJ4KKI: "Sometimes, in the end, change is good. Sometimes, we just don't realize it until we get there and adjust to it." And sometimes, in the end, change isn't good. Sometimes the folks who said "That's NOT a good idea!" were right. KJ4KKI: "And for the fellow complaining that an Extra didn't know how to build a dipole...it's in the Tech manual and the General. He's obviously an idiot who either forgot the formula or got lucky on tests (2 in a row?)." Remember that it only takes 74% to pass. That means a person can have big gaping holes in the stuff tested and still get the license. FCC doesn't care how somebody gets the right answer as long as they don't cheat. FCC doesn't care if someone uses rote memorization, word-association, pure guessing, or actual understanding of the material to pass, just as long as they don't cheat. Some may scoff at the idea that a person could memorize their way to a passing grade, given the size of the question pools. But "memorization" doesn't mean somebody has to memorize all the questions and answers verbatim. In the real world, all it means is that a person has to recognize the right answer out of the given ones - 74% of the time. There's also a big difference between being able to answer the questions on the exam, and actually knowing how to do something. KJ4KKI: "My consensus: The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know." That's not a consensus - it's wisdom! KJ4KKI: "Not because a Tech or General license is "dumbed down," but due to my own self-realization." The problem is, too many hams of all vintages don't have that self-realization. 73 es GL de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KJ4KKI on 2009-12-30 One has to be flexible with the times and needs of a population. I was afraid that I couldn't learn code and put off getting my Tech license for several years. I got it with the no-code; studying for hours daily, taking numerous on-line exams and answering every question in the back of the book. I also bought a second ham book and read probably over a thousand pages of internet material. I made 100%. I plan to learn code...when I have a time in my life to study it and practice it. Right now, I'm studying for my General. I do local FM and satellites. Echolink exposed me to talking to people on other continents and across the nation. You Tube let me watch videos of people talking on their HF rigs. One has to look at the overall mission of something. While I admit that the Tech manual isn't detailed when compared to the General or Extra manuals/tests, it certainly gets one started with an HT or mobile FM rig...to get their feet wet and chew on...so to speak. It showed me how much more I wanted to get involved and learn. In my profession and level of schooling, I've been guilty of complaining about "the way it used to be." Sometimes, in the end, change is good. Sometimes, we just don't realize it until we get there and adjust to it. And for the fellow complaining that an Extra didn't know how to build a dipole...it's in the Tech manual and the General. He's obviously an idiot who either forgot the formula or got lucky on tests (2 in a row?). My consensus: The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know. Not because a Tech or General license is "dumbed down," but due to my own self-realization. At least, that's my page worth. Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-10 KC9HGJ posted on 10 Dec 09: "I find it particularly interesting when someone post a reply to a topic by intentionally boasting about their accomplishments like, when I was a brain surgeon you had to open the skull with your teeth, did the medical school let me forgo this test because I had wooden teeth..........no I chomped until I was through it. These are the people that post their reply with their five paragraph responses stuff with self boasting and then go back five times through out the day to re read their own post re assuring theirselves that they are the grand person they believe themselves to be." I've encounterd the very same attitudes for a helf century. Kinda reminds me of the amusing saying, "When I was young we whittled our own ICs out of wood!" :-) ................ KC9HGJ: "Now back to the initial post in this thread and some of the comments. I have my license, it is a tech license and for now that is what I "need" to utilize the equipment that I have. I would like to get my general and my extra some day down the road but for now this is the extent that I intend to endulge myself into this hobby. I find it somewhat taken back when people want to "brand" those of us that are still very busy with employment, children and other ventures in our lives and although we enjoy the hobby, we do so at the level in which we choose. I use my equipment maybe three four times a week and enjoy doing so very much. I have other hobbies as well and do not emerse myself into them any more than I desire or that my economic level will allow. I would imagine that there are other "tech" operators that read these post that belittle those of us that "choose" to enjoy the hobby at this level." I will support your personal decision to do as you see fit, not what others or so-called representative membership organizations say you should. ................ KC9HGJ: "The other day I was driving down the interstate and pulled into a rest area. There were several tractor trailers there. When I went into the vending machine area I talked to several drivers and never once did they tell me because I didn't have a CDL, that I didn't deserve to drive on the highway. You see I don't have a CDL because at this time in my life I do not intend to drive a tractor trailer nor do I own one. If at some point I decide to drive one I will obtain a CDL. Does it mean that I do not have the inteligence to obtain a CDL? I would think not as I have held a CDL in the past." Hear ya! Good on you for writing that. What some of those ultra-conservative "critics" are really saying is that all should worship them for their self-described glorious achievements, at how intrinsically good they imagine they are, whatever is the "achievement." Amateur radio is a HOBBY, a non-professional avocational activity involving radio, even if the Regulations do not describe it exactly that way de jure. It is DE FACTO a hobby. Hobbies are for personal enjoyment. NO ONE should DICTATE "what is fun or what is not fun." Neither should the government DICTATE what is fun. All the USA government dictates is some technical regulations to mitigate radio service interference. "NO!" cry the petty tyrants hiding behind long tenure in amateurism. "All must do AS WE SAY! [only THEY 'know what is good for amateur radio] BS. Mental perversion combined with personal delusions of grandeur. ............... KC9HGJ: "Does anyone understand the reference here. I use the equipment that a tech license gives me the privilage to use." Good on you again! I totally agree with you on that. I say again that amateur radio is a HOBBY, an vocational activity involving radio, regulations needed only because of the nature of EM propagation and necessity to mitigate interference to other radio services. Fanatics within the hobby don't understand that, amateur radio has become a raison d'etre, their "reason for being." They have this terrible 'need' to be 'better than others' and don't hesitate to attempt beating on those who just want to enjoy the hobby independently, personally, the way WE want to enjoy it. In the USA the FCC gives us great freedom in personal OPTION of choice in choosing what we want to do in amateur radio. WE are not lesser or greater for doing separate, individual things within it. Contrary to amateur radio folklore, ANY radio operator license is simply a permission to operate on certain frequencies under certain conditions as defined by our only civil radio regulating agency. Neither the FCC (created in 1934) nor any of its predecessor agencies were chartered to be academic institutions with licenses representing 'degrees' of academic achievement. Each license is merely a PERMISSION, a privilege to radiate RF under certain conditions as codified in law. In a rough analogy, it is like the Cartage Driver License, a permission to carry cargo for hire and engage in legal business of such cartage, but being required to obey the very same roadway laws as all other drivers of any vehicle type. The ONLY advantage a "30 ton tractor and box" is physical mass that can overrun small vehicles in defiance of the law. In another way the petty little amateur tyrant tries to BULL their way with 'upgraded' licenses and once, long ago, being tested in the now-outdated requirement of knowing manual radiotelegraphy. That is just bullying on their part, a self-glorification of theirs which is NOT an enjoyment dictated for all. ............. KC9HGJ: "I do not have, not do I at this time own HF equipment so do not need a General or Extra license." I got an Amateur Extra class license just because I could. It was a personal advantage to emit RF just about anywhere allocated on the EM spectrum. After over 50 years involved in radio communications and three federal commercial radio licenses later, I figured I had enough experience and knowledge to pass some amateur tests. I also had the funds to purchase an entire station new. That was done for MY convenience, not to "prove" myself to anyone. Ah, but that opened another two cans of worms of pure resentment to certain others. According to certain others "I have to begin as a teen-ager and slowly work my way up the proficiency ladder and go through all the class levels to justify my ability to others in the amateur community." Barf-city BS. The only "proof" needed is to pass the FCC-mandated examinations whose questions (and answers) were authored by the NCVEC Question Pool Committee (themselves required to hold USA amateur radio licenses). That VEC QPC was the ONLY "community." :-) Time-travel has not yet been invented. I cannot go back to my teen years and receive the requisite League brainwashing. My teen years occurred during a time of World War with the entire USA involved. It wasn't some schoolbook history notation. It was LIFE unfolding for all of us then. Just WHY in #### name must we "progress slowly, step-by-step through all the classes of license?" Amateur radio is a HOBBY. It isn't a Union or Guild. It sure as #### isn't professional by federal definition. WE, all of us are allowed to enter or progress as far as WE care to. I've been a PROFESSIONAL in electronics and radio, that is earning MONEY for my work services. A few Others expressed great resentment at that. So much so, that one several times objected to my purchasing an Icom IC-746Pro. Not so much for the brand or kind, but for the "Pro" suffix on Icom's model ID. :-) That was Icom's ID number, not mine. But, horrors and shame on me that I did not 'design and build my own!' Yes, I could have. I spent a working career doing things like that. I could have technically duplicated the entirety of functions and features of an Icom or Kenwood or Yaesu with time. I figured if I started now and continued non-stop all by myself that I might be done in 10 or 12 years. I'm 77 now, so I should wait until I'm near 90 to "make my first QSO?" :-) :-) :-) Well, my first 'solo' radio contact, NON-amateur, was done in 1952 while in the US Army. I'm sure that sticklers for EXACTNESS will scream "that isn't a QSO!" It was a radio contact nonetheless. Q-codes were devised by professional radiomen, not amateurs. Amateurs picked up the use so that they could pretend to be "professional." Roger that. :-) In all the history or radio communications the ACTUAL invention/innovations of advancing any state of the radio art by amateurs were done before 1940. I don't care what the ARRL writes, I've got many other sources of historical information on electronics which are not out trying to get membership monies flowing into a suburb of Hartford Connectibutt. ................ This posting and reply isn't about "Trends" but I won't apologize for it. So many have commented on UNverified 'trends' that are more half-truths, folklore, repetitions of what others claim. I say that anyone who enjoys whatever activity they are in are very free to ENJOY it. I also say that anyone who wants to DICTATE what anyone else "should" enjoy is one sick puppy and treated with momentary compassion for their mental illnesses. <shrug> 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : AC9HE on 2009-12-10 I try not to post on this forum because it tends to draw flamers.........to the moth. I stand by my statement that I made in an earlier post, although when people are quoting me they are not posting my call correctly, oh well......details. I read some of the immediate replies to my post and they only supported my statement with the exception of one that did more than support it. I find it particularly interesting when someone post a reply to a topic by intentionally boasting about their accomplishments like, when I was a brain surgeon you had to open the skull with your teeth, did the medical school let me forgo this test because I had wooden teeth..........no I chomped until I was through it. These are the people that post their reply with their five paragraph responses stuff with self boasting and then go back five times through out the day to re read their own post re assuring theirselves that they are the grand person they believe themselves to be. Now back to the initial post in this thread and some of the comments. I have my license, it is a tech license and for now that is what I "need" to utilize the equipment that I have. I would like to get my general and my extra some day down the road but for now this is the extent that I intend to endulge myself into this hobby. I find it somewhat taken back when people want to "brand" those of us that are still very busy with employment, children and other ventures in our lives and although we enjoy the hobby, we do so at the level in which we choose. I use my equipment maybe three four times a week and enjoy doing so very much. I have other hobbies as well and do not emerse myself into them any more than I desire or that my economic level will allow. I would imagine that there are other "tech" operators that read these post that belittle those of us that "choose" to enjoy the hobby at this level. The other day I was driving down the interstate and pulled into a rest area. There were several tractor trailers there. When I went into the vending machine area I talked to several drivers and never once did they tell me because I didn't have a CDL, that I didn't deserve to drive on the highway. You see I don't have a CDL because at this time in my life I do not intend to drive a tractor trailer nor do I own one. If at some point I decide to drive one I will obtain a CDL. Does it mean that I do not have the inteligence to obtain a CDL? I would think not as I have held a CDL in the past. Does anyone understand the reference here. I use the equipment that a tech license gives me the privilage to use. I do not have, not do I at this time own HF equipment so do not need a General or Extra license. Do I have the knowledge to obtain them?I have taken the test on line dozens of times and passed them. Will I rush out and get one so I can talk on the same equipment that I talk on already............ No more so then I will rush out and get a CDL so I can drive my sedan down the interstate. Reply to a comment by : N3QE on 2009-12-10 > The same should go for Ham radio. Yes Yes, I know it > is hobby, but when you dilute something by lowering > standard, you loose all the way around. What standards have been lowered? I got my Novice ticket at age 10 and my Advanced at age 13. Back when you got your ticket by testing at an FCC field office, and the tests were all about tube radios and dipoles and the CW and phone band edges. College, a career, a family got in the way of me doing much ham radio after that but my school and jobs were technical and I did learn the new technologies if not use them on the air in ham radio. Finally, I get back on the air again (CW - it had always been my true love) just a few years ago and decide to upgrade to Extra. I open the study book and all I can say is: WOW. I mean, back when I was a kid, I did manage to figure out how to bias tube amplifiers, look at trapezoid patterns on scopes to adjust modulation, describe how to use VR tubes to do delayed CW keying, knew how to adjust phasing rigs for SSB etc. It was hard, I know I really was scraping bottom on getting a passing score on my Advanced test back then, but I did manage 70% or whatever the passing score was. But to be honest I was stunned with all the new modes and rules and accompanying regulations I had to know for the new 21st century Extra test. Space operation? Amateur TV? All those new digital modes? (Back when I was a kid, it was Baudot RTTY or nothing! The FCC had not yet approved ASCII...) Technically, I had kept up with many but not all of the advances in technology, and I didn't have a huge problem with that side of the test. But rule-wise, wow, almost everything was new to me. Am I proud of what I learned as a kid about building and adjusting tube rigs? Yeah, sure. But it sure would turn off any new kids wanting to get into the hobby for us to force them to learn it just because we did. There's plenty of new stuff for them to learn instead (and for you and me to catch up on). And I still work exclusively CW. Tim. Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-09 KC6HCJ wrote: Of all the hobbies that I have ever enjoyed, this one has the most opinionated, snobbish, argumentative, bassackwards people than all of them put together. I know this may be before your entrance into the hobby, but before the FCC/ARRL started messing around with the license requirements and folding to pressure to these disabilities groups, there was not this 2-sided back and forth as we see now. In the earlier days before the need to always be Politically Correct, either you took passed the license requirements or you just did not get a license. That was it. The PC police to make sure everyone is included as we do not want to offend anyone lowered the standards so low that my labrador retreivers could pass the tests. There is something about NOT pleasing everyone. When I was testing for my black belt in VERY traditional Japanese karate, did they lower the standards for me because I was having difficulty. NO!!! Either you met the requirements passed down by tradition or you just did not wear the belt. PERIOD!! In college when I was getting my degree, did my professors say Oh I see that you are having difficulty, so forget this requirement. Either you passed, changed your degree program, or you repeated the course. Educational standards based on tradition. The same should go for Ham radio. Yes Yes, I know it is hobby, but when you dilute something by lowering standard, you loose all the way around. In reference to the Ham that made a comment about the pride of not upgrading to Extra from Advanced class because of pride, you simply do not understand. Do I want to be in a class of license where the requirements were known or do I want to be lumped into a group with some people that actually had to do a lot of hard work to get their extra class license and also people that had to do very little. NO!! I would rather stand with the few proud then the masses due to some Arrl/FCC idea of political correctness. No thank you. Feel free to flame me. Do you notice that I am not hiding behind some secretive account, no I am posting with my FCC generated license. I know that I will never change what happened. Political Correctness and liberal minded individuals are taking over this and many other countries. I am not a conservative, but I would say a moderate with a slight tilt to the right. Enjoy the hobby for what it is and what it has turned into. If not, find another hobby. I know I have many hobbies. 73 Reply to a comment by : AC9HE on 2009-12-09 Of all the hobbies that I have ever enjoyed, this one has the most opinionated, snobbish, argumentative, bassackwards people than all of them put together. Reply to a comment by : KW4JX on 2009-12-09 N8QBY on December 9, 2009 said Mail this to a friend! To many long-winded posts. N8QBY is that why you spell 'Too' as 'To'? Reply to a comment by : W8JII on 2009-12-09 Here is statistic for you all. 18 times over several months Len has made us aware that, quote---"On 25 February 2007 I took (and passed) ALL test elements in front of a four-member ARRL VEC examination team. All four team members separately checked my answer sheets. I got NO special favors. Not even being 74 at the time". Congratulations Len. Now give it a rest | ||
| N2EY | 2010-01-02 | |
|---|---|---|
| Don't Blame ARRL For What FCC Did | ||
| K5ZTY writes: "However, the ARRL has made it their project to license every person in the world by dumbing down the license requirements beginning with the Volunteer Examiner program in the early '80s." The changeover to the VE system wasn't the ARRL's idea, nor did they support it. FCC did it to save money. Commercial operator's license testing was privatized too. Thank the Reagan Administration for that one. Reducing the license requirements began, IMHO, in the late 1970s when the Morse Code sending test was "waived" - by FCC. K5ZTY: "The publishing of the exam questions and answers has given birth to all sorts of short cuts to obtaining a license." Again, blame the FCC. They refused to go after Dick Bash, and when they created the VE system, publishing the entire Q&A pool became a practical necessity. K5ZTY: "There is no investment in the license other than some memorizing of answers." That depends entirely on the licensee. A lot of the newcomers I encounter really want to learn and understand RADIO, not just pass the test. Some others just want to pass. K5ZTY: "We need to go back to an entry level license that is good for one year. Upgrade or you're out." Nice wish but it's not going to happen because it would cost FCC more work. K5ZTY: "Publish the question pool but no answers." Won't work. What's to prevent somebody from publishing the answers, same as Bash did 30 years ago? (Except it would be easier this time.) -- I agree that there are all sorts of ways that the system could be improved, but most of them require changes FCC just won't make because they will cost too much in the way of "big government" resources. The trick is to find those changes that will improve the system *without* requiring FCC to do more. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : K5ZTY on 2010-01-02 Regarding the large numbers of non renewals, Amateur Radio, like golf, archery and girl scouts, is not for everyone. However, the ARRL has made it their project to license every person in the world by dumbing down the license requirements beginning with the Volunteer Examiner program in the early '80s. The publishing of the exam questions and answers has given birth to all sorts of short cuts to obtaining a license. There is no investment in the license other than some memorizing of answers. An applicant doesn't have to learn or display any knowledge of the hobby at all to obtain any class of license. Hence, no investment, no pride of accomplishment, obtained a license and doesn't know how or why to use it, no interest in renewing. We need to go back to an entry level license that is good for one year. Upgrade or you're out. Publish the question pool but no answers. We wouldn't get as many applicants but we would get more Hams. | ||
| K5ZTY | 2010-01-02 | |
|---|---|---|
| Trends in USA Amateur Radio License Classes Over Three Years | ||
| Regarding the large numbers of non renewals, Amateur Radio, like golf, archery and girl scouts, is not for everyone. However, the ARRL has made it their project to license every person in the world by dumbing down the license requirements beginning with the Volunteer Examiner program in the early '80s. The publishing of the exam questions and answers has given birth to all sorts of short cuts to obtaining a license. There is no investment in the license other than some memorizing of answers. An applicant doesn't have to learn or display any knowledge of the hobby at all to obtain any class of license. Hence, no investment, no pride of accomplishment, obtained a license and doesn't know how or why to use it, no interest in renewing. We need to go back to an entry level license that is good for one year. Upgrade or you're out. Publish the question pool but no answers. We wouldn't get as many applicants but we would get more Hams. | ||
| KJ4KKI | 2009-12-30 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Trends in USA Amateur Radio License Classes Ov | ||
| One has to be flexible with the times and needs of a population. I was afraid that I couldn't learn code and put off getting my Tech license for several years. I got it with the no-code; studying for hours daily, taking numerous on-line exams and answering every question in the back of the book. I also bought a second ham book and read probably over a thousand pages of internet material. I made 100%. I plan to learn code...when I have a time in my life to study it and practice it. Right now, I'm studying for my General. I do local FM and satellites. Echolink exposed me to talking to people on other continents and across the nation. You Tube let me watch videos of people talking on their HF rigs. One has to look at the overall mission of something. While I admit that the Tech manual isn't detailed when compared to the General or Extra manuals/tests, it certainly gets one started with an HT or mobile FM rig...to get their feet wet and chew on...so to speak. It showed me how much more I wanted to get involved and learn. In my profession and level of schooling, I've been guilty of complaining about "the way it used to be." Sometimes, in the end, change is good. Sometimes, we just don't realize it until we get there and adjust to it. And for the fellow complaining that an Extra didn't know how to build a dipole...it's in the Tech manual and the General. He's obviously an idiot who either forgot the formula or got lucky on tests (2 in a row?). My consensus: The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know. Not because a Tech or General license is "dumbed down," but due to my own self-realization. At least, that's my page worth. Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-10 KC9HGJ posted on 10 Dec 09: "I find it particularly interesting when someone post a reply to a topic by intentionally boasting about their accomplishments like, when I was a brain surgeon you had to open the skull with your teeth, did the medical school let me forgo this test because I had wooden teeth..........no I chomped until I was through it. These are the people that post their reply with their five paragraph responses stuff with self boasting and then go back five times through out the day to re read their own post re assuring theirselves that they are the grand person they believe themselves to be." I've encounterd the very same attitudes for a helf century. Kinda reminds me of the amusing saying, "When I was young we whittled our own ICs out of wood!" :-) ................ KC9HGJ: "Now back to the initial post in this thread and some of the comments. I have my license, it is a tech license and for now that is what I "need" to utilize the equipment that I have. I would like to get my general and my extra some day down the road but for now this is the extent that I intend to endulge myself into this hobby. I find it somewhat taken back when people want to "brand" those of us that are still very busy with employment, children and other ventures in our lives and although we enjoy the hobby, we do so at the level in which we choose. I use my equipment maybe three four times a week and enjoy doing so very much. I have other hobbies as well and do not emerse myself into them any more than I desire or that my economic level will allow. I would imagine that there are other "tech" operators that read these post that belittle those of us that "choose" to enjoy the hobby at this level." I will support your personal decision to do as you see fit, not what others or so-called representative membership organizations say you should. ................ KC9HGJ: "The other day I was driving down the interstate and pulled into a rest area. There were several tractor trailers there. When I went into the vending machine area I talked to several drivers and never once did they tell me because I didn't have a CDL, that I didn't deserve to drive on the highway. You see I don't have a CDL because at this time in my life I do not intend to drive a tractor trailer nor do I own one. If at some point I decide to drive one I will obtain a CDL. Does it mean that I do not have the inteligence to obtain a CDL? I would think not as I have held a CDL in the past." Hear ya! Good on you for writing that. What some of those ultra-conservative "critics" are really saying is that all should worship them for their self-described glorious achievements, at how intrinsically good they imagine they are, whatever is the "achievement." Amateur radio is a HOBBY, a non-professional avocational activity involving radio, even if the Regulations do not describe it exactly that way de jure. It is DE FACTO a hobby. Hobbies are for personal enjoyment. NO ONE should DICTATE "what is fun or what is not fun." Neither should the government DICTATE what is fun. All the USA government dictates is some technical regulations to mitigate radio service interference. "NO!" cry the petty tyrants hiding behind long tenure in amateurism. "All must do AS WE SAY! [only THEY 'know what is good for amateur radio] BS. Mental perversion combined with personal delusions of grandeur. ............... KC9HGJ: "Does anyone understand the reference here. I use the equipment that a tech license gives me the privilage to use." Good on you again! I totally agree with you on that. I say again that amateur radio is a HOBBY, an vocational activity involving radio, regulations needed only because of the nature of EM propagation and necessity to mitigate interference to other radio services. Fanatics within the hobby don't understand that, amateur radio has become a raison d'etre, their "reason for being." They have this terrible 'need' to be 'better than others' and don't hesitate to attempt beating on those who just want to enjoy the hobby independently, personally, the way WE want to enjoy it. In the USA the FCC gives us great freedom in personal OPTION of choice in choosing what we want to do in amateur radio. WE are not lesser or greater for doing separate, individual things within it. Contrary to amateur radio folklore, ANY radio operator license is simply a permission to operate on certain frequencies under certain conditions as defined by our only civil radio regulating agency. Neither the FCC (created in 1934) nor any of its predecessor agencies were chartered to be academic institutions with licenses representing 'degrees' of academic achievement. Each license is merely a PERMISSION, a privilege to radiate RF under certain conditions as codified in law. In a rough analogy, it is like the Cartage Driver License, a permission to carry cargo for hire and engage in legal business of such cartage, but being required to obey the very same roadway laws as all other drivers of any vehicle type. The ONLY advantage a "30 ton tractor and box" is physical mass that can overrun small vehicles in defiance of the law. In another way the petty little amateur tyrant tries to BULL their way with 'upgraded' licenses and once, long ago, being tested in the now-outdated requirement of knowing manual radiotelegraphy. That is just bullying on their part, a self-glorification of theirs which is NOT an enjoyment dictated for all. ............. KC9HGJ: "I do not have, not do I at this time own HF equipment so do not need a General or Extra license." I got an Amateur Extra class license just because I could. It was a personal advantage to emit RF just about anywhere allocated on the EM spectrum. After over 50 years involved in radio communications and three federal commercial radio licenses later, I figured I had enough experience and knowledge to pass some amateur tests. I also had the funds to purchase an entire station new. That was done for MY convenience, not to "prove" myself to anyone. Ah, but that opened another two cans of worms of pure resentment to certain others. According to certain others "I have to begin as a teen-ager and slowly work my way up the proficiency ladder and go through all the class levels to justify my ability to others in the amateur community." Barf-city BS. The only "proof" needed is to pass the FCC-mandated examinations whose questions (and answers) were authored by the NCVEC Question Pool Committee (themselves required to hold USA amateur radio licenses). That VEC QPC was the ONLY "community." :-) Time-travel has not yet been invented. I cannot go back to my teen years and receive the requisite League brainwashing. My teen years occurred during a time of World War with the entire USA involved. It wasn't some schoolbook history notation. It was LIFE unfolding for all of us then. Just WHY in #### name must we "progress slowly, step-by-step through all the classes of license?" Amateur radio is a HOBBY. It isn't a Union or Guild. It sure as #### isn't professional by federal definition. WE, all of us are allowed to enter or progress as far as WE care to. I've been a PROFESSIONAL in electronics and radio, that is earning MONEY for my work services. A few Others expressed great resentment at that. So much so, that one several times objected to my purchasing an Icom IC-746Pro. Not so much for the brand or kind, but for the "Pro" suffix on Icom's model ID. :-) That was Icom's ID number, not mine. But, horrors and shame on me that I did not 'design and build my own!' Yes, I could have. I spent a working career doing things like that. I could have technically duplicated the entirety of functions and features of an Icom or Kenwood or Yaesu with time. I figured if I started now and continued non-stop all by myself that I might be done in 10 or 12 years. I'm 77 now, so I should wait until I'm near 90 to "make my first QSO?" :-) :-) :-) Well, my first 'solo' radio contact, NON-amateur, was done in 1952 while in the US Army. I'm sure that sticklers for EXACTNESS will scream "that isn't a QSO!" It was a radio contact nonetheless. Q-codes were devised by professional radiomen, not amateurs. Amateurs picked up the use so that they could pretend to be "professional." Roger that. :-) In all the history or radio communications the ACTUAL invention/innovations of advancing any state of the radio art by amateurs were done before 1940. I don't care what the ARRL writes, I've got many other sources of historical information on electronics which are not out trying to get membership monies flowing into a suburb of Hartford Connectibutt. ................ This posting and reply isn't about "Trends" but I won't apologize for it. So many have commented on UNverified 'trends' that are more half-truths, folklore, repetitions of what others claim. I say that anyone who enjoys whatever activity they are in are very free to ENJOY it. I also say that anyone who wants to DICTATE what anyone else "should" enjoy is one sick puppy and treated with momentary compassion for their mental illnesses. <shrug> 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : AC9HE on 2009-12-10 I try not to post on this forum because it tends to draw flamers.........to the moth. I stand by my statement that I made in an earlier post, although when people are quoting me they are not posting my call correctly, oh well......details. I read some of the immediate replies to my post and they only supported my statement with the exception of one that did more than support it. I find it particularly interesting when someone post a reply to a topic by intentionally boasting about their accomplishments like, when I was a brain surgeon you had to open the skull with your teeth, did the medical school let me forgo this test because I had wooden teeth..........no I chomped until I was through it. These are the people that post their reply with their five paragraph responses stuff with self boasting and then go back five times through out the day to re read their own post re assuring theirselves that they are the grand person they believe themselves to be. Now back to the initial post in this thread and some of the comments. I have my license, it is a tech license and for now that is what I "need" to utilize the equipment that I have. I would like to get my general and my extra some day down the road but for now this is the extent that I intend to endulge myself into this hobby. I find it somewhat taken back when people want to "brand" those of us that are still very busy with employment, children and other ventures in our lives and although we enjoy the hobby, we do so at the level in which we choose. I use my equipment maybe three four times a week and enjoy doing so very much. I have other hobbies as well and do not emerse myself into them any more than I desire or that my economic level will allow. I would imagine that there are other "tech" operators that read these post that belittle those of us that "choose" to enjoy the hobby at this level. The other day I was driving down the interstate and pulled into a rest area. There were several tractor trailers there. When I went into the vending machine area I talked to several drivers and never once did they tell me because I didn't have a CDL, that I didn't deserve to drive on the highway. You see I don't have a CDL because at this time in my life I do not intend to drive a tractor trailer nor do I own one. If at some point I decide to drive one I will obtain a CDL. Does it mean that I do not have the inteligence to obtain a CDL? I would think not as I have held a CDL in the past. Does anyone understand the reference here. I use the equipment that a tech license gives me the privilage to use. I do not have, not do I at this time own HF equipment so do not need a General or Extra license. Do I have the knowledge to obtain them?I have taken the test on line dozens of times and passed them. Will I rush out and get one so I can talk on the same equipment that I talk on already............ No more so then I will rush out and get a CDL so I can drive my sedan down the interstate. Reply to a comment by : N3QE on 2009-12-10 > The same should go for Ham radio. Yes Yes, I know it > is hobby, but when you dilute something by lowering > standard, you loose all the way around. What standards have been lowered? I got my Novice ticket at age 10 and my Advanced at age 13. Back when you got your ticket by testing at an FCC field office, and the tests were all about tube radios and dipoles and the CW and phone band edges. College, a career, a family got in the way of me doing much ham radio after that but my school and jobs were technical and I did learn the new technologies if not use them on the air in ham radio. Finally, I get back on the air again (CW - it had always been my true love) just a few years ago and decide to upgrade to Extra. I open the study book and all I can say is: WOW. I mean, back when I was a kid, I did manage to figure out how to bias tube amplifiers, look at trapezoid patterns on scopes to adjust modulation, describe how to use VR tubes to do delayed CW keying, knew how to adjust phasing rigs for SSB etc. It was hard, I know I really was scraping bottom on getting a passing score on my Advanced test back then, but I did manage 70% or whatever the passing score was. But to be honest I was stunned with all the new modes and rules and accompanying regulations I had to know for the new 21st century Extra test. Space operation? Amateur TV? All those new digital modes? (Back when I was a kid, it was Baudot RTTY or nothing! The FCC had not yet approved ASCII...) Technically, I had kept up with many but not all of the advances in technology, and I didn't have a huge problem with that side of the test. But rule-wise, wow, almost everything was new to me. Am I proud of what I learned as a kid about building and adjusting tube rigs? Yeah, sure. But it sure would turn off any new kids wanting to get into the hobby for us to force them to learn it just because we did. There's plenty of new stuff for them to learn instead (and for you and me to catch up on). And I still work exclusively CW. Tim. Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-09 KC6HCJ wrote: Of all the hobbies that I have ever enjoyed, this one has the most opinionated, snobbish, argumentative, bassackwards people than all of them put together. I know this may be before your entrance into the hobby, but before the FCC/ARRL started messing around with the license requirements and folding to pressure to these disabilities groups, there was not this 2-sided back and forth as we see now. In the earlier days before the need to always be Politically Correct, either you took passed the license requirements or you just did not get a license. That was it. The PC police to make sure everyone is included as we do not want to offend anyone lowered the standards so low that my labrador retreivers could pass the tests. There is something about NOT pleasing everyone. When I was testing for my black belt in VERY traditional Japanese karate, did they lower the standards for me because I was having difficulty. NO!!! Either you met the requirements passed down by tradition or you just did not wear the belt. PERIOD!! In college when I was getting my degree, did my professors say Oh I see that you are having difficulty, so forget this requirement. Either you passed, changed your degree program, or you repeated the course. Educational standards based on tradition. The same should go for Ham radio. Yes Yes, I know it is hobby, but when you dilute something by lowering standard, you loose all the way around. In reference to the Ham that made a comment about the pride of not upgrading to Extra from Advanced class because of pride, you simply do not understand. Do I want to be in a class of license where the requirements were known or do I want to be lumped into a group with some people that actually had to do a lot of hard work to get their extra class license and also people that had to do very little. NO!! I would rather stand with the few proud then the masses due to some Arrl/FCC idea of political correctness. No thank you. Feel free to flame me. Do you notice that I am not hiding behind some secretive account, no I am posting with my FCC generated license. I know that I will never change what happened. Political Correctness and liberal minded individuals are taking over this and many other countries. I am not a conservative, but I would say a moderate with a slight tilt to the right. Enjoy the hobby for what it is and what it has turned into. If not, find another hobby. I know I have many hobbies. 73 Reply to a comment by : AC9HE on 2009-12-09 Of all the hobbies that I have ever enjoyed, this one has the most opinionated, snobbish, argumentative, bassackwards people than all of them put together. Reply to a comment by : KW4JX on 2009-12-09 N8QBY on December 9, 2009 said Mail this to a friend! To many long-winded posts. N8QBY is that why you spell 'Too' as 'To'? Reply to a comment by : W8JII on 2009-12-09 Here is statistic for you all. 18 times over several months Len has made us aware that, quote---"On 25 February 2007 I took (and passed) ALL test elements in front of a four-member ARRL VEC examination team. All four team members separately checked my answer sheets. I got NO special favors. Not even being 74 at the time". Congratulations Len. Now give it a rest | ||
| KJ4KKI | 2009-12-30 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Trends in USA Amateur Radio License Classes Over Three Y | ||
| My club has at least 50 members and I believe the actual number is closer to 70-80 (I haven't looked at our outdated membership roster lately). Anyway, while a bunch of the hams do have some "experience," we have a few intermittent college students and had some ladies recently become Techs. Our nightly ARES net turns into a rag chew after any official business is taken care of, and we always have at least 20 members checking in. We also get some Echolinks fairly frequently. We pulled a list of licensed hams in our county and the list was huge! Activity in our club was dwarfed by the number of licensees. I think promoting ham radio should be a part of any public school science or communications/technology course. I also think there should be more ham clubs in colleges. Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-06 N8RGQ wrote on December 6, 2009: "This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one !" Not at all. It is merely a dispassionate look at some statistics, data that is publicly available to anyone who bothers to access it. ............. "The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked !" Wrong. The "auther" [sic] is myself and my single license grant in the amateur radio service is PART of the data presented. My license grant was achieved by passing all three test elements on a Sunday afternoon (25 February 2007) at "Old Firehouse 77" on Glenoaks Boulevard in Sun Valley, CA. I was age 74 when those test elements were passed. :-) That was my ONLY amateur radio license obtained anywhere on this planet. It should also be noted that I've held a First-Class Commercial Radiotelephone license since passing those four test elements in one sitting at an FCC Field Office in Chicago, Illinois, during a weekday in March, 1956. Later, that "First Phone" became a General Radiotelephone License and, eventually, was made lifetime, no renewals required. I've been involved in radio communications professionally since age 19, a mere 58 years. :-) As to "growth" in license numbers, an objective look requires removal of rose-tinted glasses and dropping the "we are always the best and biggest" pep-rally attitude and look at reality. If there IS a "growth" then its percentages are down in normal statistical noise. The best filter to achieve a high reality-to-noise ratio is through OBJECTIVITY. In HF terms, USA amateur radio licensing "growth" is down there barely touching "S1." As a so-called "new" person in radio, I didn't get into amateur radio thinking it would be a loser. But, I'm PART of a new group now and hoped that conditions in amateur radio would have changed after my amateur license was granted. I see little change, therefore the study to see if a cause could be determined just from easily-obtainable statistics. Over the long term, the continued existance of USA amateur radio requires enough CITIZEN interest to justify its existance to the federal government. Your amateur radio license grant is nothing more than a federal permission to radiate RF energy under terms of regulations codified in law. It does not give you, me, or any other license grantee anything more, not even any fancy royal titles. That license does not endow you, me, or anyone with superior moral virtue or righteousness. Licensing is just a regulatory agency tool to maintain order in the EM spectrum, to mitigate interference. From a cursory glance at content of e-ham articles by respondents, the majority seem to be those who have been licensed in the amateur radio service for a large number of years, certainly more than my not-quite-3-years. On the other hand, the number of respondents to articles is a tiny fraction of total USA licensees and those are generally too enthusiastic over their hobby activities to take serious objective looks at the state of this radio service now. Further, long-timers tend to view today's unlicensed (in amateur radio) citizens as having the same interest and enthusiasm as they did long ago when they were young. There isn't any objective evidence of such similarity in sameness in today's unlicensed citizens. Today's unlicensed citizens have much more available to them for hobbies and recreation than existed ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. SOME growth is necessary in the amateur radio serivce, if only to keep up with the (continuing) population increase. Right now I don't see much of that with my objectivity filter switched in. One sign of decline is the market in amateur radio goods. Witness the folding of two of the four USA periodicals specializing in amateur radio within two decades. Both were independents (Ham Radio and 73) whose major income and profit came from advertisers. Another is the decline of reseller outlets in major urban areas...and expansion of consumer electronics outlets at a much greater pace in the last two decades. While numerical data is more difficult to gather about such areas, there is enough to observe individually by anyone...with objectivity filters. AF6AY (who has never upgraded his USA amateur radio license :-) Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| KJ4KKI | 2009-12-30 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Trends in USA Amateur Radio License Classes Over Three Y | ||
| Wow, that is a great idea! 'Nuff said... 73 Reply to a comment by : WA9PIE on 2009-12-06 I would love to see these stats by age group. Obviously, in order to sustain the hobby, we need an influx of young people with new ideas. Mike, WA9PIE | ||
| N2EY | 2009-12-26 | |
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| RE: Trends in USA Amateur Radio License Classes Over T | ||
| KB0RDL writes: "The greatest impediment to wanting to become a general class or above ham isn't lack of interest in the hobby, it's housing association, condominium and apartment difficulties with antennas." I've said that for years; thanks for confirming it. I see from QRZ that you live in KS, which means it's not just a big-coastal-city problem either. And it's not just about upgrading but about getting a license in the first place. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB0RDL on 2009-12-24 I've been a certified county storm spotter for nearly 15 years and over half of our group hold advanced license, which is a bit more then the general ham population. I don't know of anyone who doesn't have equipment of their own. The greatest impediment to wanting to become a general class or above ham isn't lack of interest in the hobby, it's housing association, condominium and apartment difficulties with antennas. Some of the tech class guys are wizards at VHF/UHF, interfacing with computers and so on, so the level of technical know-how of the part of amateur radio that interests them is high. Reply to a comment by : K6LO on 2009-12-06 [NN4RH Wrote] ..."I think (opinion, not statistics) that about a third of those would be the EmComm Whackers that get tech licenses so they can use ham radio in their jobs. They don't progress to an HF license because all they care about is Saving The World with minimal investment in the hobby. " ...[end] --------- I am sorry to say that is my conclusion too. I am an engineer in the public safety radio industry, and work very closely with federal, state, and local agencies. The EmComm people have little to no interest in amateur radio. The license is simply a tool to use equipment, often owned by a city or county, not the "ham". It is turn-key process for them. Take a one day license class, pass a simple test, use equipment. Much like taking any other certification class. This is not cynicism speaking. These are not lazy or stupid people. They simply do not have an interest in the hobby. 73 - Luke Reply to a comment by : N5TGL on 2009-12-06 "I think (opinion, not statistics) that about a third of those would be the EmComm Whackers that get tech licenses so they can use ham radio in their jobs. They don't progress to an HF license because all they care about is Saving The World with minimal investment in the hobby. " That's the EXACT same conclusion I came to. Pity, as they are missing out on a lot of fun stuff in HF. Reply to a comment by : NN4RH on 2009-12-06 >> A rather obvious trend seems to be that Technician class is growing the fastest of the three and those Technicians seem to be STAYING in that class. << I think (opinion, not statistics) that about a third of those would be the EmComm Whackers that get tech licenses so they can use ham radio in their jobs. They don't progress to an HF license because all they care about is Saving The World with minimal investment in the hobby. Another third are the CBers who get their Techs so they can use their modded CBs on 10 & 12 meters but don't want to invest anything else in the hobby. They're just sitting around and waiting for the sunspots to come back so they can shoot skip on their "extree channels" and in the meantime are still on CB Hamsexy.com. The rest are just the usual ones who once they get their license have no interste in ever getting on the air. Those will all go away in about 7 to 10 years. In the meantime they spend their days on Hamsexy or EHam under anonymous logins. | ||
| KB0RDL | 2009-12-24 | |
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| RE: Trends in USA Amateur Radio License Classes Over T | ||
| I've been a certified county storm spotter for nearly 15 years and over half of our group hold advanced license, which is a bit more then the general ham population. I don't know of anyone who doesn't have equipment of their own. The greatest impediment to wanting to become a general class or above ham isn't lack of interest in the hobby, it's housing association, condominium and apartment difficulties with antennas. Some of the tech class guys are wizards at VHF/UHF, interfacing with computers and so on, so the level of technical know-how of the part of amateur radio that interests them is high. Reply to a comment by : K6LO on 2009-12-06 [NN4RH Wrote] ..."I think (opinion, not statistics) that about a third of those would be the EmComm Whackers that get tech licenses so they can use ham radio in their jobs. They don't progress to an HF license because all they care about is Saving The World with minimal investment in the hobby. " ...[end] --------- I am sorry to say that is my conclusion too. I am an engineer in the public safety radio industry, and work very closely with federal, state, and local agencies. The EmComm people have little to no interest in amateur radio. The license is simply a tool to use equipment, often owned by a city or county, not the "ham". It is turn-key process for them. Take a one day license class, pass a simple test, use equipment. Much like taking any other certification class. This is not cynicism speaking. These are not lazy or stupid people. They simply do not have an interest in the hobby. 73 - Luke Reply to a comment by : N5TGL on 2009-12-06 "I think (opinion, not statistics) that about a third of those would be the EmComm Whackers that get tech licenses so they can use ham radio in their jobs. They don't progress to an HF license because all they care about is Saving The World with minimal investment in the hobby. " That's the EXACT same conclusion I came to. Pity, as they are missing out on a lot of fun stuff in HF. Reply to a comment by : NN4RH on 2009-12-06 >> A rather obvious trend seems to be that Technician class is growing the fastest of the three and those Technicians seem to be STAYING in that class. << I think (opinion, not statistics) that about a third of those would be the EmComm Whackers that get tech licenses so they can use ham radio in their jobs. They don't progress to an HF license because all they care about is Saving The World with minimal investment in the hobby. Another third are the CBers who get their Techs so they can use their modded CBs on 10 & 12 meters but don't want to invest anything else in the hobby. They're just sitting around and waiting for the sunspots to come back so they can shoot skip on their "extree channels" and in the meantime are still on CB Hamsexy.com. The rest are just the usual ones who once they get their license have no interste in ever getting on the air. Those will all go away in about 7 to 10 years. In the meantime they spend their days on Hamsexy or EHam under anonymous logins. | ||
| K6LHA | 2009-12-23 | |
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| RE: US Amateur License History... | ||
| N2EY wrote on December 22, 2009, desperately trying to keep redirecting the focus: "NI0C writes: [CW] "was a quantum leap in communications bandwidth efficiency, perhaps unequaled in terms of percentage improvement since then." N2EY: "Yes, but the bandwidth improvement was only part of the story. A spark signal can actually be made relatively narrow (tens of kHz at HF) with proper techniques." It could be made to have an infinitely narrow bandwidth (as with an ideal, but impossible to achieve, Dirac filter). Such would also have an infinitely small power output. An arc discharge has extremely FAST conduction/non-conduction transients...in terms of picoseconds or less, dependent on the speed of electron flow, distance between discharge electrodes, plus the network's passive reactances supplying the source of electrons. As a result, the POWER SPECTRAL DENSITY of the total arc discharge is spread over hundreds of thousands of Hertz. The ACTUAL RF power out over "tens of KHz" (or low percentage-bandwidth in any part of the EM spectum) is very small. Passive networks connected to an arc discharge will not magically transform frequencies far from the desired frequency into the desired spectral region, they simply throw them away letting them dissipate that far-from-desired energy as HEAT. Heat is just wasted energy far above maximum-allocated radio frequencies (above 300 GHz). "Damped wave oscillaton" by arc-discharge into a resonant circuit, better known as "Spark transmitters" can be analyzed once ALL the characteristics of the entire network are known/measured. There will be variables of everything in the total analysis which can take weeks to compute. But WHY bother? Measurement instruments to accurately measure/characterize everything just weren't available to the average amateur experimenter prior to the 1930s and very few CARED to do so. A Spark transmitter was SIMPLE. In addition it gave the ILLUSION of power with the visible and audible arc, generated ozone and arc content ash. Anyone who could handle hand tools could build one out of available wood and metal parts and wire. It was technically CRUDE. Cruder than a kluge. Spark transmitters, even with the most complex of tuned networks were basically NOISE Generators. Very early radio used a BRUTE FORCE system of high power RF sources with essentially-passive detectors as receivers, all on relatively low-frequency circuits. It "worked" enough to demonstrate that radio (as it was) was a viable communications medium for relatively short distances. Commercial radio services used the much-more efficient (and expensive) alternators, a (relatively) high-frequency generator (alternator) working in the VLF and LF spectrum regions. Alternators were relatively pure RF sources or the first TRUE Continuous Wave generators in the power category. Yes, alternators had harmonics, relatively low-power, nothing at all like the NOISE GENERATORS of Spark. Now, James, you should have KNOWN this from your early work with Spark transmitters and your learned lessons in advanced radio theory obtained at the university later. Instead, you portrayed the very old ways in radio AS IF they could be done today or even a half century ago. It was simply not so comparable. Yet you had to glorify the early achievements in terms of others in print AS IF they were wonderous achievements of genius...and thus basking in their reflected glory. ................. As far as I know, the only surviving, useful arc-discharge RF generator is that used in testing electronic equipment designed to withstand EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pules) effects. Controlled power and PSD (Power Spectral Density) characteristics, carefully measured and calibrated. Such is not used for testing amateur radio equipment; there is no need to do so. =========================== This article was not remotely considered to be a treatise on OLD radio nor OLD regulations. It started off simply as a study of the number of license classes in USA amateur radio over a period of time following a milestone change in USA amateur radio regulations. As usual, it was hijacked by some certain others who, having an antipathy/personality-conflicts with myself or some need to highlight themselves above others, took it far off the original intent. It is my interest - NOT shared by most others here - to look towards the FUTURE, not to live in the relected glory of past radio pioneers...or to PRETEND to be pioneers of radio (just of HF) by developed skill in manual radiotelegraphy or reading old copies of amateur radio publications. Laws of Physics is actually a higher order than man-made laws. Man-made laws are a reinforcement of those physical laws as well as for mitigating interference to all users of the EM spectrum. Laws of physics do NOT recognize human desires, imaginations, nor the "history" aspect of early primitive radio. AF6AY Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-22 NI0C writes: [CW] "was a quantum leap in communications bandwidth efficiency, perhaps unequaled in terms of percentage improvement since then." Yes, but the bandwidth improvement was only part of the story. A spark signal can actually be made relatively narrow (tens of kHz at HF) with proper techniques. What really made the difference was that spark, being a damped (modulated) wave, was not as efficient in operation as an undamped (unmodulated/continuous) wave. This was particularly true as frequency increased and better receivers (Godley used a superhet at Ardrossan) came into use. The very high peak-to-average ratio of a spark signal meant that insulators and other components had to withstand higher voltages and currents than with "continuous" waves. There were existing 19-teens technologies that could generate undamped waves, such as Alexanderson alternators and Poulsen arc converters. But they tended to be practical only up to a few hundred kHz at most, far below the frequencies amateurs could use after 1912. The end result of all this was that amateurs soon found that a 50 or 100 watt tube transmitter on 100 meters could do what had required a kilowatt rotary spark on 200 meters. And often the refugee-from-the-lamp-factory could do more, in both distance and in miles-per-dollar. That was the end of spark in amateur radio. Oddly enough, spark continued to be used by other, "professional" radio services for many years. Most common was its use in maritime radio, because many ship owners did not want to invest in new equipment every few years. (If you think technology changes fast these days, just look at a typical 1920 amateur station, and then one from 1930). In fact, the use of spark for back-up purposes in the maritime radio service was not outlawed until the 1960s. NI0C: "The K2 is indeed a remarkable radio. In terms of picking up weak signals, it's extremely close to its big brother, the K3." Not just in weak-signal reception, either. The K2 also excels in strong-signal environments (very high dynamic range) and in low phase noise on both receive and transmit. It also has very low power requirements for its level of performance. On receive, my K2 typically requires about 250 mills at a nominal 12 volts. A typical Yaecomwood HF rig will draw four to ten times that! 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-22 N2EY wrote: "The Elecraft K2 is an example of a rig with a surprisingly low parts count, cost and overall hardware complexity that has "big-rig" performance. Particularly on CW... " The K2 is indeed a remarkable radio. In terms of picking up weak signals, it's extremely close to its big brother, the K3. I have my K3 and K2 setup for dual receive now, using a splitter on the Rx antenna inputs, and an audio mixer on the outputs. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C: "some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject." I'd express that idea rather differently: Everyone can have and express opinions on anything and everything. Whether those opinions are based on experience, facts and sound reasoning is another matter. NI0C: "One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air." 6 weeks? It was a lot more in 1967! Process went like this: 1) Prospective ham learned code and theory well enough to have a go at the exam. 2) Prospective ham found volunteer examiner (no capitals) who would give the test, and set up time and place. 3) Volunteer examiner gave code tests (receiving and sending). If prospective ham passed them, volunteer examiner sent away form requesting written test. 4) When written exam came in the mail, volunteer examiner and prospective ham would set up time and place for written exam. 5) At written exam session, sealed test envelope would be opened, prospective ham would take test. When done, volunteer examiner would seal up all papers in FCC-provided envelope and send off for grading. All volunteer examiner did was make sure prospective ham didn't cheat. 6) FCC would process the whole thing and send either a small envelope or a big one. Small envelope was preferred because it contained only the license. Big envelope contained paperwork to do the whole thing all over again. Getting anything through FCC took 6 to 8 weeks back then, so the whole process could easily take 12 to 16 weeks just in FCC processing. All that encouraged prospective hams to overlearn so they'd pass on the first go. And as you said, it gave time for more practice. NI0C: "As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired." As you say, the nonrenewable Novice with its limited one- or two-year term also had the effect of encouraging newcomers to hit the ground running. Most of the new hams I knew had a key, receiver and antenna set up and working long before they had the license, and used the processing delay to get a transmitter set up and ready to go so there would be no delay when the license arrived. In my case I used the time to build a transmitter from scratch. NI0C: "No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available." Since 1990. Also accomodations in the tests. But at least some folks I have encountered were too proud to take advantage of them. NI0C: "I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line!" That's not a fault of the exam process. It's a lack of common sense and failure to RTFM. Which is nothing new. There was a QST article some time back about dumb questions and mistakes that various rigmakers had encountered from customers. Like the ham who plugged a mike into the PHONES jack of his new receiver, hit the SEND-RECEIVE switch and called CQ. Or the ham who wired a Heathkit transmitter and used spaghetti where the manual called for it - except he used *real* spaghetti, not varnished insulating tubing. Or the ham whose set wasn't doing so well, so he lifted the lid and tightened all the loose screws.... The article appeared about 1956. One big difference between the old days and now is that, in the old days, a mistake like that would generally be known only by a few, rather than being on display at a popular website like eham. Another difference is that most equipment nowadays is relatively inexpensive compared to yesteryear, when you adjust for inflation. There also wasn't the expectation of plug-and-play. None of which is a result of changes in testing. NI0C: "In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms." We have probably worked each other many times, just not using our own calls. The local club rotates the call used each year so that all the regulars get a chance. NI0C: "There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction." Besides all of that, there are better crystal filters, better rig designs, etc. The Elecraft K2 is an example of a rig with a surprisingly low parts count, cost and overall hardware complexity that has "big-rig" performance. Particularly on CW... NI0C: "Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology." Nor with history. Spark disappeared from Amateur Radio in the early 1920s - not because it was legislated out of existence, but because the new continuous-wave tube transmitters performed the same job so much better. In 1921, Godley went to Ardrossan, Scotland and received more CW than spark signals on 200 meters - even though most of the spark signals were running higher power and were more numerous than CW rigs at the time. That demonstration, and the 1923 two-way transatlantic QSO on 110 meters changed a lot of minds. By the time spark was outlawed for hams in the late 1920s, it was merely a procedural thing; hams had simply stopped using it. Yet large numbers of amateurs today continue to use Morse Code/CW on the air, because nothing has come along that does the same job better. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-21 N2EY wrote: “But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes.” And, as we well know, some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject. “It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency".” Everyone who got on the CW bands after passing a 5 wpm test learned that there was nobody to talk to at this level. One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air. As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired. “What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all.” No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available. “Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in.”“ I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line! “our [Field Day] CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so.” In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms. “Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets.” There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction. Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C writes: "A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies." Of course, but FCC didn't see it that way. Unfortunately. Both in 1999 and after 2003, the majority of those who commented on the various proposals to reduce/eliminate Morse Code testing supported retaining at least some of it. But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes. Basic knowledge of all the other modes is tested in the written exam. Even modes which are used far less on the amateur bands than Morse Code. It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency". What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all. We had some growth from 2000 to 2003, but it didn't last. Since 2007 we've had growth again, and hopefully it will keep on. But in neither case were there lots of new people flooding in. Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in. NI0C: "Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement." The ultimate irony of the situation may be that we wind up with *more* Morse Code operators overall, both in absolute numbers and percentage of actual use. Some indicators: You mentioned 160 meters earlier. The ARRL 160 meter contest keeps on growing, despite the fact that effective antennas are rather large - and it's a CW-only contest! It will be interesting to see this year's results. On Field Day 2009 I was part of the team that ran the CW station at the local club effort. We were in 5A + VHF/UHF, with 3 fulltime phone stations, 1 phone/data station, 1 VHF/UHF station (all phone), and 1 CW station. Yet our CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so. Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets. Pretty good for a mode that gets almost no publicity and which requires some skill to use. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-20 "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| K6LHA | 2009-12-23 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur License History... | ||
| NI0C: "I'm glad that words spewed out on eHam don't cause static crashes on 160m. This morning, there are over 9000 reported lightning events here in the midwest, and the band is very noisy." Please accept my sympathies on USA amateur radio not be made to your specific desires and geographic location. ................ NI0C: "If there were a prize for an individual's ratio of words uttered on eHam to number of QSO's on the air, you would definitely be a contender." Please consider CHANGING your personal antipathic commentary to the e-ham Forum Opinion section. There you may vent all you want without touching any of the article subjects that you seem to despise. Meanwhile some of us care to look to the FUTURE and attempt to see where USA amateur radio is going. I will leave you to the condemnation of the present that was not specifically to your liking. Happy Holidays AF6AY (born and raised in the midwest) Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-23 I'm glad that words spewed out on eHam don't cause static crashes on 160m. This morning, there are over 9000 reported lightning events here in the midwest, and the band is very noisy. If there were a prize for an individual's ratio of words uttered on eHam to number of QSO's on the air, you would definitely be a contender. Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-22 NI0C wrote on 22 Dec 09 on "King Spark": "It was a quantum leap in communications bandwidth efficiency, perhaps unequaled in terms of percentage improvement since then." Tsk, tsk, tsk. Some folks just haven't kept up with the state of the art in "communications bandwidth efficiency." :-) Disregarding commercial and military SSB formats that can carry two voice channels and eight TTY channels on the SAME 12 KHz bandwidth over HF radio paths since the 1930s, the following are true advancements in "communications bandwidth efficiency:" 1. Claude Elwood Shannon's seminal paper of 1947 relating noise, bandwidth, and error rate and its relationship to temperature, Bell System Technical Journal 1947 (before the invention of the transistor at Bell Labs, done in a different part of that Laboratory). This established what would be universally known as "Shannon's Law" for ALL communications circuits on this planet. 2. Time-multiplexing of four TTY channels over one FSK CW radio circuit at 850 Hz "spread" (Mark to Space frequency shift), USN contract with DoD, in use 1953 with the worldwide Army Command and Administrative Network (ACAN), later STARCOM. Required no more bandwidth than a single TTY FSK circuit at the time. 3. The first of the voice channel modems faster than the 300 WPM Bell System. Those would peak at the present-day modems on the Internet sending/receiving 56,000 bits per second over a voice-bandwidth channel only 3000 Hz wide. Millions and millions in use worldwide just prior to the new millennium. The USA FCC regulations for amateur radio communications on HF have drastic limits on radio modem data rates. 4. Spread Spectrum techniques, at first classified only for government use, now found in millions of cellular telephone sets/sites that allow many users to coexist WITHOUT INTERFERENCE in the SAME bandspace and close geographical spacing. Makes use of both Shannon's Laws and Information Theory techniques. There are still drastic limitations in FCC regulations on such techniques in USA amateur radio. 5. Digitized voice, first used over wired telephone systems by individuals in the early 1970s expanded to commercial use ON HF broadcasting, most prominanet method being DRM (Digital Radio Mondial) that has been in-use now for six years. Digitized voice AND data has been in-use in small-unit portable radio of the DoD SINCGARS family, operational since 1989, and capable of selectable in-clear or on-line encrypted communications, also adopted by most NATO military member forces. [digitization allows easy encryption/decryption] A variation is the digitized modulation used in FRS/GMRS unlicensed portable/mobile radio use. 6, UWB or Ultra WideBand techniques where bandspace is deliberately widened for many and varied not-communications-application such as short-range underground viaualization of buried objects, "looking through walls" of buildings, etc., etc., etc. There are hybrid systems which utilize Information Theory techniques, notably SONAR which was one of the first widespread uses of Fast Fourier Transform signal characteristic detection. Such Sonar systems resulted in the "waterfall" display now used in amateur experimentation for weak-signal communications, notably on LF (which the ARRL has not seen fit to promote although many European countries and the UK already have amateur radio bands on LF). Yes, there is an underwater communications system in use but it doesn't use RF. :-) A common hybrid system is the "radio watch" and "radio clocks" now in use by the (?) millions for automatic self-calibration that use exceptionally-slow data rates permitting the miniature radio demodulators to reduce noise with weak signals on LF (60 KHz in the USA and UK). Mine was "terribly expensive" three weeks ago ($27.45 with free shipping from Amazon for a Casio model that came out of the box already self-calibrated). I have another, older radio watch which cost less than $30 including tax and shipping, does not have the selectable UTC or foreign time zone display. Another "hybrid system" is the USA DTV broadcast format that uses all available techiques of Information Theory to collapse at least 18 MHz of bandwidth into a single 6 MHz bandspace AND adding quadraphonic sound, teletext (captions for the hearing impaired), plus a number of technical signals for constant checking of modulation quality. That system would be impossible to achieve without an easy-to-manufacture but highly-complex-in-structure Integrated Circuit. The MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group) extended known Information Theory techniques to the maximum in modulation-demodulation to enable bandwidth reduction. An added plus is the relative freedom of RFI compared to older, simpler analog modulation schemes and lack of "snow" with weak DTV signals. PSK-31 can be described as a "hybrid system" in that it permits low-rate text (roughly 30 WPM maximum) in a bandwidth no greater than 500 Hz. Innovated by Peter Martinex, G3PLX, it has been shunned and depreciated in the USA as being: (1) NIH; (2) "non-traditional"; (3) Does not demonstrate the remarkable, awesome, gloried expertise of heroic manual OOK CW telegraphy of the amateur radiotelegrapher. <shrug> I could describe some more systems which permit as great (in a few cases greater, but those are not allowed in USA amateur radio) an advancement. And, I don't have the personal experience with them as with those just listed...but that spoils your glory worship of the FIRST mode in ALL radio. Happy Holidays from AF6AY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-22 N2EY wrote: "NI0C: "Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology." Nor with history. Spark disappeared from Amateur Radio in the early 1920s - not because it was legislated out of existence, but because the new continuous-wave tube transmitters performed the same job so much better. " It was a quantum leap in communications bandwidth efficiency, perhaps unequaled in terms of percentage improvement since then. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C: "some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject." I'd express that idea rather differently: Everyone can have and express opinions on anything and everything. Whether those opinions are based on experience, facts and sound reasoning is another matter. NI0C: "One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air." 6 weeks? It was a lot more in 1967! Process went like this: 1) Prospective ham learned code and theory well enough to have a go at the exam. 2) Prospective ham found volunteer examiner (no capitals) who would give the test, and set up time and place. 3) Volunteer examiner gave code tests (receiving and sending). If prospective ham passed them, volunteer examiner sent away form requesting written test. 4) When written exam came in the mail, volunteer examiner and prospective ham would set up time and place for written exam. 5) At written exam session, sealed test envelope would be opened, prospective ham would take test. When done, volunteer examiner would seal up all papers in FCC-provided envelope and send off for grading. All volunteer examiner did was make sure prospective ham didn't cheat. 6) FCC would process the whole thing and send either a small envelope or a big one. Small envelope was preferred because it contained only the license. Big envelope contained paperwork to do the whole thing all over again. Getting anything through FCC took 6 to 8 weeks back then, so the whole process could easily take 12 to 16 weeks just in FCC processing. All that encouraged prospective hams to overlearn so they'd pass on the first go. And as you said, it gave time for more practice. NI0C: "As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired." As you say, the nonrenewable Novice with its limited one- or two-year term also had the effect of encouraging newcomers to hit the ground running. Most of the new hams I knew had a key, receiver and antenna set up and working long before they had the license, and used the processing delay to get a transmitter set up and ready to go so there would be no delay when the license arrived. In my case I used the time to build a transmitter from scratch. NI0C: "No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available." Since 1990. Also accomodations in the tests. But at least some folks I have encountered were too proud to take advantage of them. NI0C: "I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line!" That's not a fault of the exam process. It's a lack of common sense and failure to RTFM. Which is nothing new. There was a QST article some time back about dumb questions and mistakes that various rigmakers had encountered from customers. Like the ham who plugged a mike into the PHONES jack of his new receiver, hit the SEND-RECEIVE switch and called CQ. Or the ham who wired a Heathkit transmitter and used spaghetti where the manual called for it - except he used *real* spaghetti, not varnished insulating tubing. Or the ham whose set wasn't doing so well, so he lifted the lid and tightened all the loose screws.... The article appeared about 1956. One big difference between the old days and now is that, in the old days, a mistake like that would generally be known only by a few, rather than being on display at a popular website like eham. Another difference is that most equipment nowadays is relatively inexpensive compared to yesteryear, when you adjust for inflation. There also wasn't the expectation of plug-and-play. None of which is a result of changes in testing. NI0C: "In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms." We have probably worked each other many times, just not using our own calls. The local club rotates the call used each year so that all the regulars get a chance. NI0C: "There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction." Besides all of that, there are better crystal filters, better rig designs, etc. The Elecraft K2 is an example of a rig with a surprisingly low parts count, cost and overall hardware complexity that has "big-rig" performance. Particularly on CW... NI0C: "Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology." Nor with history. Spark disappeared from Amateur Radio in the early 1920s - not because it was legislated out of existence, but because the new continuous-wave tube transmitters performed the same job so much better. In 1921, Godley went to Ardrossan, Scotland and received more CW than spark signals on 200 meters - even though most of the spark signals were running higher power and were more numerous than CW rigs at the time. That demonstration, and the 1923 two-way transatlantic QSO on 110 meters changed a lot of minds. By the time spark was outlawed for hams in the late 1920s, it was merely a procedural thing; hams had simply stopped using it. Yet large numbers of amateurs today continue to use Morse Code/CW on the air, because nothing has come along that does the same job better. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-21 N2EY wrote: “But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes.” And, as we well know, some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject. “It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency".” Everyone who got on the CW bands after passing a 5 wpm test learned that there was nobody to talk to at this level. One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air. As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired. “What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all.” No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available. “Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in.”“ I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line! “our [Field Day] CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so.” In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms. “Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets.” There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction. Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C writes: "A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies." Of course, but FCC didn't see it that way. Unfortunately. Both in 1999 and after 2003, the majority of those who commented on the various proposals to reduce/eliminate Morse Code testing supported retaining at least some of it. But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes. Basic knowledge of all the other modes is tested in the written exam. Even modes which are used far less on the amateur bands than Morse Code. It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency". What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all. We had some growth from 2000 to 2003, but it didn't last. Since 2007 we've had growth again, and hopefully it will keep on. But in neither case were there lots of new people flooding in. Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in. NI0C: "Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement." The ultimate irony of the situation may be that we wind up with *more* Morse Code operators overall, both in absolute numbers and percentage of actual use. Some indicators: You mentioned 160 meters earlier. The ARRL 160 meter contest keeps on growing, despite the fact that effective antennas are rather large - and it's a CW-only contest! It will be interesting to see this year's results. On Field Day 2009 I was part of the team that ran the CW station at the local club effort. We were in 5A + VHF/UHF, with 3 fulltime phone stations, 1 phone/data station, 1 VHF/UHF station (all phone), and 1 CW station. Yet our CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so. Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets. Pretty good for a mode that gets almost no publicity and which requires some skill to use. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-20 "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| NI0C | 2009-12-23 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur License History... | ||
| I'm glad that words spewed out on eHam don't cause static crashes on 160m. This morning, there are over 9000 reported lightning events here in the midwest, and the band is very noisy. If there were a prize for an individual's ratio of words uttered on eHam to number of QSO's on the air, you would definitely be a contender. Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-22 NI0C wrote on 22 Dec 09 on "King Spark": "It was a quantum leap in communications bandwidth efficiency, perhaps unequaled in terms of percentage improvement since then." Tsk, tsk, tsk. Some folks just haven't kept up with the state of the art in "communications bandwidth efficiency." :-) Disregarding commercial and military SSB formats that can carry two voice channels and eight TTY channels on the SAME 12 KHz bandwidth over HF radio paths since the 1930s, the following are true advancements in "communications bandwidth efficiency:" 1. Claude Elwood Shannon's seminal paper of 1947 relating noise, bandwidth, and error rate and its relationship to temperature, Bell System Technical Journal 1947 (before the invention of the transistor at Bell Labs, done in a different part of that Laboratory). This established what would be universally known as "Shannon's Law" for ALL communications circuits on this planet. 2. Time-multiplexing of four TTY channels over one FSK CW radio circuit at 850 Hz "spread" (Mark to Space frequency shift), USN contract with DoD, in use 1953 with the worldwide Army Command and Administrative Network (ACAN), later STARCOM. Required no more bandwidth than a single TTY FSK circuit at the time. 3. The first of the voice channel modems faster than the 300 WPM Bell System. Those would peak at the present-day modems on the Internet sending/receiving 56,000 bits per second over a voice-bandwidth channel only 3000 Hz wide. Millions and millions in use worldwide just prior to the new millennium. The USA FCC regulations for amateur radio communications on HF have drastic limits on radio modem data rates. 4. Spread Spectrum techniques, at first classified only for government use, now found in millions of cellular telephone sets/sites that allow many users to coexist WITHOUT INTERFERENCE in the SAME bandspace and close geographical spacing. Makes use of both Shannon's Laws and Information Theory techniques. There are still drastic limitations in FCC regulations on such techniques in USA amateur radio. 5. Digitized voice, first used over wired telephone systems by individuals in the early 1970s expanded to commercial use ON HF broadcasting, most prominanet method being DRM (Digital Radio Mondial) that has been in-use now for six years. Digitized voice AND data has been in-use in small-unit portable radio of the DoD SINCGARS family, operational since 1989, and capable of selectable in-clear or on-line encrypted communications, also adopted by most NATO military member forces. [digitization allows easy encryption/decryption] A variation is the digitized modulation used in FRS/GMRS unlicensed portable/mobile radio use. 6, UWB or Ultra WideBand techniques where bandspace is deliberately widened for many and varied not-communications-application such as short-range underground viaualization of buried objects, "looking through walls" of buildings, etc., etc., etc. There are hybrid systems which utilize Information Theory techniques, notably SONAR which was one of the first widespread uses of Fast Fourier Transform signal characteristic detection. Such Sonar systems resulted in the "waterfall" display now used in amateur experimentation for weak-signal communications, notably on LF (which the ARRL has not seen fit to promote although many European countries and the UK already have amateur radio bands on LF). Yes, there is an underwater communications system in use but it doesn't use RF. :-) A common hybrid system is the "radio watch" and "radio clocks" now in use by the (?) millions for automatic self-calibration that use exceptionally-slow data rates permitting the miniature radio demodulators to reduce noise with weak signals on LF (60 KHz in the USA and UK). Mine was "terribly expensive" three weeks ago ($27.45 with free shipping from Amazon for a Casio model that came out of the box already self-calibrated). I have another, older radio watch which cost less than $30 including tax and shipping, does not have the selectable UTC or foreign time zone display. Another "hybrid system" is the USA DTV broadcast format that uses all available techiques of Information Theory to collapse at least 18 MHz of bandwidth into a single 6 MHz bandspace AND adding quadraphonic sound, teletext (captions for the hearing impaired), plus a number of technical signals for constant checking of modulation quality. That system would be impossible to achieve without an easy-to-manufacture but highly-complex-in-structure Integrated Circuit. The MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group) extended known Information Theory techniques to the maximum in modulation-demodulation to enable bandwidth reduction. An added plus is the relative freedom of RFI compared to older, simpler analog modulation schemes and lack of "snow" with weak DTV signals. PSK-31 can be described as a "hybrid system" in that it permits low-rate text (roughly 30 WPM maximum) in a bandwidth no greater than 500 Hz. Innovated by Peter Martinex, G3PLX, it has been shunned and depreciated in the USA as being: (1) NIH; (2) "non-traditional"; (3) Does not demonstrate the remarkable, awesome, gloried expertise of heroic manual OOK CW telegraphy of the amateur radiotelegrapher. <shrug> I could describe some more systems which permit as great (in a few cases greater, but those are not allowed in USA amateur radio) an advancement. And, I don't have the personal experience with them as with those just listed...but that spoils your glory worship of the FIRST mode in ALL radio. Happy Holidays from AF6AY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-22 N2EY wrote: "NI0C: "Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology." Nor with history. Spark disappeared from Amateur Radio in the early 1920s - not because it was legislated out of existence, but because the new continuous-wave tube transmitters performed the same job so much better. " It was a quantum leap in communications bandwidth efficiency, perhaps unequaled in terms of percentage improvement since then. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C: "some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject." I'd express that idea rather differently: Everyone can have and express opinions on anything and everything. Whether those opinions are based on experience, facts and sound reasoning is another matter. NI0C: "One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air." 6 weeks? It was a lot more in 1967! Process went like this: 1) Prospective ham learned code and theory well enough to have a go at the exam. 2) Prospective ham found volunteer examiner (no capitals) who would give the test, and set up time and place. 3) Volunteer examiner gave code tests (receiving and sending). If prospective ham passed them, volunteer examiner sent away form requesting written test. 4) When written exam came in the mail, volunteer examiner and prospective ham would set up time and place for written exam. 5) At written exam session, sealed test envelope would be opened, prospective ham would take test. When done, volunteer examiner would seal up all papers in FCC-provided envelope and send off for grading. All volunteer examiner did was make sure prospective ham didn't cheat. 6) FCC would process the whole thing and send either a small envelope or a big one. Small envelope was preferred because it contained only the license. Big envelope contained paperwork to do the whole thing all over again. Getting anything through FCC took 6 to 8 weeks back then, so the whole process could easily take 12 to 16 weeks just in FCC processing. All that encouraged prospective hams to overlearn so they'd pass on the first go. And as you said, it gave time for more practice. NI0C: "As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired." As you say, the nonrenewable Novice with its limited one- or two-year term also had the effect of encouraging newcomers to hit the ground running. Most of the new hams I knew had a key, receiver and antenna set up and working long before they had the license, and used the processing delay to get a transmitter set up and ready to go so there would be no delay when the license arrived. In my case I used the time to build a transmitter from scratch. NI0C: "No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available." Since 1990. Also accomodations in the tests. But at least some folks I have encountered were too proud to take advantage of them. NI0C: "I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line!" That's not a fault of the exam process. It's a lack of common sense and failure to RTFM. Which is nothing new. There was a QST article some time back about dumb questions and mistakes that various rigmakers had encountered from customers. Like the ham who plugged a mike into the PHONES jack of his new receiver, hit the SEND-RECEIVE switch and called CQ. Or the ham who wired a Heathkit transmitter and used spaghetti where the manual called for it - except he used *real* spaghetti, not varnished insulating tubing. Or the ham whose set wasn't doing so well, so he lifted the lid and tightened all the loose screws.... The article appeared about 1956. One big difference between the old days and now is that, in the old days, a mistake like that would generally be known only by a few, rather than being on display at a popular website like eham. Another difference is that most equipment nowadays is relatively inexpensive compared to yesteryear, when you adjust for inflation. There also wasn't the expectation of plug-and-play. None of which is a result of changes in testing. NI0C: "In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms." We have probably worked each other many times, just not using our own calls. The local club rotates the call used each year so that all the regulars get a chance. NI0C: "There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction." Besides all of that, there are better crystal filters, better rig designs, etc. The Elecraft K2 is an example of a rig with a surprisingly low parts count, cost and overall hardware complexity that has "big-rig" performance. Particularly on CW... NI0C: "Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology." Nor with history. Spark disappeared from Amateur Radio in the early 1920s - not because it was legislated out of existence, but because the new continuous-wave tube transmitters performed the same job so much better. In 1921, Godley went to Ardrossan, Scotland and received more CW than spark signals on 200 meters - even though most of the spark signals were running higher power and were more numerous than CW rigs at the time. That demonstration, and the 1923 two-way transatlantic QSO on 110 meters changed a lot of minds. By the time spark was outlawed for hams in the late 1920s, it was merely a procedural thing; hams had simply stopped using it. Yet large numbers of amateurs today continue to use Morse Code/CW on the air, because nothing has come along that does the same job better. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-21 N2EY wrote: “But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes.” And, as we well know, some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject. “It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency".” Everyone who got on the CW bands after passing a 5 wpm test learned that there was nobody to talk to at this level. One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air. As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired. “What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all.” No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available. “Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in.”“ I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line! “our [Field Day] CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so.” In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms. “Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets.” There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction. Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C writes: "A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies." Of course, but FCC didn't see it that way. Unfortunately. Both in 1999 and after 2003, the majority of those who commented on the various proposals to reduce/eliminate Morse Code testing supported retaining at least some of it. But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes. Basic knowledge of all the other modes is tested in the written exam. Even modes which are used far less on the amateur bands than Morse Code. It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency". What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all. We had some growth from 2000 to 2003, but it didn't last. Since 2007 we've had growth again, and hopefully it will keep on. But in neither case were there lots of new people flooding in. Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in. NI0C: "Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement." The ultimate irony of the situation may be that we wind up with *more* Morse Code operators overall, both in absolute numbers and percentage of actual use. Some indicators: You mentioned 160 meters earlier. The ARRL 160 meter contest keeps on growing, despite the fact that effective antennas are rather large - and it's a CW-only contest! It will be interesting to see this year's results. On Field Day 2009 I was part of the team that ran the CW station at the local club effort. We were in 5A + VHF/UHF, with 3 fulltime phone stations, 1 phone/data station, 1 VHF/UHF station (all phone), and 1 CW station. Yet our CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so. Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets. Pretty good for a mode that gets almost no publicity and which requires some skill to use. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-20 "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| K6LHA | 2009-12-22 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: More Back to the Future (easy as pi) | ||
| NI0C snarled through his teeth on December 22, 2009: "AF6AY: Congratulations on achieving your Amateur Extra Class license after petitioning the FCC to reduce the requirements." Wrong. I did not PETITION the FCC for anything. I merely made some Comments and Replies to Comments on the appropriate dockets before the Commision on NPRMs 98-143, 05-235, and some of the 18 Petitions made public by the FCC. Call it LOBBYING in the mildest sense, availing myself of the liberty that any citizen of the United States of America has to speak to their government. Apparently the only "qualified" persons regarded by so many olde-tymers is THEM. Reflect on the FACT that the FCC (which regulates ALL civil radio in the USA) does NOT require any Commissioners or staff to hold any radio licenses! [gasp, strange but true...] You will refuse to believe it, but my "campaign" (exaggerated description) was solely to attempt modernization of existing USA amateur radio regulations. Having worked IN radio communications since 1953 and NEVER having had to know or use it as part of that work, I had no bias or brainwashing about manual radiotelegraphy in radio. As far as I was concerned, it was an artifact of the past, used as the first mode of communications in early radio because early radio was extremely primitive, on-off keying was the only practical means and by 1896, a mature technique with (then) a half-century of existance in wired telegraphy. In the USA, the last remaining radio service to require International Morse Code testing for a license was amateur and only for those classes that allowed operation below 30 MHz. To me that was an anachronism, something that no longer belonged in law. It seemed right to me to attempt modernizing regulations for the FUTURE, not to glory in the past. When William Cross signed off on FCC 06-178 (published first on 19 Dec 06) I felt vindicated for my efforts and know that many of my radio hobbyist friends felt the same way. For the rest of the 2006-2007 holiday time I made NO attempt nor worked up any interest in achieving my "own" license nor in "having my very own radio station." I enjoyed the Holiday time with friends who were not concerned with preserving the past forever, much less glorying in the alleged wonder of it all. At the time I had already worked as a professional IN radio-electronics for 54 years, had "my own radio station" (a business band radio with a tripartite partnership), had my filligree-edged blue background First Class Radiotelephone Operator License certificate granted in March 1956, had been a hobbyist tinkering/dabbling/ building/learning by myself since 1947. Oh, and I'd already been a contributor, then Assciate Editor with Ham Radio magazine...all without any amateur radio license. Plus, I've had enough friends for years who were either hobbyists, licensed in some radio service, or just interested in the technology for their own sake. A couple weeks after New Years Day of 2007, in talking to my wife and a mutual friend about all the "campaigning" I'd done, they suggested I GO for it. So I decided to do just that. Not a problem. Once decided I set about to DO IT, disregarding all of those who had thought me "unqualified" in anything over the past half century. :-) There was no emotional motivator, simply a personal decision made to DO IT. As the old Hawaiian colloquial phrase has it, "Go for broke!" :-) I was in a personal financial situation of being able to afford an entire HF-VHF station then and acquired good, but not necessarily "top-of-the-line" radio equipment. That is resented, sometimes bitterly, by those who are unable to do so, and many of them vent their frustrations on me. I cannot nor will not help such resentful individuals, certainly not all those who insist and insist that "I should have done what they did" from teen years through their middle age. Amateur radio would NOT be my LIFE, just another avocation, non-professional, in short a HOBBY. I did it solely for myself, just for my interest, NOT to showcase myself to others of "mighty accomplishments." .................... NI0C: "You might be interested in: http://eham.net/reviews/detail/6136" THANK YOU ever so much, Charles, haven't had such a good laugh in days! Just imagine...a Product Review on a CERTIFICATE! :-) A non-legal certificate at that. That is SO hard to believe! :-) Gotta love it! Thanks but no thanks. I have my very own, rather plain, austere "license certificate" from the ONLY legal issuer in the USA, the FCC. I still have all my old commercial license certificates, as I said filligree-bordered blue background certificates for the first three radiotelephone (Commercial), then yellow background with less filligree on edges when it was changed to a GROL, until now, just an entry in the ULS database for commercial licensees once thzt license was made lifetime. Ten bucks for a non-member certificate, seven-fifty for a member charge? Oh, my, I'd get as much or more sustenance from a meal at Home Town Buffet or satisfaction for body comfort from a three-pack of cotton socks from Target (upscale Hanes brand), and have money left over from either one. I don't have ANY certificates on our residence walls, much less at our northern house in Washington state, hardly any photographs. My wife has a BA degree and TWO Masters degrees (for Education and Social Work), using them all when she was still working. Those three certificates are in storage up north. WE don't NEED them for display to others. .................. NI0C: "Maybe the ARRL will endorse your certificate for your special efforts. Perhaps they will even print a billboard sized certificate for you." Let's see, in getting into the spirit in the second week of March, 2007, I joined the ARRL on-line. My QST subscriptions were mis-labled in address for four months, despite the ARRL having my correct mailing address from their VE team that tested me a mile and a half from my house. In late April, 2007, the ARRL sent me an "offer" to Join and get a freebie from them if I did. Six weeks LATER? Departments in Newington appeared to NOT being on communication terms. After a polite letter by surface mail asking if I could still avail myself of their freebie offer, I got a terse e-mail saying "I could not because I was already a member." [six weeks after joining] At least they NOW recognized that I really was a member. I've been in ONE "election" as a member over two years, that is, if one can call an unopposed candidate as being an "election." I've not had any responses to my two letters to "official representatives." On asking Newington for membership numbers of the organization I belonged to, I was referred to the Annual Report; they would not answer me immediately on the reason that "demographics of membership are given only to potential advertisers." After a year and a half of growing frustration I decided to let membership lapse. The ARRL is primarily a PUBLISHING HOUSE and less a membership organization by their own attitudes, wordings, and phrases behind their PR propaganda. They hadn't done anything for me in two years. I just don't think highly over such pretty paper from a NON-legal "official source." Years ago at the availability of better photo programs for PCs, a friend of mine made up all kinds of "certificates" which looked very, very "authentic" and would have WOWED a casual observer. It was all in sarcasm and humor at others' need for wallpaper bling. Some were devastatingly FUNNY but in a sneaky subtle way. :-) I carry ONE non-standard item in my wallet, a miniaturized photocopy of my DD-214 form I got in 1956. If you are a veteran of the US armed forces you will know what a "DD-214" is (still used today but changed slightly to reflect different military regulations), non-veterans probably don't and don't much care. It is there because it can be there. I don't use it for "certificate bling," just as a casual and different conversation starter in social gatherings. Gatherings of HUMANS who can communicate without radio. [gasp!] Oh, and Happy Holidays...:-) AF6AY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-22 AF6AY: Congratulations on achieving your Amateur Extra Class license after petitioning the FCC to reduce the requirements. You might be interested in: http://eham.net/reviews/detail/6136 Maybe the ARRL will endorse your certificate for your special efforts. Perhaps they will even print a billboard sized certificate for you. Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-21 NI0C wrote on December 21, 2009: [N2EY]: “But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes.” NI0C: "And, as we well know, some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject. Ahem, not to break up the hate-the-nocoders-cuz-we-morsemen-are-the-GREATEST imitation of Muhammed Ali (formerly known as Cassius Clay) but the FCC allows any citizen to comment on any docket up for public comment. NPRM 05-235 was about GETTING INTO USA amateur radio, not an "upgrading" or anything else. GETTING INTO, as in the regulations required by an applicant to pass an amateur radio license exam. There are NO "qualifications" necessary to post Comments or Replies to Comments. <shrug> By that curious illogic of alleged "qualifications" stated above, one cannot comment about GETTING INTO a radio service if one is ALREADY IN that radio service. :-) On NPRM 05-235 there were 3,786 documents filed between 15 July 2005 and 14 November 2005 (official ending day). On 25 November 2005 I submitted an EXHIBT which was a week-by-week tally of ALL documents posted on that docket. Anyone can access that through the FCC Electronic Comment System under docket 05-235. That was just an informational exhibit, not "official" and quite probably not "qualified" under the coders' curious we-are-the-only-qualified-people "rule." Having saved each and every publicly-available document under docket 05-235, the exhibit results are as "qualified" as is possible to anyone literate. In that, it shows that the intial months of commentary, the CITIZENS of the USA were FOR the NPRM; i.e., for removal of the code test. There was a great deal of later DENIAL by long-ago-code-tested amateur licensees which skewed the totals towards being "against" the NPRM. Note that I said "citizens" above. That is the ONLY qualifier necessary for the USA federal government. Anyone is free to peruse the Communications Act of 1934 or the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (some amendments to regulations) to see what "qualifications" are necessary. Anyone NOT a citizen can also post on that docket but one can expect the FCC staffers to be literate and aware of the federal laws governing their actions. As a matter of fact, there were three individuals who made multiple postings of opinions against the NPRM, all of them supposedly "qualified" having amateur radio licenses. The logic of "qualifications" ONLY by having an existing, active-license term is itself FAULTY given the lawful charters of the FCC. Anyone NOT engaged in Mass Media (broadcasting) radio services may comment on matters concerning such broadcasting. Anyone NOT engaged in Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) without being IN either broadband data communications or electric power distribution activities. Anyone NOT owning/using/licensed-in the Private Land Mobile Radio Service (PLMRS) can comment on any matter in a docket affecting only PLMRS regulations. Each of those would apply for any radio service or Part of regulations of Title 47 Code of Federal Regulations. FCC 06-178, the Memorandum Report and Order eliminating USA amateur radio service license testing for International Morse Code cognition, was made on 19 December 2006 under the authority of William T. Cross, then head of the FCC Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. It can be read on the ECFS under docket 05-235. As of this date, 21 Dec 09, it is three years and 2 days since that R&O was released. All of the FCC decision reasons are clearly given in that R&O document. It is LAW. Those who wish to REVERSE such a test elimination are free to submit a Petition to re-install it in the USA amateur radio service regulations. Two such Petitions were submitted after 06-178 became law. The FCC replied to both with decisions and reasons made public for their denial. ............... [N2EY?]: “What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all.” [NI0C}: No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available. Curious sentence structure. There were no "medical waivers" for written tests...or were there? :-) "Lots and lots of new hams" is a subjective description, unquantifiable. The no-code-test Techncian class had been growing continuously between 1991 and 2000, continuaing to grow afterwards until that one class now accounts for 48% of all licensees, a rate that is not affected by the allegations that "Tech plusses are renewing as Techs," a favorite reiterated "reason" of N2EY. N2EY's reiteration is NOT backed up by a shred of evidence proving his allegation. <shrug> .............. [N2EY?] “Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in.”“ Now, that's a new excuse/rationalization. :-) I'm not sure where THAT was some kind of "reason" for removing the code test, but I'm sure N2EY will kluge together some kind of "justifying" statement. Somewhat similar to his early-1970s "design" for a low-HF transceiver using vacuum tubes. Very advanced. [see listing of his "silver" photos sure to follow...:-)} ............... NI0C: "Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology." My apologies, I wasn't born until 1932. "Spark" was prohibited in the USA by 1927. Outside of some EMP testing, the only "spark" in my lifetime was with automobile sparkplugs, including early model gas engines (up to about 1948 or 1949, then replaced with "glow plugs"). However, the TECHNOLOGY of COMMUNICATIONS - as used by other radio services - were already sending continuous teleprinter signals of eight such circuits plus two voice channels all on one SSB radio in the 1930s on HF over long-haul communications paths. Those were a "radio extension" of existing landline wired carrier systems that came into use in the late 1920s. Of course that was for commercial and military "carrier" services and would not be found in amateur radio. The FCC forbids communications carrier service in the USA amateur bands. On the other hand, the FCC does permit SOME Spread Spectrum operation above 30 MHz in USA amateur radio bands. They will also permit Forward-Error-Correction for Data IF and only IF the format has been published elsewhere and is considered "public knowledge." Then there is PSK-31, a slow-speed data system that takes no more bandwidth than an OOK CW signal. Of course PSK-31 was innovated in the UK and air-tested in Europe before the ARRL bothered to publish anything about it. NIH factor? Well, there are "radio modems" in use by radio amateurs today but the FCC does not yet permit high-rate modems (such as found in commercial radio services) for USA radio amateurs. The pre-(about)-1960 teleprinter rates used to be 60 WPM equivalent but were raised to 100 WPM before the Teletype Corporation electro-mechanical terminals were replaced by electronics versions with much higher throughput. Personal computers aren't necessary for all-electronic terminals (the first ones were done with digital circuitry as stand-alones) but the tremendous hard-disk mass storage capabilities of PCs of even a decade ago save having reels and reels of tape, paper or magnetic. All that mass storage in PCs also allows very quick retrieval of text data for easy viewing off-line or on-line. But, I digress. The mighty morsemen of the amateur persuasion insist and insist on "Back to the Future" (easy as pi) modes as a "necessary qualifier" to say anything at all. :-) Only They "know what is good for all amateurs." <shrug> AF6AY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-21 N2EY wrote: “But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes.” And, as we well know, some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject. “It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency".” Everyone who got on the CW bands after passing a 5 wpm test learned that there was nobody to talk to at this level. One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air. As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired. “What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all.” No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available. “Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in.”“ I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line! “our [Field Day] CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so.” In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms. “Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets.” There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction. Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C writes: "A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies." Of course, but FCC didn't see it that way. Unfortunately. Both in 1999 and after 2003, the majority of those who commented on the various proposals to reduce/eliminate Morse Code testing supported retaining at least some of it. But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes. Basic knowledge of all the other modes is tested in the written exam. Even modes which are used far less on the amateur bands than Morse Code. It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency". What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all. We had some growth from 2000 to 2003, but it didn't last. Since 2007 we've had growth again, and hopefully it will keep on. But in neither case were there lots of new people flooding in. Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in. NI0C: "Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement." The ultimate irony of the situation may be that we wind up with *more* Morse Code operators overall, both in absolute numbers and percentage of actual use. Some indicators: You mentioned 160 meters earlier. The ARRL 160 meter contest keeps on growing, despite the fact that effective antennas are rather large - and it's a CW-only contest! It will be interesting to see this year's results. On Field Day 2009 I was part of the team that ran the CW station at the local club effort. We were in 5A + VHF/UHF, with 3 fulltime phone stations, 1 phone/data station, 1 VHF/UHF station (all phone), and 1 CW station. Yet our CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so. Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets. Pretty good for a mode that gets almost no publicity and which requires some skill to use. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-20 "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| K6LHA | 2009-12-22 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur License History... | ||
| NI0C wrote on 22 Dec 09 on "King Spark": "It was a quantum leap in communications bandwidth efficiency, perhaps unequaled in terms of percentage improvement since then." Tsk, tsk, tsk. Some folks just haven't kept up with the state of the art in "communications bandwidth efficiency." :-) Disregarding commercial and military SSB formats that can carry two voice channels and eight TTY channels on the SAME 12 KHz bandwidth over HF radio paths since the 1930s, the following are true advancements in "communications bandwidth efficiency:" 1. Claude Elwood Shannon's seminal paper of 1947 relating noise, bandwidth, and error rate and its relationship to temperature, Bell System Technical Journal 1947 (before the invention of the transistor at Bell Labs, done in a different part of that Laboratory). This established what would be universally known as "Shannon's Law" for ALL communications circuits on this planet. 2. Time-multiplexing of four TTY channels over one FSK CW radio circuit at 850 Hz "spread" (Mark to Space frequency shift), USN contract with DoD, in use 1953 with the worldwide Army Command and Administrative Network (ACAN), later STARCOM. Required no more bandwidth than a single TTY FSK circuit at the time. 3. The first of the voice channel modems faster than the 300 WPM Bell System. Those would peak at the present-day modems on the Internet sending/receiving 56,000 bits per second over a voice-bandwidth channel only 3000 Hz wide. Millions and millions in use worldwide just prior to the new millennium. The USA FCC regulations for amateur radio communications on HF have drastic limits on radio modem data rates. 4. Spread Spectrum techniques, at first classified only for government use, now found in millions of cellular telephone sets/sites that allow many users to coexist WITHOUT INTERFERENCE in the SAME bandspace and close geographical spacing. Makes use of both Shannon's Laws and Information Theory techniques. There are still drastic limitations in FCC regulations on such techniques in USA amateur radio. 5. Digitized voice, first used over wired telephone systems by individuals in the early 1970s expanded to commercial use ON HF broadcasting, most prominanet method being DRM (Digital Radio Mondial) that has been in-use now for six years. Digitized voice AND data has been in-use in small-unit portable radio of the DoD SINCGARS family, operational since 1989, and capable of selectable in-clear or on-line encrypted communications, also adopted by most NATO military member forces. [digitization allows easy encryption/decryption] A variation is the digitized modulation used in FRS/GMRS unlicensed portable/mobile radio use. 6, UWB or Ultra WideBand techniques where bandspace is deliberately widened for many and varied not-communications-application such as short-range underground viaualization of buried objects, "looking through walls" of buildings, etc., etc., etc. There are hybrid systems which utilize Information Theory techniques, notably SONAR which was one of the first widespread uses of Fast Fourier Transform signal characteristic detection. Such Sonar systems resulted in the "waterfall" display now used in amateur experimentation for weak-signal communications, notably on LF (which the ARRL has not seen fit to promote although many European countries and the UK already have amateur radio bands on LF). Yes, there is an underwater communications system in use but it doesn't use RF. :-) A common hybrid system is the "radio watch" and "radio clocks" now in use by the (?) millions for automatic self-calibration that use exceptionally-slow data rates permitting the miniature radio demodulators to reduce noise with weak signals on LF (60 KHz in the USA and UK). Mine was "terribly expensive" three weeks ago ($27.45 with free shipping from Amazon for a Casio model that came out of the box already self-calibrated). I have another, older radio watch which cost less than $30 including tax and shipping, does not have the selectable UTC or foreign time zone display. Another "hybrid system" is the USA DTV broadcast format that uses all available techiques of Information Theory to collapse at least 18 MHz of bandwidth into a single 6 MHz bandspace AND adding quadraphonic sound, teletext (captions for the hearing impaired), plus a number of technical signals for constant checking of modulation quality. That system would be impossible to achieve without an easy-to-manufacture but highly-complex-in-structure Integrated Circuit. The MPEG (Motion Picture Experts Group) extended known Information Theory techniques to the maximum in modulation-demodulation to enable bandwidth reduction. An added plus is the relative freedom of RFI compared to older, simpler analog modulation schemes and lack of "snow" with weak DTV signals. PSK-31 can be described as a "hybrid system" in that it permits low-rate text (roughly 30 WPM maximum) in a bandwidth no greater than 500 Hz. Innovated by Peter Martinex, G3PLX, it has been shunned and depreciated in the USA as being: (1) NIH; (2) "non-traditional"; (3) Does not demonstrate the remarkable, awesome, gloried expertise of heroic manual OOK CW telegraphy of the amateur radiotelegrapher. <shrug> I could describe some more systems which permit as great (in a few cases greater, but those are not allowed in USA amateur radio) an advancement. And, I don't have the personal experience with them as with those just listed...but that spoils your glory worship of the FIRST mode in ALL radio. Happy Holidays from AF6AY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-22 N2EY wrote: "NI0C: "Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology." Nor with history. Spark disappeared from Amateur Radio in the early 1920s - not because it was legislated out of existence, but because the new continuous-wave tube transmitters performed the same job so much better. " It was a quantum leap in communications bandwidth efficiency, perhaps unequaled in terms of percentage improvement since then. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C: "some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject." I'd express that idea rather differently: Everyone can have and express opinions on anything and everything. Whether those opinions are based on experience, facts and sound reasoning is another matter. NI0C: "One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air." 6 weeks? It was a lot more in 1967! Process went like this: 1) Prospective ham learned code and theory well enough to have a go at the exam. 2) Prospective ham found volunteer examiner (no capitals) who would give the test, and set up time and place. 3) Volunteer examiner gave code tests (receiving and sending). If prospective ham passed them, volunteer examiner sent away form requesting written test. 4) When written exam came in the mail, volunteer examiner and prospective ham would set up time and place for written exam. 5) At written exam session, sealed test envelope would be opened, prospective ham would take test. When done, volunteer examiner would seal up all papers in FCC-provided envelope and send off for grading. All volunteer examiner did was make sure prospective ham didn't cheat. 6) FCC would process the whole thing and send either a small envelope or a big one. Small envelope was preferred because it contained only the license. Big envelope contained paperwork to do the whole thing all over again. Getting anything through FCC took 6 to 8 weeks back then, so the whole process could easily take 12 to 16 weeks just in FCC processing. All that encouraged prospective hams to overlearn so they'd pass on the first go. And as you said, it gave time for more practice. NI0C: "As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired." As you say, the nonrenewable Novice with its limited one- or two-year term also had the effect of encouraging newcomers to hit the ground running. Most of the new hams I knew had a key, receiver and antenna set up and working long before they had the license, and used the processing delay to get a transmitter set up and ready to go so there would be no delay when the license arrived. In my case I used the time to build a transmitter from scratch. NI0C: "No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available." Since 1990. Also accomodations in the tests. But at least some folks I have encountered were too proud to take advantage of them. NI0C: "I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line!" That's not a fault of the exam process. It's a lack of common sense and failure to RTFM. Which is nothing new. There was a QST article some time back about dumb questions and mistakes that various rigmakers had encountered from customers. Like the ham who plugged a mike into the PHONES jack of his new receiver, hit the SEND-RECEIVE switch and called CQ. Or the ham who wired a Heathkit transmitter and used spaghetti where the manual called for it - except he used *real* spaghetti, not varnished insulating tubing. Or the ham whose set wasn't doing so well, so he lifted the lid and tightened all the loose screws.... The article appeared about 1956. One big difference between the old days and now is that, in the old days, a mistake like that would generally be known only by a few, rather than being on display at a popular website like eham. Another difference is that most equipment nowadays is relatively inexpensive compared to yesteryear, when you adjust for inflation. There also wasn't the expectation of plug-and-play. None of which is a result of changes in testing. NI0C: "In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms." We have probably worked each other many times, just not using our own calls. The local club rotates the call used each year so that all the regulars get a chance. NI0C: "There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction." Besides all of that, there are better crystal filters, better rig designs, etc. The Elecraft K2 is an example of a rig with a surprisingly low parts count, cost and overall hardware complexity that has "big-rig" performance. Particularly on CW... NI0C: "Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology." Nor with history. Spark disappeared from Amateur Radio in the early 1920s - not because it was legislated out of existence, but because the new continuous-wave tube transmitters performed the same job so much better. In 1921, Godley went to Ardrossan, Scotland and received more CW than spark signals on 200 meters - even though most of the spark signals were running higher power and were more numerous than CW rigs at the time. That demonstration, and the 1923 two-way transatlantic QSO on 110 meters changed a lot of minds. By the time spark was outlawed for hams in the late 1920s, it was merely a procedural thing; hams had simply stopped using it. Yet large numbers of amateurs today continue to use Morse Code/CW on the air, because nothing has come along that does the same job better. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-21 N2EY wrote: “But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes.” And, as we well know, some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject. “It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency".” Everyone who got on the CW bands after passing a 5 wpm test learned that there was nobody to talk to at this level. One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air. As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired. “What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all.” No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available. “Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in.”“ I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line! “our [Field Day] CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so.” In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms. “Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets.” There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction. Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C writes: "A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies." Of course, but FCC didn't see it that way. Unfortunately. Both in 1999 and after 2003, the majority of those who commented on the various proposals to reduce/eliminate Morse Code testing supported retaining at least some of it. But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes. Basic knowledge of all the other modes is tested in the written exam. Even modes which are used far less on the amateur bands than Morse Code. It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency". What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all. We had some growth from 2000 to 2003, but it didn't last. Since 2007 we've had growth again, and hopefully it will keep on. But in neither case were there lots of new people flooding in. Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in. NI0C: "Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement." The ultimate irony of the situation may be that we wind up with *more* Morse Code operators overall, both in absolute numbers and percentage of actual use. Some indicators: You mentioned 160 meters earlier. The ARRL 160 meter contest keeps on growing, despite the fact that effective antennas are rather large - and it's a CW-only contest! It will be interesting to see this year's results. On Field Day 2009 I was part of the team that ran the CW station at the local club effort. We were in 5A + VHF/UHF, with 3 fulltime phone stations, 1 phone/data station, 1 VHF/UHF station (all phone), and 1 CW station. Yet our CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so. Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets. Pretty good for a mode that gets almost no publicity and which requires some skill to use. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-20 "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| N2EY | 2009-12-22 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur License History... | ||
| NI0C writes: [CW] "was a quantum leap in communications bandwidth efficiency, perhaps unequaled in terms of percentage improvement since then." Yes, but the bandwidth improvement was only part of the story. A spark signal can actually be made relatively narrow (tens of kHz at HF) with proper techniques. What really made the difference was that spark, being a damped (modulated) wave, was not as efficient in operation as an undamped (unmodulated/continuous) wave. This was particularly true as frequency increased and better receivers (Godley used a superhet at Ardrossan) came into use. The very high peak-to-average ratio of a spark signal meant that insulators and other components had to withstand higher voltages and currents than with "continuous" waves. There were existing 19-teens technologies that could generate undamped waves, such as Alexanderson alternators and Poulsen arc converters. But they tended to be practical only up to a few hundred kHz at most, far below the frequencies amateurs could use after 1912. The end result of all this was that amateurs soon found that a 50 or 100 watt tube transmitter on 100 meters could do what had required a kilowatt rotary spark on 200 meters. And often the refugee-from-the-lamp-factory could do more, in both distance and in miles-per-dollar. That was the end of spark in amateur radio. Oddly enough, spark continued to be used by other, "professional" radio services for many years. Most common was its use in maritime radio, because many ship owners did not want to invest in new equipment every few years. (If you think technology changes fast these days, just look at a typical 1920 amateur station, and then one from 1930). In fact, the use of spark for back-up purposes in the maritime radio service was not outlawed until the 1960s. NI0C: "The K2 is indeed a remarkable radio. In terms of picking up weak signals, it's extremely close to its big brother, the K3." Not just in weak-signal reception, either. The K2 also excels in strong-signal environments (very high dynamic range) and in low phase noise on both receive and transmit. It also has very low power requirements for its level of performance. On receive, my K2 typically requires about 250 mills at a nominal 12 volts. A typical Yaecomwood HF rig will draw four to ten times that! 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-22 N2EY wrote: "The Elecraft K2 is an example of a rig with a surprisingly low parts count, cost and overall hardware complexity that has "big-rig" performance. Particularly on CW... " The K2 is indeed a remarkable radio. In terms of picking up weak signals, it's extremely close to its big brother, the K3. I have my K3 and K2 setup for dual receive now, using a splitter on the Rx antenna inputs, and an audio mixer on the outputs. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C: "some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject." I'd express that idea rather differently: Everyone can have and express opinions on anything and everything. Whether those opinions are based on experience, facts and sound reasoning is another matter. NI0C: "One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air." 6 weeks? It was a lot more in 1967! Process went like this: 1) Prospective ham learned code and theory well enough to have a go at the exam. 2) Prospective ham found volunteer examiner (no capitals) who would give the test, and set up time and place. 3) Volunteer examiner gave code tests (receiving and sending). If prospective ham passed them, volunteer examiner sent away form requesting written test. 4) When written exam came in the mail, volunteer examiner and prospective ham would set up time and place for written exam. 5) At written exam session, sealed test envelope would be opened, prospective ham would take test. When done, volunteer examiner would seal up all papers in FCC-provided envelope and send off for grading. All volunteer examiner did was make sure prospective ham didn't cheat. 6) FCC would process the whole thing and send either a small envelope or a big one. Small envelope was preferred because it contained only the license. Big envelope contained paperwork to do the whole thing all over again. Getting anything through FCC took 6 to 8 weeks back then, so the whole process could easily take 12 to 16 weeks just in FCC processing. All that encouraged prospective hams to overlearn so they'd pass on the first go. And as you said, it gave time for more practice. NI0C: "As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired." As you say, the nonrenewable Novice with its limited one- or two-year term also had the effect of encouraging newcomers to hit the ground running. Most of the new hams I knew had a key, receiver and antenna set up and working long before they had the license, and used the processing delay to get a transmitter set up and ready to go so there would be no delay when the license arrived. In my case I used the time to build a transmitter from scratch. NI0C: "No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available." Since 1990. Also accomodations in the tests. But at least some folks I have encountered were too proud to take advantage of them. NI0C: "I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line!" That's not a fault of the exam process. It's a lack of common sense and failure to RTFM. Which is nothing new. There was a QST article some time back about dumb questions and mistakes that various rigmakers had encountered from customers. Like the ham who plugged a mike into the PHONES jack of his new receiver, hit the SEND-RECEIVE switch and called CQ. Or the ham who wired a Heathkit transmitter and used spaghetti where the manual called for it - except he used *real* spaghetti, not varnished insulating tubing. Or the ham whose set wasn't doing so well, so he lifted the lid and tightened all the loose screws.... The article appeared about 1956. One big difference between the old days and now is that, in the old days, a mistake like that would generally be known only by a few, rather than being on display at a popular website like eham. Another difference is that most equipment nowadays is relatively inexpensive compared to yesteryear, when you adjust for inflation. There also wasn't the expectation of plug-and-play. None of which is a result of changes in testing. NI0C: "In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms." We have probably worked each other many times, just not using our own calls. The local club rotates the call used each year so that all the regulars get a chance. NI0C: "There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction." Besides all of that, there are better crystal filters, better rig designs, etc. The Elecraft K2 is an example of a rig with a surprisingly low parts count, cost and overall hardware complexity that has "big-rig" performance. Particularly on CW... NI0C: "Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology." Nor with history. Spark disappeared from Amateur Radio in the early 1920s - not because it was legislated out of existence, but because the new continuous-wave tube transmitters performed the same job so much better. In 1921, Godley went to Ardrossan, Scotland and received more CW than spark signals on 200 meters - even though most of the spark signals were running higher power and were more numerous than CW rigs at the time. That demonstration, and the 1923 two-way transatlantic QSO on 110 meters changed a lot of minds. By the time spark was outlawed for hams in the late 1920s, it was merely a procedural thing; hams had simply stopped using it. Yet large numbers of amateurs today continue to use Morse Code/CW on the air, because nothing has come along that does the same job better. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-21 N2EY wrote: “But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes.” And, as we well know, some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject. “It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency".” Everyone who got on the CW bands after passing a 5 wpm test learned that there was nobody to talk to at this level. One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air. As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired. “What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all.” No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available. “Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in.”“ I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line! “our [Field Day] CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so.” In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms. “Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets.” There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction. Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C writes: "A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies." Of course, but FCC didn't see it that way. Unfortunately. Both in 1999 and after 2003, the majority of those who commented on the various proposals to reduce/eliminate Morse Code testing supported retaining at least some of it. But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes. Basic knowledge of all the other modes is tested in the written exam. Even modes which are used far less on the amateur bands than Morse Code. It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency". What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all. We had some growth from 2000 to 2003, but it didn't last. Since 2007 we've had growth again, and hopefully it will keep on. But in neither case were there lots of new people flooding in. Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in. NI0C: "Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement." The ultimate irony of the situation may be that we wind up with *more* Morse Code operators overall, both in absolute numbers and percentage of actual use. Some indicators: You mentioned 160 meters earlier. The ARRL 160 meter contest keeps on growing, despite the fact that effective antennas are rather large - and it's a CW-only contest! It will be interesting to see this year's results. On Field Day 2009 I was part of the team that ran the CW station at the local club effort. We were in 5A + VHF/UHF, with 3 fulltime phone stations, 1 phone/data station, 1 VHF/UHF station (all phone), and 1 CW station. Yet our CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so. Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets. Pretty good for a mode that gets almost no publicity and which requires some skill to use. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-20 "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| NI0C | 2009-12-22 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur License History... | ||
| N2EY wrote: "The Elecraft K2 is an example of a rig with a surprisingly low parts count, cost and overall hardware complexity that has "big-rig" performance. Particularly on CW... " The K2 is indeed a remarkable radio. In terms of picking up weak signals, it's extremely close to its big brother, the K3. I have my K3 and K2 setup for dual receive now, using a splitter on the Rx antenna inputs, and an audio mixer on the outputs. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C: "some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject." I'd express that idea rather differently: Everyone can have and express opinions on anything and everything. Whether those opinions are based on experience, facts and sound reasoning is another matter. NI0C: "One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air." 6 weeks? It was a lot more in 1967! Process went like this: 1) Prospective ham learned code and theory well enough to have a go at the exam. 2) Prospective ham found volunteer examiner (no capitals) who would give the test, and set up time and place. 3) Volunteer examiner gave code tests (receiving and sending). If prospective ham passed them, volunteer examiner sent away form requesting written test. 4) When written exam came in the mail, volunteer examiner and prospective ham would set up time and place for written exam. 5) At written exam session, sealed test envelope would be opened, prospective ham would take test. When done, volunteer examiner would seal up all papers in FCC-provided envelope and send off for grading. All volunteer examiner did was make sure prospective ham didn't cheat. 6) FCC would process the whole thing and send either a small envelope or a big one. Small envelope was preferred because it contained only the license. Big envelope contained paperwork to do the whole thing all over again. Getting anything through FCC took 6 to 8 weeks back then, so the whole process could easily take 12 to 16 weeks just in FCC processing. All that encouraged prospective hams to overlearn so they'd pass on the first go. And as you said, it gave time for more practice. NI0C: "As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired." As you say, the nonrenewable Novice with its limited one- or two-year term also had the effect of encouraging newcomers to hit the ground running. Most of the new hams I knew had a key, receiver and antenna set up and working long before they had the license, and used the processing delay to get a transmitter set up and ready to go so there would be no delay when the license arrived. In my case I used the time to build a transmitter from scratch. NI0C: "No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available." Since 1990. Also accomodations in the tests. But at least some folks I have encountered were too proud to take advantage of them. NI0C: "I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line!" That's not a fault of the exam process. It's a lack of common sense and failure to RTFM. Which is nothing new. There was a QST article some time back about dumb questions and mistakes that various rigmakers had encountered from customers. Like the ham who plugged a mike into the PHONES jack of his new receiver, hit the SEND-RECEIVE switch and called CQ. Or the ham who wired a Heathkit transmitter and used spaghetti where the manual called for it - except he used *real* spaghetti, not varnished insulating tubing. Or the ham whose set wasn't doing so well, so he lifted the lid and tightened all the loose screws.... The article appeared about 1956. One big difference between the old days and now is that, in the old days, a mistake like that would generally be known only by a few, rather than being on display at a popular website like eham. Another difference is that most equipment nowadays is relatively inexpensive compared to yesteryear, when you adjust for inflation. There also wasn't the expectation of plug-and-play. None of which is a result of changes in testing. NI0C: "In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms." We have probably worked each other many times, just not using our own calls. The local club rotates the call used each year so that all the regulars get a chance. NI0C: "There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction." Besides all of that, there are better crystal filters, better rig designs, etc. The Elecraft K2 is an example of a rig with a surprisingly low parts count, cost and overall hardware complexity that has "big-rig" performance. Particularly on CW... NI0C: "Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology." Nor with history. Spark disappeared from Amateur Radio in the early 1920s - not because it was legislated out of existence, but because the new continuous-wave tube transmitters performed the same job so much better. In 1921, Godley went to Ardrossan, Scotland and received more CW than spark signals on 200 meters - even though most of the spark signals were running higher power and were more numerous than CW rigs at the time. That demonstration, and the 1923 two-way transatlantic QSO on 110 meters changed a lot of minds. By the time spark was outlawed for hams in the late 1920s, it was merely a procedural thing; hams had simply stopped using it. Yet large numbers of amateurs today continue to use Morse Code/CW on the air, because nothing has come along that does the same job better. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-21 N2EY wrote: “But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes.” And, as we well know, some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject. “It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency".” Everyone who got on the CW bands after passing a 5 wpm test learned that there was nobody to talk to at this level. One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air. As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired. “What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all.” No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available. “Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in.”“ I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line! “our [Field Day] CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so.” In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms. “Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets.” There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction. Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C writes: "A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies." Of course, but FCC didn't see it that way. Unfortunately. Both in 1999 and after 2003, the majority of those who commented on the various proposals to reduce/eliminate Morse Code testing supported retaining at least some of it. But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes. Basic knowledge of all the other modes is tested in the written exam. Even modes which are used far less on the amateur bands than Morse Code. It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency". What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all. We had some growth from 2000 to 2003, but it didn't last. Since 2007 we've had growth again, and hopefully it will keep on. But in neither case were there lots of new people flooding in. Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in. NI0C: "Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement." The ultimate irony of the situation may be that we wind up with *more* Morse Code operators overall, both in absolute numbers and percentage of actual use. Some indicators: You mentioned 160 meters earlier. The ARRL 160 meter contest keeps on growing, despite the fact that effective antennas are rather large - and it's a CW-only contest! It will be interesting to see this year's results. On Field Day 2009 I was part of the team that ran the CW station at the local club effort. We were in 5A + VHF/UHF, with 3 fulltime phone stations, 1 phone/data station, 1 VHF/UHF station (all phone), and 1 CW station. Yet our CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so. Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets. Pretty good for a mode that gets almost no publicity and which requires some skill to use. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-20 "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| NI0C | 2009-12-22 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur License History... | ||
| N2EY wrote: "NI0C: "Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology." Nor with history. Spark disappeared from Amateur Radio in the early 1920s - not because it was legislated out of existence, but because the new continuous-wave tube transmitters performed the same job so much better. " It was a quantum leap in communications bandwidth efficiency, perhaps unequaled in terms of percentage improvement since then. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C: "some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject." I'd express that idea rather differently: Everyone can have and express opinions on anything and everything. Whether those opinions are based on experience, facts and sound reasoning is another matter. NI0C: "One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air." 6 weeks? It was a lot more in 1967! Process went like this: 1) Prospective ham learned code and theory well enough to have a go at the exam. 2) Prospective ham found volunteer examiner (no capitals) who would give the test, and set up time and place. 3) Volunteer examiner gave code tests (receiving and sending). If prospective ham passed them, volunteer examiner sent away form requesting written test. 4) When written exam came in the mail, volunteer examiner and prospective ham would set up time and place for written exam. 5) At written exam session, sealed test envelope would be opened, prospective ham would take test. When done, volunteer examiner would seal up all papers in FCC-provided envelope and send off for grading. All volunteer examiner did was make sure prospective ham didn't cheat. 6) FCC would process the whole thing and send either a small envelope or a big one. Small envelope was preferred because it contained only the license. Big envelope contained paperwork to do the whole thing all over again. Getting anything through FCC took 6 to 8 weeks back then, so the whole process could easily take 12 to 16 weeks just in FCC processing. All that encouraged prospective hams to overlearn so they'd pass on the first go. And as you said, it gave time for more practice. NI0C: "As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired." As you say, the nonrenewable Novice with its limited one- or two-year term also had the effect of encouraging newcomers to hit the ground running. Most of the new hams I knew had a key, receiver and antenna set up and working long before they had the license, and used the processing delay to get a transmitter set up and ready to go so there would be no delay when the license arrived. In my case I used the time to build a transmitter from scratch. NI0C: "No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available." Since 1990. Also accomodations in the tests. But at least some folks I have encountered were too proud to take advantage of them. NI0C: "I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line!" That's not a fault of the exam process. It's a lack of common sense and failure to RTFM. Which is nothing new. There was a QST article some time back about dumb questions and mistakes that various rigmakers had encountered from customers. Like the ham who plugged a mike into the PHONES jack of his new receiver, hit the SEND-RECEIVE switch and called CQ. Or the ham who wired a Heathkit transmitter and used spaghetti where the manual called for it - except he used *real* spaghetti, not varnished insulating tubing. Or the ham whose set wasn't doing so well, so he lifted the lid and tightened all the loose screws.... The article appeared about 1956. One big difference between the old days and now is that, in the old days, a mistake like that would generally be known only by a few, rather than being on display at a popular website like eham. Another difference is that most equipment nowadays is relatively inexpensive compared to yesteryear, when you adjust for inflation. There also wasn't the expectation of plug-and-play. None of which is a result of changes in testing. NI0C: "In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms." We have probably worked each other many times, just not using our own calls. The local club rotates the call used each year so that all the regulars get a chance. NI0C: "There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction." Besides all of that, there are better crystal filters, better rig designs, etc. The Elecraft K2 is an example of a rig with a surprisingly low parts count, cost and overall hardware complexity that has "big-rig" performance. Particularly on CW... NI0C: "Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology." Nor with history. Spark disappeared from Amateur Radio in the early 1920s - not because it was legislated out of existence, but because the new continuous-wave tube transmitters performed the same job so much better. In 1921, Godley went to Ardrossan, Scotland and received more CW than spark signals on 200 meters - even though most of the spark signals were running higher power and were more numerous than CW rigs at the time. That demonstration, and the 1923 two-way transatlantic QSO on 110 meters changed a lot of minds. By the time spark was outlawed for hams in the late 1920s, it was merely a procedural thing; hams had simply stopped using it. Yet large numbers of amateurs today continue to use Morse Code/CW on the air, because nothing has come along that does the same job better. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-21 N2EY wrote: “But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes.” And, as we well know, some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject. “It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency".” Everyone who got on the CW bands after passing a 5 wpm test learned that there was nobody to talk to at this level. One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air. As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired. “What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all.” No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available. “Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in.”“ I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line! “our [Field Day] CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so.” In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms. “Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets.” There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction. Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C writes: "A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies." Of course, but FCC didn't see it that way. Unfortunately. Both in 1999 and after 2003, the majority of those who commented on the various proposals to reduce/eliminate Morse Code testing supported retaining at least some of it. But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes. Basic knowledge of all the other modes is tested in the written exam. Even modes which are used far less on the amateur bands than Morse Code. It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency". What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all. We had some growth from 2000 to 2003, but it didn't last. Since 2007 we've had growth again, and hopefully it will keep on. But in neither case were there lots of new people flooding in. Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in. NI0C: "Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement." The ultimate irony of the situation may be that we wind up with *more* Morse Code operators overall, both in absolute numbers and percentage of actual use. Some indicators: You mentioned 160 meters earlier. The ARRL 160 meter contest keeps on growing, despite the fact that effective antennas are rather large - and it's a CW-only contest! It will be interesting to see this year's results. On Field Day 2009 I was part of the team that ran the CW station at the local club effort. We were in 5A + VHF/UHF, with 3 fulltime phone stations, 1 phone/data station, 1 VHF/UHF station (all phone), and 1 CW station. Yet our CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so. Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets. Pretty good for a mode that gets almost no publicity and which requires some skill to use. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-20 "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| NI0C | 2009-12-22 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: More Back to the Future (easy as pi) | ||
| AF6AY: Congratulations on achieving your Amateur Extra Class license after petitioning the FCC to reduce the requirements. You might be interested in: http://eham.net/reviews/detail/6136 Maybe the ARRL will endorse your certificate for your special efforts. Perhaps they will even print a billboard sized certificate for you. Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-21 NI0C wrote on December 21, 2009: [N2EY]: “But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes.” NI0C: "And, as we well know, some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject. Ahem, not to break up the hate-the-nocoders-cuz-we-morsemen-are-the-GREATEST imitation of Muhammed Ali (formerly known as Cassius Clay) but the FCC allows any citizen to comment on any docket up for public comment. NPRM 05-235 was about GETTING INTO USA amateur radio, not an "upgrading" or anything else. GETTING INTO, as in the regulations required by an applicant to pass an amateur radio license exam. There are NO "qualifications" necessary to post Comments or Replies to Comments. <shrug> By that curious illogic of alleged "qualifications" stated above, one cannot comment about GETTING INTO a radio service if one is ALREADY IN that radio service. :-) On NPRM 05-235 there were 3,786 documents filed between 15 July 2005 and 14 November 2005 (official ending day). On 25 November 2005 I submitted an EXHIBT which was a week-by-week tally of ALL documents posted on that docket. Anyone can access that through the FCC Electronic Comment System under docket 05-235. That was just an informational exhibit, not "official" and quite probably not "qualified" under the coders' curious we-are-the-only-qualified-people "rule." Having saved each and every publicly-available document under docket 05-235, the exhibit results are as "qualified" as is possible to anyone literate. In that, it shows that the intial months of commentary, the CITIZENS of the USA were FOR the NPRM; i.e., for removal of the code test. There was a great deal of later DENIAL by long-ago-code-tested amateur licensees which skewed the totals towards being "against" the NPRM. Note that I said "citizens" above. That is the ONLY qualifier necessary for the USA federal government. Anyone is free to peruse the Communications Act of 1934 or the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (some amendments to regulations) to see what "qualifications" are necessary. Anyone NOT a citizen can also post on that docket but one can expect the FCC staffers to be literate and aware of the federal laws governing their actions. As a matter of fact, there were three individuals who made multiple postings of opinions against the NPRM, all of them supposedly "qualified" having amateur radio licenses. The logic of "qualifications" ONLY by having an existing, active-license term is itself FAULTY given the lawful charters of the FCC. Anyone NOT engaged in Mass Media (broadcasting) radio services may comment on matters concerning such broadcasting. Anyone NOT engaged in Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) without being IN either broadband data communications or electric power distribution activities. Anyone NOT owning/using/licensed-in the Private Land Mobile Radio Service (PLMRS) can comment on any matter in a docket affecting only PLMRS regulations. Each of those would apply for any radio service or Part of regulations of Title 47 Code of Federal Regulations. FCC 06-178, the Memorandum Report and Order eliminating USA amateur radio service license testing for International Morse Code cognition, was made on 19 December 2006 under the authority of William T. Cross, then head of the FCC Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. It can be read on the ECFS under docket 05-235. As of this date, 21 Dec 09, it is three years and 2 days since that R&O was released. All of the FCC decision reasons are clearly given in that R&O document. It is LAW. Those who wish to REVERSE such a test elimination are free to submit a Petition to re-install it in the USA amateur radio service regulations. Two such Petitions were submitted after 06-178 became law. The FCC replied to both with decisions and reasons made public for their denial. ............... [N2EY?]: “What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all.” [NI0C}: No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available. Curious sentence structure. There were no "medical waivers" for written tests...or were there? :-) "Lots and lots of new hams" is a subjective description, unquantifiable. The no-code-test Techncian class had been growing continuously between 1991 and 2000, continuaing to grow afterwards until that one class now accounts for 48% of all licensees, a rate that is not affected by the allegations that "Tech plusses are renewing as Techs," a favorite reiterated "reason" of N2EY. N2EY's reiteration is NOT backed up by a shred of evidence proving his allegation. <shrug> .............. [N2EY?] “Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in.”“ Now, that's a new excuse/rationalization. :-) I'm not sure where THAT was some kind of "reason" for removing the code test, but I'm sure N2EY will kluge together some kind of "justifying" statement. Somewhat similar to his early-1970s "design" for a low-HF transceiver using vacuum tubes. Very advanced. [see listing of his "silver" photos sure to follow...:-)} ............... NI0C: "Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology." My apologies, I wasn't born until 1932. "Spark" was prohibited in the USA by 1927. Outside of some EMP testing, the only "spark" in my lifetime was with automobile sparkplugs, including early model gas engines (up to about 1948 or 1949, then replaced with "glow plugs"). However, the TECHNOLOGY of COMMUNICATIONS - as used by other radio services - were already sending continuous teleprinter signals of eight such circuits plus two voice channels all on one SSB radio in the 1930s on HF over long-haul communications paths. Those were a "radio extension" of existing landline wired carrier systems that came into use in the late 1920s. Of course that was for commercial and military "carrier" services and would not be found in amateur radio. The FCC forbids communications carrier service in the USA amateur bands. On the other hand, the FCC does permit SOME Spread Spectrum operation above 30 MHz in USA amateur radio bands. They will also permit Forward-Error-Correction for Data IF and only IF the format has been published elsewhere and is considered "public knowledge." Then there is PSK-31, a slow-speed data system that takes no more bandwidth than an OOK CW signal. Of course PSK-31 was innovated in the UK and air-tested in Europe before the ARRL bothered to publish anything about it. NIH factor? Well, there are "radio modems" in use by radio amateurs today but the FCC does not yet permit high-rate modems (such as found in commercial radio services) for USA radio amateurs. The pre-(about)-1960 teleprinter rates used to be 60 WPM equivalent but were raised to 100 WPM before the Teletype Corporation electro-mechanical terminals were replaced by electronics versions with much higher throughput. Personal computers aren't necessary for all-electronic terminals (the first ones were done with digital circuitry as stand-alones) but the tremendous hard-disk mass storage capabilities of PCs of even a decade ago save having reels and reels of tape, paper or magnetic. All that mass storage in PCs also allows very quick retrieval of text data for easy viewing off-line or on-line. But, I digress. The mighty morsemen of the amateur persuasion insist and insist on "Back to the Future" (easy as pi) modes as a "necessary qualifier" to say anything at all. :-) Only They "know what is good for all amateurs." <shrug> AF6AY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-21 N2EY wrote: “But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes.” And, as we well know, some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject. “It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency".” Everyone who got on the CW bands after passing a 5 wpm test learned that there was nobody to talk to at this level. One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air. As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired. “What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all.” No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available. “Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in.”“ I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line! “our [Field Day] CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so.” In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms. “Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets.” There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction. Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C writes: "A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies." Of course, but FCC didn't see it that way. Unfortunately. Both in 1999 and after 2003, the majority of those who commented on the various proposals to reduce/eliminate Morse Code testing supported retaining at least some of it. But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes. Basic knowledge of all the other modes is tested in the written exam. Even modes which are used far less on the amateur bands than Morse Code. It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency". What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all. We had some growth from 2000 to 2003, but it didn't last. Since 2007 we've had growth again, and hopefully it will keep on. But in neither case were there lots of new people flooding in. Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in. NI0C: "Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement." The ultimate irony of the situation may be that we wind up with *more* Morse Code operators overall, both in absolute numbers and percentage of actual use. Some indicators: You mentioned 160 meters earlier. The ARRL 160 meter contest keeps on growing, despite the fact that effective antennas are rather large - and it's a CW-only contest! It will be interesting to see this year's results. On Field Day 2009 I was part of the team that ran the CW station at the local club effort. We were in 5A + VHF/UHF, with 3 fulltime phone stations, 1 phone/data station, 1 VHF/UHF station (all phone), and 1 CW station. Yet our CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so. Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets. Pretty good for a mode that gets almost no publicity and which requires some skill to use. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-20 "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| K6LHA | 2009-12-21 | |
|---|---|---|
| More Back to the Future (easy as pi) | ||
| NI0C wrote on December 21, 2009: [N2EY]: “But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes.” NI0C: "And, as we well know, some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject. Ahem, not to break up the hate-the-nocoders-cuz-we-morsemen-are-the-GREATEST imitation of Muhammed Ali (formerly known as Cassius Clay) but the FCC allows any citizen to comment on any docket up for public comment. NPRM 05-235 was about GETTING INTO USA amateur radio, not an "upgrading" or anything else. GETTING INTO, as in the regulations required by an applicant to pass an amateur radio license exam. There are NO "qualifications" necessary to post Comments or Replies to Comments. <shrug> By that curious illogic of alleged "qualifications" stated above, one cannot comment about GETTING INTO a radio service if one is ALREADY IN that radio service. :-) On NPRM 05-235 there were 3,786 documents filed between 15 July 2005 and 14 November 2005 (official ending day). On 25 November 2005 I submitted an EXHIBT which was a week-by-week tally of ALL documents posted on that docket. Anyone can access that through the FCC Electronic Comment System under docket 05-235. That was just an informational exhibit, not "official" and quite probably not "qualified" under the coders' curious we-are-the-only-qualified-people "rule." Having saved each and every publicly-available document under docket 05-235, the exhibit results are as "qualified" as is possible to anyone literate. In that, it shows that the intial months of commentary, the CITIZENS of the USA were FOR the NPRM; i.e., for removal of the code test. There was a great deal of later DENIAL by long-ago-code-tested amateur licensees which skewed the totals towards being "against" the NPRM. Note that I said "citizens" above. That is the ONLY qualifier necessary for the USA federal government. Anyone is free to peruse the Communications Act of 1934 or the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (some amendments to regulations) to see what "qualifications" are necessary. Anyone NOT a citizen can also post on that docket but one can expect the FCC staffers to be literate and aware of the federal laws governing their actions. As a matter of fact, there were three individuals who made multiple postings of opinions against the NPRM, all of them supposedly "qualified" having amateur radio licenses. The logic of "qualifications" ONLY by having an existing, active-license term is itself FAULTY given the lawful charters of the FCC. Anyone NOT engaged in Mass Media (broadcasting) radio services may comment on matters concerning such broadcasting. Anyone NOT engaged in Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) without being IN either broadband data communications or electric power distribution activities. Anyone NOT owning/using/licensed-in the Private Land Mobile Radio Service (PLMRS) can comment on any matter in a docket affecting only PLMRS regulations. Each of those would apply for any radio service or Part of regulations of Title 47 Code of Federal Regulations. FCC 06-178, the Memorandum Report and Order eliminating USA amateur radio service license testing for International Morse Code cognition, was made on 19 December 2006 under the authority of William T. Cross, then head of the FCC Wireless Telecommunications Bureau. It can be read on the ECFS under docket 05-235. As of this date, 21 Dec 09, it is three years and 2 days since that R&O was released. All of the FCC decision reasons are clearly given in that R&O document. It is LAW. Those who wish to REVERSE such a test elimination are free to submit a Petition to re-install it in the USA amateur radio service regulations. Two such Petitions were submitted after 06-178 became law. The FCC replied to both with decisions and reasons made public for their denial. ............... [N2EY?]: “What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all.” [NI0C}: No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available. Curious sentence structure. There were no "medical waivers" for written tests...or were there? :-) "Lots and lots of new hams" is a subjective description, unquantifiable. The no-code-test Techncian class had been growing continuously between 1991 and 2000, continuaing to grow afterwards until that one class now accounts for 48% of all licensees, a rate that is not affected by the allegations that "Tech plusses are renewing as Techs," a favorite reiterated "reason" of N2EY. N2EY's reiteration is NOT backed up by a shred of evidence proving his allegation. <shrug> .............. [N2EY?] “Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in.”“ Now, that's a new excuse/rationalization. :-) I'm not sure where THAT was some kind of "reason" for removing the code test, but I'm sure N2EY will kluge together some kind of "justifying" statement. Somewhat similar to his early-1970s "design" for a low-HF transceiver using vacuum tubes. Very advanced. [see listing of his "silver" photos sure to follow...:-)} ............... NI0C: "Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology." My apologies, I wasn't born until 1932. "Spark" was prohibited in the USA by 1927. Outside of some EMP testing, the only "spark" in my lifetime was with automobile sparkplugs, including early model gas engines (up to about 1948 or 1949, then replaced with "glow plugs"). However, the TECHNOLOGY of COMMUNICATIONS - as used by other radio services - were already sending continuous teleprinter signals of eight such circuits plus two voice channels all on one SSB radio in the 1930s on HF over long-haul communications paths. Those were a "radio extension" of existing landline wired carrier systems that came into use in the late 1920s. Of course that was for commercial and military "carrier" services and would not be found in amateur radio. The FCC forbids communications carrier service in the USA amateur bands. On the other hand, the FCC does permit SOME Spread Spectrum operation above 30 MHz in USA amateur radio bands. They will also permit Forward-Error-Correction for Data IF and only IF the format has been published elsewhere and is considered "public knowledge." Then there is PSK-31, a slow-speed data system that takes no more bandwidth than an OOK CW signal. Of course PSK-31 was innovated in the UK and air-tested in Europe before the ARRL bothered to publish anything about it. NIH factor? Well, there are "radio modems" in use by radio amateurs today but the FCC does not yet permit high-rate modems (such as found in commercial radio services) for USA radio amateurs. The pre-(about)-1960 teleprinter rates used to be 60 WPM equivalent but were raised to 100 WPM before the Teletype Corporation electro-mechanical terminals were replaced by electronics versions with much higher throughput. Personal computers aren't necessary for all-electronic terminals (the first ones were done with digital circuitry as stand-alones) but the tremendous hard-disk mass storage capabilities of PCs of even a decade ago save having reels and reels of tape, paper or magnetic. All that mass storage in PCs also allows very quick retrieval of text data for easy viewing off-line or on-line. But, I digress. The mighty morsemen of the amateur persuasion insist and insist on "Back to the Future" (easy as pi) modes as a "necessary qualifier" to say anything at all. :-) Only They "know what is good for all amateurs." <shrug> AF6AY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-21 N2EY wrote: “But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes.” And, as we well know, some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject. “It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency".” Everyone who got on the CW bands after passing a 5 wpm test learned that there was nobody to talk to at this level. One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air. As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired. “What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all.” No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available. “Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in.”“ I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line! “our [Field Day] CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so.” In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms. “Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets.” There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction. Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C writes: "A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies." Of course, but FCC didn't see it that way. Unfortunately. Both in 1999 and after 2003, the majority of those who commented on the various proposals to reduce/eliminate Morse Code testing supported retaining at least some of it. But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes. Basic knowledge of all the other modes is tested in the written exam. Even modes which are used far less on the amateur bands than Morse Code. It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency". What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all. We had some growth from 2000 to 2003, but it didn't last. Since 2007 we've had growth again, and hopefully it will keep on. But in neither case were there lots of new people flooding in. Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in. NI0C: "Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement." The ultimate irony of the situation may be that we wind up with *more* Morse Code operators overall, both in absolute numbers and percentage of actual use. Some indicators: You mentioned 160 meters earlier. The ARRL 160 meter contest keeps on growing, despite the fact that effective antennas are rather large - and it's a CW-only contest! It will be interesting to see this year's results. On Field Day 2009 I was part of the team that ran the CW station at the local club effort. We were in 5A + VHF/UHF, with 3 fulltime phone stations, 1 phone/data station, 1 VHF/UHF station (all phone), and 1 CW station. Yet our CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so. Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets. Pretty good for a mode that gets almost no publicity and which requires some skill to use. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-20 "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| N2EY | 2009-12-21 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur License History... | ||
| NI0C: "some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject." I'd express that idea rather differently: Everyone can have and express opinions on anything and everything. Whether those opinions are based on experience, facts and sound reasoning is another matter. NI0C: "One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air." 6 weeks? It was a lot more in 1967! Process went like this: 1) Prospective ham learned code and theory well enough to have a go at the exam. 2) Prospective ham found volunteer examiner (no capitals) who would give the test, and set up time and place. 3) Volunteer examiner gave code tests (receiving and sending). If prospective ham passed them, volunteer examiner sent away form requesting written test. 4) When written exam came in the mail, volunteer examiner and prospective ham would set up time and place for written exam. 5) At written exam session, sealed test envelope would be opened, prospective ham would take test. When done, volunteer examiner would seal up all papers in FCC-provided envelope and send off for grading. All volunteer examiner did was make sure prospective ham didn't cheat. 6) FCC would process the whole thing and send either a small envelope or a big one. Small envelope was preferred because it contained only the license. Big envelope contained paperwork to do the whole thing all over again. Getting anything through FCC took 6 to 8 weeks back then, so the whole process could easily take 12 to 16 weeks just in FCC processing. All that encouraged prospective hams to overlearn so they'd pass on the first go. And as you said, it gave time for more practice. NI0C: "As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired." As you say, the nonrenewable Novice with its limited one- or two-year term also had the effect of encouraging newcomers to hit the ground running. Most of the new hams I knew had a key, receiver and antenna set up and working long before they had the license, and used the processing delay to get a transmitter set up and ready to go so there would be no delay when the license arrived. In my case I used the time to build a transmitter from scratch. NI0C: "No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available." Since 1990. Also accomodations in the tests. But at least some folks I have encountered were too proud to take advantage of them. NI0C: "I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line!" That's not a fault of the exam process. It's a lack of common sense and failure to RTFM. Which is nothing new. There was a QST article some time back about dumb questions and mistakes that various rigmakers had encountered from customers. Like the ham who plugged a mike into the PHONES jack of his new receiver, hit the SEND-RECEIVE switch and called CQ. Or the ham who wired a Heathkit transmitter and used spaghetti where the manual called for it - except he used *real* spaghetti, not varnished insulating tubing. Or the ham whose set wasn't doing so well, so he lifted the lid and tightened all the loose screws.... The article appeared about 1956. One big difference between the old days and now is that, in the old days, a mistake like that would generally be known only by a few, rather than being on display at a popular website like eham. Another difference is that most equipment nowadays is relatively inexpensive compared to yesteryear, when you adjust for inflation. There also wasn't the expectation of plug-and-play. None of which is a result of changes in testing. NI0C: "In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms." We have probably worked each other many times, just not using our own calls. The local club rotates the call used each year so that all the regulars get a chance. NI0C: "There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction." Besides all of that, there are better crystal filters, better rig designs, etc. The Elecraft K2 is an example of a rig with a surprisingly low parts count, cost and overall hardware complexity that has "big-rig" performance. Particularly on CW... NI0C: "Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology." Nor with history. Spark disappeared from Amateur Radio in the early 1920s - not because it was legislated out of existence, but because the new continuous-wave tube transmitters performed the same job so much better. In 1921, Godley went to Ardrossan, Scotland and received more CW than spark signals on 200 meters - even though most of the spark signals were running higher power and were more numerous than CW rigs at the time. That demonstration, and the 1923 two-way transatlantic QSO on 110 meters changed a lot of minds. By the time spark was outlawed for hams in the late 1920s, it was merely a procedural thing; hams had simply stopped using it. Yet large numbers of amateurs today continue to use Morse Code/CW on the air, because nothing has come along that does the same job better. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-21 N2EY wrote: “But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes.” And, as we well know, some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject. “It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency".” Everyone who got on the CW bands after passing a 5 wpm test learned that there was nobody to talk to at this level. One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air. As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired. “What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all.” No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available. “Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in.”“ I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line! “our [Field Day] CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so.” In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms. “Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets.” There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction. Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C writes: "A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies." Of course, but FCC didn't see it that way. Unfortunately. Both in 1999 and after 2003, the majority of those who commented on the various proposals to reduce/eliminate Morse Code testing supported retaining at least some of it. But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes. Basic knowledge of all the other modes is tested in the written exam. Even modes which are used far less on the amateur bands than Morse Code. It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency". What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all. We had some growth from 2000 to 2003, but it didn't last. Since 2007 we've had growth again, and hopefully it will keep on. But in neither case were there lots of new people flooding in. Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in. NI0C: "Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement." The ultimate irony of the situation may be that we wind up with *more* Morse Code operators overall, both in absolute numbers and percentage of actual use. Some indicators: You mentioned 160 meters earlier. The ARRL 160 meter contest keeps on growing, despite the fact that effective antennas are rather large - and it's a CW-only contest! It will be interesting to see this year's results. On Field Day 2009 I was part of the team that ran the CW station at the local club effort. We were in 5A + VHF/UHF, with 3 fulltime phone stations, 1 phone/data station, 1 VHF/UHF station (all phone), and 1 CW station. Yet our CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so. Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets. Pretty good for a mode that gets almost no publicity and which requires some skill to use. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-20 "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| KB6QXM | 2009-12-21 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur License History... | ||
| Chuck, My point exactly. The ham radio license tests are so basic these days that you have hams that make all of the technically savvy hams look bad. How can you have an Extra class ham that: 1) Does not know how to put a connector on the end of a piece of coax 2) As you mentioned does not have the insight to check the fuses before saying that the amp is dead. 3)Does not know how to find resonance for a simple dipole. 4) Cannot explain the difference between resistance and reactance. These are scary, but true stories of our new "instant gradification" hams. The mindset of give me a license and I will figure it out later and we call this progress? In the days of the highly technical testing that was required to get a license, when you told someone you were a ham radio operator, they respected you for your knowledge. Not now! 73 Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-21 N2EY wrote: “But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes.” And, as we well know, some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject. “It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency".” Everyone who got on the CW bands after passing a 5 wpm test learned that there was nobody to talk to at this level. One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air. As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired. “What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all.” No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available. “Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in.”“ I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line! “our [Field Day] CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so.” In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms. “Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets.” There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction. Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C writes: "A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies." Of course, but FCC didn't see it that way. Unfortunately. Both in 1999 and after 2003, the majority of those who commented on the various proposals to reduce/eliminate Morse Code testing supported retaining at least some of it. But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes. Basic knowledge of all the other modes is tested in the written exam. Even modes which are used far less on the amateur bands than Morse Code. It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency". What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all. We had some growth from 2000 to 2003, but it didn't last. Since 2007 we've had growth again, and hopefully it will keep on. But in neither case were there lots of new people flooding in. Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in. NI0C: "Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement." The ultimate irony of the situation may be that we wind up with *more* Morse Code operators overall, both in absolute numbers and percentage of actual use. Some indicators: You mentioned 160 meters earlier. The ARRL 160 meter contest keeps on growing, despite the fact that effective antennas are rather large - and it's a CW-only contest! It will be interesting to see this year's results. On Field Day 2009 I was part of the team that ran the CW station at the local club effort. We were in 5A + VHF/UHF, with 3 fulltime phone stations, 1 phone/data station, 1 VHF/UHF station (all phone), and 1 CW station. Yet our CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so. Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets. Pretty good for a mode that gets almost no publicity and which requires some skill to use. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-20 "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| NI0C | 2009-12-21 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur License History... | ||
| N2EY wrote: “But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes.” And, as we well know, some of those who expressed the minority opinion were not even qualified to hold an opinion on the subject. “It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency".” Everyone who got on the CW bands after passing a 5 wpm test learned that there was nobody to talk to at this level. One of the good things about the old 6 week wait (between passing an FCC exam and receiving one’s Novice license in the mail) was that it gave us some more time to practice and improve our skills before actually getting on the air. As I recall, the median speed on the Novice bands was probably about ten wpm. We knew we had to hit the ground running if we were to qualify for a renewable license before our non-renewable Novice tickets expired. “What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all.” No they weren’t, especially since medical waivers were available. “Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in.”“ I recall one newly minted Extra Class licensee who purchased a new HF amplifier, and gave it a bad review here on eHam, saying it was DOA out of the box. Turns out he didn’t install the fuses in the primary power line! “our [Field Day] CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so.” In recent years my son and I have operated Field Day with the K9YA club. It’s 1A, CW only. We always make over 1K qso’s, even when our operating time is limited by thunderstorms. “Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets.” There has also been continuous improvement in electronic keyers– most notably the chips designed by K1EL. Reception of CW has been remarkably improved by DSP filtering, AGC action, and noise reduction. Those who dismiss CW with comparisons to spark transmission simply haven't kept up with technology. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-21 NI0C writes: "A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies." Of course, but FCC didn't see it that way. Unfortunately. Both in 1999 and after 2003, the majority of those who commented on the various proposals to reduce/eliminate Morse Code testing supported retaining at least some of it. But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes. Basic knowledge of all the other modes is tested in the written exam. Even modes which are used far less on the amateur bands than Morse Code. It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency". What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all. We had some growth from 2000 to 2003, but it didn't last. Since 2007 we've had growth again, and hopefully it will keep on. But in neither case were there lots of new people flooding in. Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in. NI0C: "Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement." The ultimate irony of the situation may be that we wind up with *more* Morse Code operators overall, both in absolute numbers and percentage of actual use. Some indicators: You mentioned 160 meters earlier. The ARRL 160 meter contest keeps on growing, despite the fact that effective antennas are rather large - and it's a CW-only contest! It will be interesting to see this year's results. On Field Day 2009 I was part of the team that ran the CW station at the local club effort. We were in 5A + VHF/UHF, with 3 fulltime phone stations, 1 phone/data station, 1 VHF/UHF station (all phone), and 1 CW station. Yet our CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so. Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets. Pretty good for a mode that gets almost no publicity and which requires some skill to use. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-20 "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| N2EY | 2009-12-21 | |
|---|---|---|
| US Amateur License History... | ||
| NI0C writes: "A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies." Of course, but FCC didn't see it that way. Unfortunately. Both in 1999 and after 2003, the majority of those who commented on the various proposals to reduce/eliminate Morse Code testing supported retaining at least some of it. But the FCC ignored the majority and went with the no-code-test-at-all minority opinion. FCC actions are not democratic and comments are not votes. Basic knowledge of all the other modes is tested in the written exam. Even modes which are used far less on the amateur bands than Morse Code. It should also be remembered that the 5 wpm code test is just the most basic level, not really "proficiency". What's really interesting is that the drastic reductions in written exams and the reduction/elimination of Morse Code testing haven't resulted in lots and lots of new hams. So the old tests weren't really a "barrier" at all. We had some growth from 2000 to 2003, but it didn't last. Since 2007 we've had growth again, and hopefully it will keep on. But in neither case were there lots of new people flooding in. Nor did we see a techno-revolution from the newcomers who *did* come in. NI0C: "Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement." The ultimate irony of the situation may be that we wind up with *more* Morse Code operators overall, both in absolute numbers and percentage of actual use. Some indicators: You mentioned 160 meters earlier. The ARRL 160 meter contest keeps on growing, despite the fact that effective antennas are rather large - and it's a CW-only contest! It will be interesting to see this year's results. On Field Day 2009 I was part of the team that ran the CW station at the local club effort. We were in 5A + VHF/UHF, with 3 fulltime phone stations, 1 phone/data station, 1 VHF/UHF station (all phone), and 1 CW station. Yet our CW setup made more QSO points than all the rest of the effort combined, and came very close to making more QSOs. (Wait till NEXT year!) That wasn't unusual, either, it's happened many times in the past decade or so. Vibroplex was just bought by a ham who used to work for Ten Tec. There are more companies making keys and paddles today than I can keep track of. CW-only rigs are getting more and more common - and they're not all simple QRP sets. Pretty good for a mode that gets almost no publicity and which requires some skill to use. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-20 "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| NI0C | 2009-12-20 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Back to the Future Part 314159.... | ||
| To AF6AY: Congratulations on achieving your Amateur Extra Class license. Best wishes for the new year. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-20 NI0C wrote on December 20, 2009: [AF6AY] "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." Ni0C: "You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement." Well, put it this way: I was "wrong" IF and only IF I had attributed that particular statement to you or your immediate amateur friends. As it was, I made a general statement based on a LOT of observation of other amateurs' statements in-person, in-print, in-uendo. <shrug> Well, then, to "navigate the [radio] waves" I would have to know everything about DATA, too. [actually I know something of Data since I was doing that 56 years ago...:-)]. Since when did the FCC last REQUIRE OOK CW skill, MANDATORY on any band except the low end of 6 and 2 meters? Hmmm? .............. NI0C: "We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes." I thought I had already MADE that point. The biggest "damage" made by the FCC was an expansion of voice privileges in the 80-75m region. [horrors! :-)] OOK CW could still be used just as it is permitted everywhere on every ham band on up to 300 GHz. The "awful, fateful, end-of-the-world (aa many know it)" decision to drop all code testing requirements was in regards to getting IN amateur radio. Getting IN, not for immediately dropping in to be a "qualified" operator as is some commercial practice. Now you go right ahead and ENJOY your morse mode all you want. You can. .............. NI0C: "Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement." I will classify that statement as entirely subjective. Perhaps yours is just wishful thinking. Reading the Replies to NPRM 05-143 (which I did entire, all saved on a CD), that feeling is NOT mutual. .............. NI0C: "We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths." Oh, wow. Yeah. Thanks for the ORDERS, but I will THINK FOR MYSELF and reach my OWN conclusions. .............. NI0C: "Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again." Over and over again, you and others have "used bandwidth" to build up your own strawmen and tear down those who would talk against them. Once in a while I would come along with an obsolete Zippo and set fire to them. <shrug> Makes a nice night-time scene with all those olde-tyme shibboleth strawmen burning merrily. .............. NI0C: "You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio." I have a "lot" of knowledge AND opinions about LOTS of things. I was not aware that such is a CRIME. In my 77 years on this planet I've seen a lot of groupings, gatherings, forums, etc., etc. where SOME, insistent on being "leaders/managers" try to instill THEIR personal wishes/desires on others for no reason than to BE the "leaders/managers" because THEY wanted to it (i.e., ego-driven). I am an independent thinker and try to be objective about many things. That is resented by many longing for a group to belong to, to get guidance in what to do and what to "enjoy." That is unfortunate to those many. I do not feel obligated in any way to provide emotional sustenance to Them or those who wish to subjugate my personal desires into adherence to their personal beliefs/desires. ............. NI0C: "I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc." So, I am now to Submit to Interrogation by some inspector Clue-no? :-) Those similar questions have been asked of me before...usually by those who are building up some dossier to use themselves into later messaging pejoratives designed to damange my person. I am wise to how those things work, yet I am unharmed physically or emotionally by such. <shrug> You might as well interrogate me about my choice of wife, the foods I prefer, the entiertainment I like, why I chose to live where I do, and everything else under the sun. That is IRRELEVANT to the subject and you know it. But, Inspector Clue-no, I HAVE explained all that BEFORE and I'm not going into such IRRELEVANCY here AGAIN. OH, and I HAVE made QSOs on ham bands. I've also made radio contacts on seven OTHER radio services, six of which do NOT accept an amateur radio license as a "qualification" for operation. <shrug> WHY do you NEED such "qualifications" and who in the #$%^!!! made you the "qualifier?" ................. NI0C: "I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license?" BECAUSE I COULD. Look at your own wording and alleged inquisitiveness, nee snarly interrogation. If you are going to get all huffy and claim "insult" from my answer, look at your own attitude. ................. NI0C: "Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across." Now you are putting non-relevant "REASONS" into my behavior, personal desires, not just putting "words in my mouth." NUNYABIZNESS on the WHY. I can describe the WHY from my point of view but there will be many who WILL put "words in my mouth" in denigrating all that I say. That is EXPECTED and I KNOW the type of yahoos that are bound to do it...because they have already done that. What is more relevant is TAKING THE TEST(S). Not wanting to sound like a Motivational Speaker, I'll just describe a successful method to take AND pass a test, ANY test. It isn't MY method, rather it has been stated and done by others before me. I used it for my 1956 Commercial license test and again for my 2007 Amateur Extra class test and a LOT of assorted tests on other things in between: =================================== 1. PREPARE. Get to know the subject, get to know the test method, get to know the reaquirements, get to know the test site environment. You CAN do it. 2. PURPOSE. Be single-minded about the test, let it be the focus of your efforts. You ARE going to pass it. 3. CONCENTRATE. No one else is going to help you, it is all your own doing. You WILL pass it. 4. CONFIDENCE. Have it in yourself. Ignore the doomsayers and pompous jocks and insulters. You set out to do it and you WILL SUCCEED. 5. DO IT. Carefully. Take your time. Watch out for distractors in multiple-choice answers. Ignore the test site environment and distractions from other test takers. Do NOT even imagine failure. ==================================== Radio regulations allow re-taking a test later if it is scored incomplete. Retesting time may vary as regulations are changed. It is NOT the same as a one-shot academic class test (some academic rules require taking a whole course over if a 'final' test is failed). Amateur radio is a hobby, NOT a union, NOT a Guild, NOT a tradecraft. Your JOB does NOT depend on the outcome of this test, certainly not the rest of your life. ................. NI0C: "BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license." Yes, I know there was. That is IRRELEVANT. I care not what USA amateur radio regulations WERE in 1912 or 1932 or 1952 or 1972 or 1992 or 2002. USA radio regulations have CHANGED much over the years. Note I say "radio regulations" without specific definitions as to which radio service. If you are aware and informed about MORE radio than just amateur radio service, you will have to agree with that because CHANGE has happened to ALL of them during the last 75 years of FCC existance. Once the test is passed, that is IT. USA radio regulations do NOT, have NOT required re-testing for years and years provided regular paperwork renewals are done promptly. The ONLY worry would be about running into those bragging yahoos who want to run "newbies" down because THEIR tests "were so much harder." Pfaugh. Just a lot of BS by them. Now, after watching NASA-TV on cable for the live lift-off of Expedition 22 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome to the ISS, I am going to continue to "enjoy my amateur radio license" AT *MY* PREFERENCES, not some "rules" of behavior, lifestyle, or whatever dictated by a minority group at a suburb of Hartford or anywhere else thinks I should be doing. Go ahead and round up YOUR troops for some close-order drill...in the oh, so PROPER way to "enjoy ham radio." Thanks but no thanks, I can figure out what *I* want to do all by myself. Really. AF6AY Oh, and Happy Holidays...:-) Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-20 "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| K6LHA | 2009-12-20 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Back to the Future Part 314159.... | ||
| NI0C wrote on December 20, 2009: [AF6AY] "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." Ni0C: "You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement." Well, put it this way: I was "wrong" IF and only IF I had attributed that particular statement to you or your immediate amateur friends. As it was, I made a general statement based on a LOT of observation of other amateurs' statements in-person, in-print, in-uendo. <shrug> Well, then, to "navigate the [radio] waves" I would have to know everything about DATA, too. [actually I know something of Data since I was doing that 56 years ago...:-)]. Since when did the FCC last REQUIRE OOK CW skill, MANDATORY on any band except the low end of 6 and 2 meters? Hmmm? .............. NI0C: "We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes." I thought I had already MADE that point. The biggest "damage" made by the FCC was an expansion of voice privileges in the 80-75m region. [horrors! :-)] OOK CW could still be used just as it is permitted everywhere on every ham band on up to 300 GHz. The "awful, fateful, end-of-the-world (aa many know it)" decision to drop all code testing requirements was in regards to getting IN amateur radio. Getting IN, not for immediately dropping in to be a "qualified" operator as is some commercial practice. Now you go right ahead and ENJOY your morse mode all you want. You can. .............. NI0C: "Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement." I will classify that statement as entirely subjective. Perhaps yours is just wishful thinking. Reading the Replies to NPRM 05-143 (which I did entire, all saved on a CD), that feeling is NOT mutual. .............. NI0C: "We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths." Oh, wow. Yeah. Thanks for the ORDERS, but I will THINK FOR MYSELF and reach my OWN conclusions. .............. NI0C: "Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again." Over and over again, you and others have "used bandwidth" to build up your own strawmen and tear down those who would talk against them. Once in a while I would come along with an obsolete Zippo and set fire to them. <shrug> Makes a nice night-time scene with all those olde-tyme shibboleth strawmen burning merrily. .............. NI0C: "You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio." I have a "lot" of knowledge AND opinions about LOTS of things. I was not aware that such is a CRIME. In my 77 years on this planet I've seen a lot of groupings, gatherings, forums, etc., etc. where SOME, insistent on being "leaders/managers" try to instill THEIR personal wishes/desires on others for no reason than to BE the "leaders/managers" because THEY wanted to it (i.e., ego-driven). I am an independent thinker and try to be objective about many things. That is resented by many longing for a group to belong to, to get guidance in what to do and what to "enjoy." That is unfortunate to those many. I do not feel obligated in any way to provide emotional sustenance to Them or those who wish to subjugate my personal desires into adherence to their personal beliefs/desires. ............. NI0C: "I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc." So, I am now to Submit to Interrogation by some inspector Clue-no? :-) Those similar questions have been asked of me before...usually by those who are building up some dossier to use themselves into later messaging pejoratives designed to damange my person. I am wise to how those things work, yet I am unharmed physically or emotionally by such. <shrug> You might as well interrogate me about my choice of wife, the foods I prefer, the entiertainment I like, why I chose to live where I do, and everything else under the sun. That is IRRELEVANT to the subject and you know it. But, Inspector Clue-no, I HAVE explained all that BEFORE and I'm not going into such IRRELEVANCY here AGAIN. OH, and I HAVE made QSOs on ham bands. I've also made radio contacts on seven OTHER radio services, six of which do NOT accept an amateur radio license as a "qualification" for operation. <shrug> WHY do you NEED such "qualifications" and who in the #$%^!!! made you the "qualifier?" ................. NI0C: "I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license?" BECAUSE I COULD. Look at your own wording and alleged inquisitiveness, nee snarly interrogation. If you are going to get all huffy and claim "insult" from my answer, look at your own attitude. ................. NI0C: "Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across." Now you are putting non-relevant "REASONS" into my behavior, personal desires, not just putting "words in my mouth." NUNYABIZNESS on the WHY. I can describe the WHY from my point of view but there will be many who WILL put "words in my mouth" in denigrating all that I say. That is EXPECTED and I KNOW the type of yahoos that are bound to do it...because they have already done that. What is more relevant is TAKING THE TEST(S). Not wanting to sound like a Motivational Speaker, I'll just describe a successful method to take AND pass a test, ANY test. It isn't MY method, rather it has been stated and done by others before me. I used it for my 1956 Commercial license test and again for my 2007 Amateur Extra class test and a LOT of assorted tests on other things in between: =================================== 1. PREPARE. Get to know the subject, get to know the test method, get to know the reaquirements, get to know the test site environment. You CAN do it. 2. PURPOSE. Be single-minded about the test, let it be the focus of your efforts. You ARE going to pass it. 3. CONCENTRATE. No one else is going to help you, it is all your own doing. You WILL pass it. 4. CONFIDENCE. Have it in yourself. Ignore the doomsayers and pompous jocks and insulters. You set out to do it and you WILL SUCCEED. 5. DO IT. Carefully. Take your time. Watch out for distractors in multiple-choice answers. Ignore the test site environment and distractions from other test takers. Do NOT even imagine failure. ==================================== Radio regulations allow re-taking a test later if it is scored incomplete. Retesting time may vary as regulations are changed. It is NOT the same as a one-shot academic class test (some academic rules require taking a whole course over if a 'final' test is failed). Amateur radio is a hobby, NOT a union, NOT a Guild, NOT a tradecraft. Your JOB does NOT depend on the outcome of this test, certainly not the rest of your life. ................. NI0C: "BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license." Yes, I know there was. That is IRRELEVANT. I care not what USA amateur radio regulations WERE in 1912 or 1932 or 1952 or 1972 or 1992 or 2002. USA radio regulations have CHANGED much over the years. Note I say "radio regulations" without specific definitions as to which radio service. If you are aware and informed about MORE radio than just amateur radio service, you will have to agree with that because CHANGE has happened to ALL of them during the last 75 years of FCC existance. Once the test is passed, that is IT. USA radio regulations do NOT, have NOT required re-testing for years and years provided regular paperwork renewals are done promptly. The ONLY worry would be about running into those bragging yahoos who want to run "newbies" down because THEIR tests "were so much harder." Pfaugh. Just a lot of BS by them. Now, after watching NASA-TV on cable for the live lift-off of Expedition 22 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome to the ISS, I am going to continue to "enjoy my amateur radio license" AT *MY* PREFERENCES, not some "rules" of behavior, lifestyle, or whatever dictated by a minority group at a suburb of Hartford or anywhere else thinks I should be doing. Go ahead and round up YOUR troops for some close-order drill...in the oh, so PROPER way to "enjoy ham radio." Thanks but no thanks, I can figure out what *I* want to do all by myself. Really. AF6AY Oh, and Happy Holidays...:-) Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-20 "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| NI0C | 2009-12-20 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Back to the Future Part 314159.... | ||
| "But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation." You're wrong, Len. A much better reason (not the only one) for morse testing is that if you are licensed to operate any modes in bands or sub-bands where others communicate using morse, then it is prudent (if no longer technically necessary) that you acquire some basic morse proficiency in order to navigate those frequencies. Many "stalwart morsemen" think it was "selfish as well as plain dumb" to remove that requirement. We, the "stalwart morsemen" are still on the air and enjoying our privileges, though, despite the rule changes. Many new licensees are joining our ranks, learning and practicing the code even though it's no longer a licensing requirement. We'll speak for ourselves, thank you, so don't go putting words in our mouths. Over and over again, you have used eHam bandwidth to build up your straw man and tear him down again. You're a verbose person, Len. You seem to have a lot of radio knowledge and opinions about ham radio. I may have easily missed it, but I don't recall your ever saying where you hang out-- what's your favorite amateur band to listen to; have you ever made a QSO; what kinds of equipment and antennas do you like to try out; have you written any software code to test a DSP algorithm with amateur radio applications, etc. As you well know (and like to point out) there's no requirement, legal or otherwise, that you do any of these things. I bet, though, I'm not the only one who wonders once in a while-- why do you have a license? Is it merely so you can brandish a callsign in these forums and boast again and again about passing the Amateur Extra test? That's how you come across. BTW, there used to be a requirement that one needed to log a certain number of hours of on the air activity in order to renew one's license. I think it was a wise requirement, even though it's one (small) reason there was a 13 year gap in my amateur radio activity. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| K6LHA | 2009-12-19 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Back to the Future Part 314159.... | ||
| KB6QXM snarled angrily on 19 Dec 09: "In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!!" "Far Left?!?" Tsk, tsk, I am right-handed. :-) All that for NOT keeping USA amateur radio regulations as they were in 1952 when I voluntarily enlisted in the US Army during the Korean War?!? [see Army Serial Number RA16408336, note the "RA" prefix...:-)] Just WHICH year "should" I have tested in? Yours? :-) .................. KB6QXN: "Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone." Tsk, tsk, you are ANGRY again. Work still going bad for you in Silicon Gulch? My sympathies... A quick look at the Federal Register doesn't show ANY sign of what you say is "true." No new "incentive licensing plan." Not even from the mighty folks at Newington. NO sign of "eliminating all testing." In case you haven't looked, the FCC establishes USA amateur radio regulations along with every other USA civil radio service. [amazing but true] Since its beginning 75 years ago the FCC has an orderly and legal process to which anyone can Petition for new regulations, Comment and Reply to Comments on any docket up for discussion...or say anything it wants. Those can be submitted and recognized from ANY citizen, with or without some federal license in that particular radio service! [really amazing when one thinks of it] Yes, anyone can post a Comment or Reply to Comments about an amateur radio docket without any amateur callsign whatsoever! [wow, isn't that "left-leaning," though!] Not only that, all those who submit documents have their names (and callsigns if applicable) listed in decision-making Memorandum Reports and Orders! I applaud that sort of democratic-process government and served my country in the military to back that up. In case you never served, all who enter the military put their LIFE on the line when they take that oath. Did YOU put your life on the line for your ham license? The ARRL just doesn't have the controlling influence on the FCC it thinks (and implies) it has, not from the amateur radio dockets up for discussion in the last dozen years...compared to what it had long ago. Not my problem. I was a full member of the ARRL for two years and they did NOTHING for me. ONE election to vote in and only ONE candidate to vote on. Sounds much like under the reign of one Josip Broz long ago in another large country, doesn't it? A NO-party "election." ................. KB6QXM: "The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." No, the base fee was $14 when I took my AMATEUR radio license exams (note plural) almost three years ago. It took about 3 1/2 hours of a Sunday afternoon, most of which was spent WAITING an hour to start, then having to wait some more in between test elements. ALL of the questions and answers (120 questions for the 3 different test elements) were generated and made available by the National Council of Volunteer Examiner Coordinators. You can see and download ALL the questions and answers at www.ncvec.org for nothing. The NCVEC Question Pool Committee MUST be composed of already-licensed amateur radio license grantees. That is an FCC regulation. In preparation for my AMATEUR radio license exams, I downloaded the Question Pool directly from the NCVEC site. On checking that out I was pleased to see that the NCVEC QPC had MORE than the required 10 questions (for random selection by VE groups) for each required question. The average for all 120 questions was 13 times the required test questions; for Amateur Extra it averaged about 16 times the required 50 questions. The so-called "anyone can 'memorize' the answers" charge would apply ONLY if an applicant was eidetic (one who has a "photographic memory"). NOT knowing ahead of time which questions would appear would require "memorizing" about 1560 questions and 6240 answers, the answers necessary to avoid getting a wrong one. In many of the 4-answer multiple-choices, the QPC inserted "distractors," wording such that a wrong answer MIGHT APPEAR right. I might have agreed that the number of illustrations MIGHT have been scanty, but then I've only been reading and understanding schematic symbols for about 60 years...and devising circuits and systems that actually worked (!) for over 45 years when I took my AMATEUR radio tests. :-) I will grant that I have some experience in 'radio' (a subset of electronics) that isn't common to many AMATEUR license applicants. Was it "hard" for me? No. Would it be "hard" for someone just off the street? Yes. But...the average license applicant ALREADY knows SOMETHING about the subject. Good grief there have been all sorts of "Handbooks" (and over-priced "test guides") published by the ARRL alone for a half century. Now we get to the crux of the matter, the Nobel-laureate International Morse Code test! I didn't have to take one. In fact, the ARRL-VEC team didn't have any code sound reproducing equipment at my test site (room donated by the Los Angeles Fire Department at an unused fire house) to give one! The LAW regarding morse code testing had eliminated any such requirement for any class license! That elimination had been done in a democratic-process manner, legally and correctly, everything published and still available at the FCC, either in their Reading Room or on-line! [another amazing but true moment!] How about that? A democratic-process time for ANYONE to make their case on NPRM 05-143 and then have each and every Reply and Reply to Comments made available for the PUBLIC to see! Is that "left-leaning?" Or is it just darn good democracy at work? I'll go with the latter. You have to remember that USA amateur radio has NEVER been considered "professional" nor is it in any way "academic" (FCC was not chartered as a school). Amateur radio isn't a Union, isn't a Guild, isn't even a Craft that requires apprentice-journyman-master status tested levels of skill. Back when I first started in HF communications (early February 1953) there were 36 high-power HF transmitters that had to be operated/tended/maintained sending out an average of more than 220 thousand messages a MONTH for the Far East Command Hq. NONE of those messages required any sort of morse code skill to send; they were all teleprinter, connecting the Command with all Army stations in the Pacific and to CONUS and Hawaii and Alaska. That's 56 years ago. The Army had dropped OOK CW mode messaging on the bulk of messages back in 1948. Everything was operating on a 24/7 basis. It was done in a professional manner, nothing amateurish about it. Since that military service time, I've NEVER been required to know or use any sort of "morse mode" means for communications, not even when taking private pilot flying lessons and passing the FAA written. Ah, but the AMATEURS who had been licensed since the year dot insisted and insisted (and a few demanded) that to be an AMATEUR ond HAD to pass a morse test...all the way to early 2006. It was supposed to be "vital to the nation" or some such quaint notion. By 1960 or so even the USN had begun to drop morse mode. By 1999 the international maritime "community" had dropped the old 500 KHz (morse only) distress frequency in favor of the Global Marine Distress and Safety microwave calling through the Inmarsat relays. The maritime community had devised it as well as using it. Even the USCG had stopped monitoring 500 KHz that year. Times had changed and become better, safer with new technology and new methods. But, in 1999 the long-timer stalwart morsemen were still adamant about keeping the morse test. Why? Mostly, I think it was because of an attitude of "I had to take a test in it and all who follow better take one too!" On the eve of the new millennium that sort of attitude was selfish as well as plain dumb. It was regressive for a HOBBY that requires federal regulation (and licensing) only because of the nature of electromagnetic wave propagation. ................. KB6QXM: "What is next?" It wouldn't surprise me one bit if your local John Bitch Society demands return of SPARK! It was the traditional means of USA amateur radio transmission in the beginning. :-) OK, so it isn't narrowband, it is TRADITIONAL! Never mind that it was outlawed in 1927, go back further, when hams were HAMS! Not a single transistor or IC around then to confuse long-timers, nossir, nothing complicated about early radio! Go for that crystal detector and spark transmitter DXCC! Pioneer radio all over again, show us how it's done, show 'em who is boss! Oh, and Happy Holidays! :-) 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| N2EY | 2009-12-19 | |
|---|---|---|
| What Next? | ||
| KB6QXM writes: "the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license.... The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now." Well, maybe it seems that way. But let's look at the history... Before the restructuring of 1951, there were just three classes of US amateur radio license: A, B and C. Class B and Class C were identical except that a Class B was the result of testing at an FCC office and a Class C was "by mail". Both required 13 wpm Morse Code (sending and receiving) plus a written exam of about 50 questions that included multiple choice, essay, draw-a-diagram and show-your-calculations questions. Class C was only available to those who were shut-ins or who lived more than 125 miles from a quarterly exam point. If a Class C moved to within 125 miles, or recovered from whatever made the person a shut-in, s/he had 90 days to retest or lose the license. Class A required having a Class B or C for at least a year, plus an additional 100 question written exam on technical stuff. Class A was only available by testing in front of an FCC examiner. If the person trying for Class A had a Class C license, s/he had to pass the Class B exams all over again in front of an FCC examiner before being allowed to even try the Class A. All US hams had access to all amateur frequencies at full power, but only Class A could operate 'phone on the bands between 2.5 and 25 MHz. And yet 9-year-old Jane, W3OVV earned a Class B in 1948. Front cover of QST, December 1948. In 1951 the license structure was changed to add the Novice, Technician and Extra licenses, and to rename the A, B and C as Advanced, General and Conditional. There was outrage in some circles because the Novice allowed newcomers on the amateur bands with just a 5 wpm code test and a 20 question multiple-choice exam that was extremely basic. The Novice brought in a lot of new hams, and among them were lots of younger people. As in teenagers, which then as now were considered in some circles to have all sorts of bad habits, but who mostly were just good kids interested in radio. Then in 1953-54 it got worse. FCC made the Novice and Technician by-mail only, and removed the requirement of retest-if-you-move-or-recover for Conditional. Even more shocking, full operating privileges were granted to all US amateurs except Novices and Technicians, so there was no reason to go for Advanced or Extra. That brought even more outrage! At least one op took to calling CQ on 75 with the qualifier "no kids, no lids, no space cadets, Class A operators only". There were a lot of mistakes made by the newcomers - so many that in 1956 W6DTY wrote a classic article called "Your Novice Accent", describing how to do it right. And yet over time the vast majority of those Novice newcomers learned the right ways and went on to do great things in Amateur Radio. Their numbers caused US amateur radio to grow all through the 1950s and into the 1960s. The growth was so much that the US ham population grew faster than the US population overall, despite the baby boom! Many of those Novices became the Old Timers of today. KB6QXM: "What is next?" I don't think anything, at least for a while. There are no proposals to change the license structure in front of the FCC now, nor have there been for a while. If you take a good hard look at the license question pools from the standpoint of someone who has a background in electronics, they look dead-simple except for the regulations, which are really a matter of memorization. Nobody who really knows basic radio should need to study for any US amateur exam except for the rules and regs. But if you look at them from the standpoint of someone who *doesn't* have a background in electronics, they look a lot different! Lots of new stuff there for the non-technical person. The really big difference is that, in the bad old days, we didn't have access to the actual Q&A. Which is a change in test method, not material. But remember *why* that change took place: FCC wanted to save money by not doing the tests themselves any more. Look at all the FCc rules changes we've seen in the past 30-odd years and consider whether they cost FCC money or saved money and you'll see the point. I don't see a no-test license as a possibility. First off, it violates the ITU-R treaty. Second, and more important, the bad experience of cb is more than enough reason not to do it. The one thing anyone who is concerned about the current testing can do is to write more questions for the pools and send them to the QPC. The pools could then grow to the point that it would be much easier to learn the material than to word-associate and memorize one's way to a passing grade. There are many things a person who is concerned about the new hams can do. One of them is to help out at sites like this one, answering newcomer questions and writing articles. 73 de Jim, N2EY Novice 1967 Technician/Advanced 1968 Extra 1970 Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-19 In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| KB6QXM | 2009-12-19 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Back to the Future Part 314159.... | ||
| In reading Len's left leaning comments, I'll bet he believes that the United States should have open borders also! How about Socialism also? One world government? All of these ideas that the far left leaning population is pushing for now!! Mark my word, the next incentive licensing that will come out because of the politically correct FCC and greedy ARRL will be a no-test license. That will be the first step. They will sit back and see how that goes over and then they will eliminate all testing to generate a "1 license does all" as the FCC and the ARRL knees will collapse because they do not want to exclude anyone. The license exams are so watered down now, that they are basically giving away the licenses now. What is next? Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-19 Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| K6LHA | 2009-12-19 | |
|---|---|---|
| Back to the Future Part 314159.... | ||
| Those who did not like how present history turned out wanted to Change The Subject! Make no mistake about it, the past dozen years have had a SIGNIFICANT change in USA amateur radio regulations, each easily on-par or greater than "Incentive Licensing" of four decades ago. The first was the decision in 1999 to enact "Restructuring." The second was the decision to eliminate all code testing for USA amateur licenses in 2006. Note I said decisions, not enactment in law. The die was cast once the decisions were published in the Federal Register. Many, many, many long-time-ago tested USA amateurs were livid, outraged at this terrible thing that was a "personal insult" to THEM. In one way it resembled a highly-amplified horror and anger that surfaced in 1958 when the FCC "took away the 11m HAM band that was 'rightfully' THEIRS" and "gave it away" to ordinary citizens to use as Class C and D Citizens Band. All that anger and resentment still lives since "CB" is still considered a "hateful" thing by so many amateurs and its users are still almost evil incarnate. :-) Conditioned Bigotry of the hatred against CB still lives after 51 years of its creation. The same Bigotry against the (hack, ptui) "no-coders" will probably live on a century from now. Bigotry is hard to eradicate. It is an emotional state deep inside minds, used as a personal refuge, a surcease of personal frustration by taking it all out on some target. Those targets "are not like US!" cry the bigots (the only ones who know the "truth"). :-) One way to alleviate some individual frustrations are to CHANGE THE SUBJECT. Yes. Retreat to the PAST. There is SAFETY there because all of then is KNOWN. There is safety there...so few were even alive when the first USA radio regulations were made 97 years ago. They can juggle data and events in perfect safety, have endless arguments over little past "reasons" and sound oh-so-schmardt about it even if they had NO hand in causing those events. The long-ago past is a wonderful place to HIDE. It is a wonderful place to vicariously "live" AS IF one was "there." No thanks, I've "been there, done that" and would rather look to the future. <shrug> :-) My little study, never intended as a pretentious work, was simply to try looking towards the future. To try gauging the public's response to those noteworthy FCC decisions of 1999 and 2006. Reaction was as expected. Hard-core ultra-conservative hams just didn't like the outcome since those that applied for licenses were "not like Them, did not do as They had to do." The crowd-pleasing types, trying to guage which way to go, generally sided with the uber-conservatives. In the last dozen years the sky literally fell on them yet the rest of us were unscathed. Only a few respondents expressed independent opinions; those seemed to think for themselves, unaffected by any need to go with conservative group-think. If anyone dared venture into opinions on the immediate future, it was not apparent. If anyone still thinks that PAST decisions in USA amateur radio are "prologue" then it is a gross mistake, a wrong definition. Since just 75 years ago and the creation of the FCC, USA amateur radio regulations have been constantly EVOLVING, CHANGING...just as they have with every other radio service. Is history "important?" Or is it just a record of what went on before NOW? WE are living in the PRESENT. Most of us have lived through the last dozen years of noteworthy, remarkable CHANGE. I daresay THAT is "important." Not because we lived through it but for the profound changes it made in USA amateur radio regulatory law. Like it or not, changes were made. Did any of these changes affect any long-timer or uber-conservative operating privileges? Nary a one, hardly any impact at all. Then WHY all the denunciatory labels and epithets thrown out against change? Sorry, no reasonable person can accept individual's personal feelings about changes that apply to all near-three-quarter-million licensees and uncountable future licensees. Long-timers are NOT "in charge" despite their implicit demands that they are...:-) I'm not disparaging those who like to find out about long-past events in radio. It IS interesting to many, but it is not a model for the future we are in NOW. Just don't dismiss current history unfolding before you in order to live vicariously in the past. As an old anonymous tagline went, "Today is the tomorrow you worried about yestersday." :-) Len, AF6AY | ||
| N2EY | 2009-12-19 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers & History | ||
| WA4KCN: As WA2ONH has kindly pointed out, it's actually in four parts. (Different websites broke it up differently). IMHO, the challenge to writing a history of Amateur Radio isn't just getting all the info and writing it up, but deciding what to leave out. There is so much to document! For example, I could easily double or triple the size of that four-part article on licensing by going into more detail about the rules changes over the years, with more dates, details, etc. Then there's the impact of equipment changes, Sputnik, incentive licensing, cb, Vietnam, the 1960s counterculture and much more. Maybe someday. Thanks for the kind words. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WA4KCN on 2009-12-18 RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers & History Reply by N2EY on December 17, 2009 Mail this to a friend! N2EY - I've thought about writing such a book. Maybe when time permits. Until then, you can read a three-part history of US amateur radio licensing from 1950 to 2000 that I wrote about 9 years ago: __ Thanks Jim I look forward to reading. My interest in ham radio centers on the history of our service including licensing progression and technological change through the years. A well written book on the more recent history since 200 Meters is needed and no doubt you are the person to write it. 73 Russ WA4KCN Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-17 WA4KCN: I've thought about writing such a book. Maybe when time permits. Until then, you can read a three-part history of US amateur radio licensing from 1950 to 2000 that I wrote about 9 years ago: http://www.w6vrc.org/Archive/histmenu.html is the main menu; select parts 1, 2 or 3 from there. --- NI0C: I have only one Top Band QSO in my log, but it was quite memorable! Thanks for the kind words. You may find the licensing history referred to above to be of interest. --- KD7YVV: Field Day is a favorite of mine; been doing FD since 1967. I think the phrase "ham radio is what you make of it for yourself" includes what you give back. IOW the person who gives back good stuff will find they get more out of ham radio. "Give me a good band, lots of sunspots, and a good antenna and radio to tune them by......." I *like* that! "And don't forget the hot chocolate for those cold winter nights!" Earl Grey tea for me... 73 & TNX all de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-17 To Jum, N2EY: Normally, I'm available on 80m (40, too) during the Winter months. However, this winter, I've chosen to put all my eggs in the Top Band basket in order to have a better antenna that will handle more power. Top Band is experiencing some periods of outstanding propagation this year, and I'm having a good time. For example-- two QSO's with CQ zone 18, and at least a shot at zone 23. (I've never even heard these zones on 80m.) TF4M reports making first-time ever qso's between Hawaii and Iceland on Top Band. He's got an outstanding website with audio clips; I even heard a recording of my qso with him there. Here at latitude 38+ degrees, even during the Winter solstice, we have a few hours of daylight available for a break from DX'ing top band and amusement on Top Bnad. Jim, your contributions concerning licensing history(as well as W5ESE's) are appreciated. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-17 NI0C: y'know, I think you have a very good point I can't do 160 but I can do 80 CW. Maybe I'll see you there. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-16 N2EY writes: "How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air?" Here's some more questions: How many licensed amateurs spend their hobby time in online discussions such as these, and what are they writing about? Are they assisting others in some way in the actual conduct of on the air radio operations, or are they merely stuck in a loop writing over and over again about licensing requirements and their own experiences with same? There are literally thousands of words written above, and we've heard most of it before. Only a handful of people read this garbage. I'm not one of them. I'm having too much fun on 160m CW this winter. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-16 KB6QXM: Thanks! The information posted is a start, but I don't have lots of old Callbooks. For information back to about 1996, the AH0A website has plenty. Maybe AH0A would consider adding historic data? -- There have been times when the number of US hams grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of factors influence growth, not just the license requirements. In fact, there is sometimes a negative correlation in that increasing the requirements correlated with more, not less, growth. As previously mentioned, the rules connected with the licenses must be known and understood to make logical conclusions about the growth as well. For example, the number of Novice licenses was very small until the 1970s, when the license became 5 year renewable. With a 1 or 2 year nonrenewable license, Novices were under considerable pressure to upgrade before the license ran out. Making the license 5 year renewable removed that pressure, so the numbers grew. The Conditional had a sizable percentage of US amateurs back in the 1950s and 1960s in part because, for about a decade after 1953, it was available to anyone who was more than 75 miles from a quarterly exam point. This included a lot of Americans. But in 1964 the "Conditional distance" was increased from 75 to 175 miles, and the number of exam points increased, so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional territory". The number of Conditionals then began to fall. And one of the major reasons for resistance to the "incentive licensing" changes of the late 1960s was the burden of travel it would impose on hams who didn't live near exam points. Another rules-change effect is vanity calls. Normally, an amateur license can only be renewed in the last 90 days before expiration, or in the two-year grace period after expiration. (FCC defines "expiration" as the end of the 10 year license term, not the final removal from the database after the grace period ends). But a vanity call can be requested at any time, and when one is issued, there's an automatic renewal. Changes to the vanity-call rules usually result in a surge of applications, which can distort the whole how-long-to-expiration picture. Since April 15, 2000, the Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced licenses have been closed to new issues. This is the second time this has happened to the Advanced; the first time was at the end of 1952. And just like the first time, the number of Advanceds is dropping very slowly compared to the other classes. After almost a decade of no new Advanceds, their numbers are down to about 60% of the May 2000 total. Novices are down to about a third of their May 2000 total, indicating lots of cancellations and upgrades. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the last Novice and Advanced class licenses to go away, either from upgrade or cancellation. Some Advanceds have vowed never to upgrade to Extra, so it may be a very long time. The fastest decline of all has been the Technician Plus, but that's understandable because of the rules change of April 2000. Not only are no new Technician Pluses being issued, but when an existing Tech Plus is submitted for renewal or vanity call, the FCC changes the class to Technician. This auto-reclassing reduces the number of Tech Pluses and increases the number of Techs in a way that is different from all other license classes. Also, any Novice who passes the Tech written gets a Technician, not a Technicians Plus. So the Technician class isn't just growing because of new hams, but because of upgrades from Novice and automatic class change from Technician Plus. This is almost identical to what happened to the General back in the 1970s when the Conditional was phased out. IOW, if you look at the number of Technicians without reference to the rules changes, it can (erroneously) appear that their numbers are growing only because lots of new hams are getting that license. But in fact there's a built-in additional source of Technicians from upgraded Novices and reclassified Tech Pluses. In fact, if you look at the combined number of Technicians and Technician Pluses over time, it hardly changes at all, and is actually down from where it was in 2000, in both total and percentages. All of this is a minor side issue to the really important things: How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air? 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| WA4KCN | 2009-12-18 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers & History | ||
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers & History Reply by N2EY on December 17, 2009 Mail this to a friend! N2EY - I've thought about writing such a book. Maybe when time permits. Until then, you can read a three-part history of US amateur radio licensing from 1950 to 2000 that I wrote about 9 years ago: __ Thanks Jim I look forward to reading. My interest in ham radio centers on the history of our service including licensing progression and technological change through the years. A well written book on the more recent history since 200 Meters is needed and no doubt you are the person to write it. 73 Russ WA4KCN Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-17 WA4KCN: I've thought about writing such a book. Maybe when time permits. Until then, you can read a three-part history of US amateur radio licensing from 1950 to 2000 that I wrote about 9 years ago: http://www.w6vrc.org/Archive/histmenu.html is the main menu; select parts 1, 2 or 3 from there. --- NI0C: I have only one Top Band QSO in my log, but it was quite memorable! Thanks for the kind words. You may find the licensing history referred to above to be of interest. --- KD7YVV: Field Day is a favorite of mine; been doing FD since 1967. I think the phrase "ham radio is what you make of it for yourself" includes what you give back. IOW the person who gives back good stuff will find they get more out of ham radio. "Give me a good band, lots of sunspots, and a good antenna and radio to tune them by......." I *like* that! "And don't forget the hot chocolate for those cold winter nights!" Earl Grey tea for me... 73 & TNX all de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-17 To Jum, N2EY: Normally, I'm available on 80m (40, too) during the Winter months. However, this winter, I've chosen to put all my eggs in the Top Band basket in order to have a better antenna that will handle more power. Top Band is experiencing some periods of outstanding propagation this year, and I'm having a good time. For example-- two QSO's with CQ zone 18, and at least a shot at zone 23. (I've never even heard these zones on 80m.) TF4M reports making first-time ever qso's between Hawaii and Iceland on Top Band. He's got an outstanding website with audio clips; I even heard a recording of my qso with him there. Here at latitude 38+ degrees, even during the Winter solstice, we have a few hours of daylight available for a break from DX'ing top band and amusement on Top Bnad. Jim, your contributions concerning licensing history(as well as W5ESE's) are appreciated. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-17 NI0C: y'know, I think you have a very good point I can't do 160 but I can do 80 CW. Maybe I'll see you there. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-16 N2EY writes: "How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air?" Here's some more questions: How many licensed amateurs spend their hobby time in online discussions such as these, and what are they writing about? Are they assisting others in some way in the actual conduct of on the air radio operations, or are they merely stuck in a loop writing over and over again about licensing requirements and their own experiences with same? There are literally thousands of words written above, and we've heard most of it before. Only a handful of people read this garbage. I'm not one of them. I'm having too much fun on 160m CW this winter. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-16 KB6QXM: Thanks! The information posted is a start, but I don't have lots of old Callbooks. For information back to about 1996, the AH0A website has plenty. Maybe AH0A would consider adding historic data? -- There have been times when the number of US hams grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of factors influence growth, not just the license requirements. In fact, there is sometimes a negative correlation in that increasing the requirements correlated with more, not less, growth. As previously mentioned, the rules connected with the licenses must be known and understood to make logical conclusions about the growth as well. For example, the number of Novice licenses was very small until the 1970s, when the license became 5 year renewable. With a 1 or 2 year nonrenewable license, Novices were under considerable pressure to upgrade before the license ran out. Making the license 5 year renewable removed that pressure, so the numbers grew. The Conditional had a sizable percentage of US amateurs back in the 1950s and 1960s in part because, for about a decade after 1953, it was available to anyone who was more than 75 miles from a quarterly exam point. This included a lot of Americans. But in 1964 the "Conditional distance" was increased from 75 to 175 miles, and the number of exam points increased, so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional territory". The number of Conditionals then began to fall. And one of the major reasons for resistance to the "incentive licensing" changes of the late 1960s was the burden of travel it would impose on hams who didn't live near exam points. Another rules-change effect is vanity calls. Normally, an amateur license can only be renewed in the last 90 days before expiration, or in the two-year grace period after expiration. (FCC defines "expiration" as the end of the 10 year license term, not the final removal from the database after the grace period ends). But a vanity call can be requested at any time, and when one is issued, there's an automatic renewal. Changes to the vanity-call rules usually result in a surge of applications, which can distort the whole how-long-to-expiration picture. Since April 15, 2000, the Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced licenses have been closed to new issues. This is the second time this has happened to the Advanced; the first time was at the end of 1952. And just like the first time, the number of Advanceds is dropping very slowly compared to the other classes. After almost a decade of no new Advanceds, their numbers are down to about 60% of the May 2000 total. Novices are down to about a third of their May 2000 total, indicating lots of cancellations and upgrades. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the last Novice and Advanced class licenses to go away, either from upgrade or cancellation. Some Advanceds have vowed never to upgrade to Extra, so it may be a very long time. The fastest decline of all has been the Technician Plus, but that's understandable because of the rules change of April 2000. Not only are no new Technician Pluses being issued, but when an existing Tech Plus is submitted for renewal or vanity call, the FCC changes the class to Technician. This auto-reclassing reduces the number of Tech Pluses and increases the number of Techs in a way that is different from all other license classes. Also, any Novice who passes the Tech written gets a Technician, not a Technicians Plus. So the Technician class isn't just growing because of new hams, but because of upgrades from Novice and automatic class change from Technician Plus. This is almost identical to what happened to the General back in the 1970s when the Conditional was phased out. IOW, if you look at the number of Technicians without reference to the rules changes, it can (erroneously) appear that their numbers are growing only because lots of new hams are getting that license. But in fact there's a built-in additional source of Technicians from upgraded Novices and reclassified Tech Pluses. In fact, if you look at the combined number of Technicians and Technician Pluses over time, it hardly changes at all, and is actually down from where it was in 2000, in both total and percentages. All of this is a minor side issue to the really important things: How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air? 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| K6LHA | 2009-12-18 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: USA Amateur Radio History | ||
| Beginning back in 1996, Bill Continelli, W2XOY, started writing "Wayback Machine," a column for the Schenectady Museum Amateur Radio Asscoiation and continued that through 2003 in 35 parts. It had been carried on www.ham-shack.com but that website went commercial. The same material can be found at: www.qsl.net/ecara/wayback/main.html That is the linking page for all 35 parts beginning in 1896 and on through 2007 (with an update elsewhere). It is well written and presents a more dynamic history, an "easy read" in colloquial review terms. The "Wayback Machine" columns have also been reprinted in the Marin ARC newsletter out of San Rafael, CA. Some of those "Wayback" columns' material has also been found on audio and Twitter sites. Bill Continelli retired from the IRS after 30 years in 2009 and formed his own Tax business in upper New York state and still contributes material to several amateur-interest websites. There is a great deal of HISTORY on the subject of radio, all radio services, available on the Internet and in print. Rewriting of past material is just rewriting. It is better to MAKE history than cribbing available sources. AF6AY Reply to a comment by : WA2ONH on 2009-12-18 N2EY Jim --- and your Fifty Years of Amateur Radio Licensing (1950-2000) History Part Four is at: http://www.qsl.net/arrlsb/Digest/Pages/story04.html Good reading! 73 de WA2ONH Charlie | ||
| WA2ONH | 2009-12-18 | |
|---|---|---|
| Trends in USA Amateur Radio License Classes Over T | ||
| N2EY Jim --- and your Fifty Years of Amateur Radio Licensing (1950-2000) History Part Four is at: http://www.qsl.net/arrlsb/Digest/Pages/story04.html Good reading! 73 de WA2ONH Charlie | ||
| N2EY | 2009-12-17 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers & History | ||
| WA4KCN: I've thought about writing such a book. Maybe when time permits. Until then, you can read a three-part history of US amateur radio licensing from 1950 to 2000 that I wrote about 9 years ago: http://www.w6vrc.org/Archive/histmenu.html is the main menu; select parts 1, 2 or 3 from there. --- NI0C: I have only one Top Band QSO in my log, but it was quite memorable! Thanks for the kind words. You may find the licensing history referred to above to be of interest. --- KD7YVV: Field Day is a favorite of mine; been doing FD since 1967. I think the phrase "ham radio is what you make of it for yourself" includes what you give back. IOW the person who gives back good stuff will find they get more out of ham radio. "Give me a good band, lots of sunspots, and a good antenna and radio to tune them by......." I *like* that! "And don't forget the hot chocolate for those cold winter nights!" Earl Grey tea for me... 73 & TNX all de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-17 To Jum, N2EY: Normally, I'm available on 80m (40, too) during the Winter months. However, this winter, I've chosen to put all my eggs in the Top Band basket in order to have a better antenna that will handle more power. Top Band is experiencing some periods of outstanding propagation this year, and I'm having a good time. For example-- two QSO's with CQ zone 18, and at least a shot at zone 23. (I've never even heard these zones on 80m.) TF4M reports making first-time ever qso's between Hawaii and Iceland on Top Band. He's got an outstanding website with audio clips; I even heard a recording of my qso with him there. Here at latitude 38+ degrees, even during the Winter solstice, we have a few hours of daylight available for a break from DX'ing top band and amusement on Top Bnad. Jim, your contributions concerning licensing history(as well as W5ESE's) are appreciated. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-17 NI0C: y'know, I think you have a very good point I can't do 160 but I can do 80 CW. Maybe I'll see you there. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-16 N2EY writes: "How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air?" Here's some more questions: How many licensed amateurs spend their hobby time in online discussions such as these, and what are they writing about? Are they assisting others in some way in the actual conduct of on the air radio operations, or are they merely stuck in a loop writing over and over again about licensing requirements and their own experiences with same? There are literally thousands of words written above, and we've heard most of it before. Only a handful of people read this garbage. I'm not one of them. I'm having too much fun on 160m CW this winter. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-16 KB6QXM: Thanks! The information posted is a start, but I don't have lots of old Callbooks. For information back to about 1996, the AH0A website has plenty. Maybe AH0A would consider adding historic data? -- There have been times when the number of US hams grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of factors influence growth, not just the license requirements. In fact, there is sometimes a negative correlation in that increasing the requirements correlated with more, not less, growth. As previously mentioned, the rules connected with the licenses must be known and understood to make logical conclusions about the growth as well. For example, the number of Novice licenses was very small until the 1970s, when the license became 5 year renewable. With a 1 or 2 year nonrenewable license, Novices were under considerable pressure to upgrade before the license ran out. Making the license 5 year renewable removed that pressure, so the numbers grew. The Conditional had a sizable percentage of US amateurs back in the 1950s and 1960s in part because, for about a decade after 1953, it was available to anyone who was more than 75 miles from a quarterly exam point. This included a lot of Americans. But in 1964 the "Conditional distance" was increased from 75 to 175 miles, and the number of exam points increased, so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional territory". The number of Conditionals then began to fall. And one of the major reasons for resistance to the "incentive licensing" changes of the late 1960s was the burden of travel it would impose on hams who didn't live near exam points. Another rules-change effect is vanity calls. Normally, an amateur license can only be renewed in the last 90 days before expiration, or in the two-year grace period after expiration. (FCC defines "expiration" as the end of the 10 year license term, not the final removal from the database after the grace period ends). But a vanity call can be requested at any time, and when one is issued, there's an automatic renewal. Changes to the vanity-call rules usually result in a surge of applications, which can distort the whole how-long-to-expiration picture. Since April 15, 2000, the Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced licenses have been closed to new issues. This is the second time this has happened to the Advanced; the first time was at the end of 1952. And just like the first time, the number of Advanceds is dropping very slowly compared to the other classes. After almost a decade of no new Advanceds, their numbers are down to about 60% of the May 2000 total. Novices are down to about a third of their May 2000 total, indicating lots of cancellations and upgrades. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the last Novice and Advanced class licenses to go away, either from upgrade or cancellation. Some Advanceds have vowed never to upgrade to Extra, so it may be a very long time. The fastest decline of all has been the Technician Plus, but that's understandable because of the rules change of April 2000. Not only are no new Technician Pluses being issued, but when an existing Tech Plus is submitted for renewal or vanity call, the FCC changes the class to Technician. This auto-reclassing reduces the number of Tech Pluses and increases the number of Techs in a way that is different from all other license classes. Also, any Novice who passes the Tech written gets a Technician, not a Technicians Plus. So the Technician class isn't just growing because of new hams, but because of upgrades from Novice and automatic class change from Technician Plus. This is almost identical to what happened to the General back in the 1970s when the Conditional was phased out. IOW, if you look at the number of Technicians without reference to the rules changes, it can (erroneously) appear that their numbers are growing only because lots of new hams are getting that license. But in fact there's a built-in additional source of Technicians from upgraded Novices and reclassified Tech Pluses. In fact, if you look at the combined number of Technicians and Technician Pluses over time, it hardly changes at all, and is actually down from where it was in 2000, in both total and percentages. All of this is a minor side issue to the really important things: How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air? 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| KD7YVV | 2009-12-17 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| Well, I look at it this way. If I can find someone to ragchew with, I'm happy. There are people who just get the license and never do anything with it. I had fun with the Lake Washington Ham Club this past Field Day. Lots of people trying different things, different antennas etc. etc. My eyesight isn't what it used to be and I don't own an electron microscope to see the molecular sized components used today. I do like reading a lot of the older QST magazines and seeing the different projects that were considered state of the art at the time. Ham radio isn't only what you make of it for yourself, it's what you give back to the hobby by way of bringing others into what is a very diverse pastime. As far as emergency communications go, I've taken the courses, but for me, emcomm is not just radio. Here in WA, we have to worry about avalanches, volcanoes, tsunamis, flooding, earthquakes. There's nothing wrong with being prepared, and knowledge is power. To paraphrase James T. Kirk..... Give me a good band, lots of sunspots, and a good antenna and radio to tune them by....... And don't forget the hot chocolate for those cold winter nights! --KD7YVV, Kirkland, WA Reply to a comment by : KG4TKC on 2009-12-17 NI0C, Chuck,thanks for the comments and info. The info on top band is very interesting,will be tuning up there a little bit more this winter. Your comments were spot-on.73. Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-16 N2EY writes: "How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air?" Here's some more questions: How many licensed amateurs spend their hobby time in online discussions such as these, and what are they writing about? Are they assisting others in some way in the actual conduct of on the air radio operations, or are they merely stuck in a loop writing over and over again about licensing requirements and their own experiences with same? There are literally thousands of words written above, and we've heard most of it before. Only a handful of people read this garbage. I'm not one of them. I'm having too much fun on 160m CW this winter. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-16 KB6QXM: Thanks! The information posted is a start, but I don't have lots of old Callbooks. For information back to about 1996, the AH0A website has plenty. Maybe AH0A would consider adding historic data? -- There have been times when the number of US hams grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of factors influence growth, not just the license requirements. In fact, there is sometimes a negative correlation in that increasing the requirements correlated with more, not less, growth. As previously mentioned, the rules connected with the licenses must be known and understood to make logical conclusions about the growth as well. For example, the number of Novice licenses was very small until the 1970s, when the license became 5 year renewable. With a 1 or 2 year nonrenewable license, Novices were under considerable pressure to upgrade before the license ran out. Making the license 5 year renewable removed that pressure, so the numbers grew. The Conditional had a sizable percentage of US amateurs back in the 1950s and 1960s in part because, for about a decade after 1953, it was available to anyone who was more than 75 miles from a quarterly exam point. This included a lot of Americans. But in 1964 the "Conditional distance" was increased from 75 to 175 miles, and the number of exam points increased, so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional territory". The number of Conditionals then began to fall. And one of the major reasons for resistance to the "incentive licensing" changes of the late 1960s was the burden of travel it would impose on hams who didn't live near exam points. Another rules-change effect is vanity calls. Normally, an amateur license can only be renewed in the last 90 days before expiration, or in the two-year grace period after expiration. (FCC defines "expiration" as the end of the 10 year license term, not the final removal from the database after the grace period ends). But a vanity call can be requested at any time, and when one is issued, there's an automatic renewal. Changes to the vanity-call rules usually result in a surge of applications, which can distort the whole how-long-to-expiration picture. Since April 15, 2000, the Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced licenses have been closed to new issues. This is the second time this has happened to the Advanced; the first time was at the end of 1952. And just like the first time, the number of Advanceds is dropping very slowly compared to the other classes. After almost a decade of no new Advanceds, their numbers are down to about 60% of the May 2000 total. Novices are down to about a third of their May 2000 total, indicating lots of cancellations and upgrades. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the last Novice and Advanced class licenses to go away, either from upgrade or cancellation. Some Advanceds have vowed never to upgrade to Extra, so it may be a very long time. The fastest decline of all has been the Technician Plus, but that's understandable because of the rules change of April 2000. Not only are no new Technician Pluses being issued, but when an existing Tech Plus is submitted for renewal or vanity call, the FCC changes the class to Technician. This auto-reclassing reduces the number of Tech Pluses and increases the number of Techs in a way that is different from all other license classes. Also, any Novice who passes the Tech written gets a Technician, not a Technicians Plus. So the Technician class isn't just growing because of new hams, but because of upgrades from Novice and automatic class change from Technician Plus. This is almost identical to what happened to the General back in the 1970s when the Conditional was phased out. IOW, if you look at the number of Technicians without reference to the rules changes, it can (erroneously) appear that their numbers are growing only because lots of new hams are getting that license. But in fact there's a built-in additional source of Technicians from upgraded Novices and reclassified Tech Pluses. In fact, if you look at the combined number of Technicians and Technician Pluses over time, it hardly changes at all, and is actually down from where it was in 2000, in both total and percentages. All of this is a minor side issue to the really important things: How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air? 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| KG4TKC | 2009-12-17 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| NI0C, Chuck,thanks for the comments and info. The info on top band is very interesting,will be tuning up there a little bit more this winter. Your comments were spot-on.73. Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-16 N2EY writes: "How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air?" Here's some more questions: How many licensed amateurs spend their hobby time in online discussions such as these, and what are they writing about? Are they assisting others in some way in the actual conduct of on the air radio operations, or are they merely stuck in a loop writing over and over again about licensing requirements and their own experiences with same? There are literally thousands of words written above, and we've heard most of it before. Only a handful of people read this garbage. I'm not one of them. I'm having too much fun on 160m CW this winter. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-16 KB6QXM: Thanks! The information posted is a start, but I don't have lots of old Callbooks. For information back to about 1996, the AH0A website has plenty. Maybe AH0A would consider adding historic data? -- There have been times when the number of US hams grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of factors influence growth, not just the license requirements. In fact, there is sometimes a negative correlation in that increasing the requirements correlated with more, not less, growth. As previously mentioned, the rules connected with the licenses must be known and understood to make logical conclusions about the growth as well. For example, the number of Novice licenses was very small until the 1970s, when the license became 5 year renewable. With a 1 or 2 year nonrenewable license, Novices were under considerable pressure to upgrade before the license ran out. Making the license 5 year renewable removed that pressure, so the numbers grew. The Conditional had a sizable percentage of US amateurs back in the 1950s and 1960s in part because, for about a decade after 1953, it was available to anyone who was more than 75 miles from a quarterly exam point. This included a lot of Americans. But in 1964 the "Conditional distance" was increased from 75 to 175 miles, and the number of exam points increased, so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional territory". The number of Conditionals then began to fall. And one of the major reasons for resistance to the "incentive licensing" changes of the late 1960s was the burden of travel it would impose on hams who didn't live near exam points. Another rules-change effect is vanity calls. Normally, an amateur license can only be renewed in the last 90 days before expiration, or in the two-year grace period after expiration. (FCC defines "expiration" as the end of the 10 year license term, not the final removal from the database after the grace period ends). But a vanity call can be requested at any time, and when one is issued, there's an automatic renewal. Changes to the vanity-call rules usually result in a surge of applications, which can distort the whole how-long-to-expiration picture. Since April 15, 2000, the Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced licenses have been closed to new issues. This is the second time this has happened to the Advanced; the first time was at the end of 1952. And just like the first time, the number of Advanceds is dropping very slowly compared to the other classes. After almost a decade of no new Advanceds, their numbers are down to about 60% of the May 2000 total. Novices are down to about a third of their May 2000 total, indicating lots of cancellations and upgrades. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the last Novice and Advanced class licenses to go away, either from upgrade or cancellation. Some Advanceds have vowed never to upgrade to Extra, so it may be a very long time. The fastest decline of all has been the Technician Plus, but that's understandable because of the rules change of April 2000. Not only are no new Technician Pluses being issued, but when an existing Tech Plus is submitted for renewal or vanity call, the FCC changes the class to Technician. This auto-reclassing reduces the number of Tech Pluses and increases the number of Techs in a way that is different from all other license classes. Also, any Novice who passes the Tech written gets a Technician, not a Technicians Plus. So the Technician class isn't just growing because of new hams, but because of upgrades from Novice and automatic class change from Technician Plus. This is almost identical to what happened to the General back in the 1970s when the Conditional was phased out. IOW, if you look at the number of Technicians without reference to the rules changes, it can (erroneously) appear that their numbers are growing only because lots of new hams are getting that license. But in fact there's a built-in additional source of Technicians from upgraded Novices and reclassified Tech Pluses. In fact, if you look at the combined number of Technicians and Technician Pluses over time, it hardly changes at all, and is actually down from where it was in 2000, in both total and percentages. All of this is a minor side issue to the really important things: How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air? 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| NI0C | 2009-12-17 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| Jim, sorry for the typo on your name, and make that "amusement on eHam." Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-17 To Jum, N2EY: Normally, I'm available on 80m (40, too) during the Winter months. However, this winter, I've chosen to put all my eggs in the Top Band basket in order to have a better antenna that will handle more power. Top Band is experiencing some periods of outstanding propagation this year, and I'm having a good time. For example-- two QSO's with CQ zone 18, and at least a shot at zone 23. (I've never even heard these zones on 80m.) TF4M reports making first-time ever qso's between Hawaii and Iceland on Top Band. He's got an outstanding website with audio clips; I even heard a recording of my qso with him there. Here at latitude 38+ degrees, even during the Winter solstice, we have a few hours of daylight available for a break from DX'ing top band and amusement on Top Bnad. Jim, your contributions concerning licensing history(as well as W5ESE's) are appreciated. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-17 NI0C: y'know, I think you have a very good point I can't do 160 but I can do 80 CW. Maybe I'll see you there. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-16 N2EY writes: "How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air?" Here's some more questions: How many licensed amateurs spend their hobby time in online discussions such as these, and what are they writing about? Are they assisting others in some way in the actual conduct of on the air radio operations, or are they merely stuck in a loop writing over and over again about licensing requirements and their own experiences with same? There are literally thousands of words written above, and we've heard most of it before. Only a handful of people read this garbage. I'm not one of them. I'm having too much fun on 160m CW this winter. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-16 KB6QXM: Thanks! The information posted is a start, but I don't have lots of old Callbooks. For information back to about 1996, the AH0A website has plenty. Maybe AH0A would consider adding historic data? -- There have been times when the number of US hams grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of factors influence growth, not just the license requirements. In fact, there is sometimes a negative correlation in that increasing the requirements correlated with more, not less, growth. As previously mentioned, the rules connected with the licenses must be known and understood to make logical conclusions about the growth as well. For example, the number of Novice licenses was very small until the 1970s, when the license became 5 year renewable. With a 1 or 2 year nonrenewable license, Novices were under considerable pressure to upgrade before the license ran out. Making the license 5 year renewable removed that pressure, so the numbers grew. The Conditional had a sizable percentage of US amateurs back in the 1950s and 1960s in part because, for about a decade after 1953, it was available to anyone who was more than 75 miles from a quarterly exam point. This included a lot of Americans. But in 1964 the "Conditional distance" was increased from 75 to 175 miles, and the number of exam points increased, so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional territory". The number of Conditionals then began to fall. And one of the major reasons for resistance to the "incentive licensing" changes of the late 1960s was the burden of travel it would impose on hams who didn't live near exam points. Another rules-change effect is vanity calls. Normally, an amateur license can only be renewed in the last 90 days before expiration, or in the two-year grace period after expiration. (FCC defines "expiration" as the end of the 10 year license term, not the final removal from the database after the grace period ends). But a vanity call can be requested at any time, and when one is issued, there's an automatic renewal. Changes to the vanity-call rules usually result in a surge of applications, which can distort the whole how-long-to-expiration picture. Since April 15, 2000, the Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced licenses have been closed to new issues. This is the second time this has happened to the Advanced; the first time was at the end of 1952. And just like the first time, the number of Advanceds is dropping very slowly compared to the other classes. After almost a decade of no new Advanceds, their numbers are down to about 60% of the May 2000 total. Novices are down to about a third of their May 2000 total, indicating lots of cancellations and upgrades. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the last Novice and Advanced class licenses to go away, either from upgrade or cancellation. Some Advanceds have vowed never to upgrade to Extra, so it may be a very long time. The fastest decline of all has been the Technician Plus, but that's understandable because of the rules change of April 2000. Not only are no new Technician Pluses being issued, but when an existing Tech Plus is submitted for renewal or vanity call, the FCC changes the class to Technician. This auto-reclassing reduces the number of Tech Pluses and increases the number of Techs in a way that is different from all other license classes. Also, any Novice who passes the Tech written gets a Technician, not a Technicians Plus. So the Technician class isn't just growing because of new hams, but because of upgrades from Novice and automatic class change from Technician Plus. This is almost identical to what happened to the General back in the 1970s when the Conditional was phased out. IOW, if you look at the number of Technicians without reference to the rules changes, it can (erroneously) appear that their numbers are growing only because lots of new hams are getting that license. But in fact there's a built-in additional source of Technicians from upgraded Novices and reclassified Tech Pluses. In fact, if you look at the combined number of Technicians and Technician Pluses over time, it hardly changes at all, and is actually down from where it was in 2000, in both total and percentages. All of this is a minor side issue to the really important things: How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air? 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| NI0C | 2009-12-17 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| To Jum, N2EY: Normally, I'm available on 80m (40, too) during the Winter months. However, this winter, I've chosen to put all my eggs in the Top Band basket in order to have a better antenna that will handle more power. Top Band is experiencing some periods of outstanding propagation this year, and I'm having a good time. For example-- two QSO's with CQ zone 18, and at least a shot at zone 23. (I've never even heard these zones on 80m.) TF4M reports making first-time ever qso's between Hawaii and Iceland on Top Band. He's got an outstanding website with audio clips; I even heard a recording of my qso with him there. Here at latitude 38+ degrees, even during the Winter solstice, we have a few hours of daylight available for a break from DX'ing top band and amusement on Top Bnad. Jim, your contributions concerning licensing history(as well as W5ESE's) are appreciated. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-17 NI0C: y'know, I think you have a very good point I can't do 160 but I can do 80 CW. Maybe I'll see you there. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-16 N2EY writes: "How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air?" Here's some more questions: How many licensed amateurs spend their hobby time in online discussions such as these, and what are they writing about? Are they assisting others in some way in the actual conduct of on the air radio operations, or are they merely stuck in a loop writing over and over again about licensing requirements and their own experiences with same? There are literally thousands of words written above, and we've heard most of it before. Only a handful of people read this garbage. I'm not one of them. I'm having too much fun on 160m CW this winter. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-16 KB6QXM: Thanks! The information posted is a start, but I don't have lots of old Callbooks. For information back to about 1996, the AH0A website has plenty. Maybe AH0A would consider adding historic data? -- There have been times when the number of US hams grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of factors influence growth, not just the license requirements. In fact, there is sometimes a negative correlation in that increasing the requirements correlated with more, not less, growth. As previously mentioned, the rules connected with the licenses must be known and understood to make logical conclusions about the growth as well. For example, the number of Novice licenses was very small until the 1970s, when the license became 5 year renewable. With a 1 or 2 year nonrenewable license, Novices were under considerable pressure to upgrade before the license ran out. Making the license 5 year renewable removed that pressure, so the numbers grew. The Conditional had a sizable percentage of US amateurs back in the 1950s and 1960s in part because, for about a decade after 1953, it was available to anyone who was more than 75 miles from a quarterly exam point. This included a lot of Americans. But in 1964 the "Conditional distance" was increased from 75 to 175 miles, and the number of exam points increased, so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional territory". The number of Conditionals then began to fall. And one of the major reasons for resistance to the "incentive licensing" changes of the late 1960s was the burden of travel it would impose on hams who didn't live near exam points. Another rules-change effect is vanity calls. Normally, an amateur license can only be renewed in the last 90 days before expiration, or in the two-year grace period after expiration. (FCC defines "expiration" as the end of the 10 year license term, not the final removal from the database after the grace period ends). But a vanity call can be requested at any time, and when one is issued, there's an automatic renewal. Changes to the vanity-call rules usually result in a surge of applications, which can distort the whole how-long-to-expiration picture. Since April 15, 2000, the Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced licenses have been closed to new issues. This is the second time this has happened to the Advanced; the first time was at the end of 1952. And just like the first time, the number of Advanceds is dropping very slowly compared to the other classes. After almost a decade of no new Advanceds, their numbers are down to about 60% of the May 2000 total. Novices are down to about a third of their May 2000 total, indicating lots of cancellations and upgrades. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the last Novice and Advanced class licenses to go away, either from upgrade or cancellation. Some Advanceds have vowed never to upgrade to Extra, so it may be a very long time. The fastest decline of all has been the Technician Plus, but that's understandable because of the rules change of April 2000. Not only are no new Technician Pluses being issued, but when an existing Tech Plus is submitted for renewal or vanity call, the FCC changes the class to Technician. This auto-reclassing reduces the number of Tech Pluses and increases the number of Techs in a way that is different from all other license classes. Also, any Novice who passes the Tech written gets a Technician, not a Technicians Plus. So the Technician class isn't just growing because of new hams, but because of upgrades from Novice and automatic class change from Technician Plus. This is almost identical to what happened to the General back in the 1970s when the Conditional was phased out. IOW, if you look at the number of Technicians without reference to the rules changes, it can (erroneously) appear that their numbers are growing only because lots of new hams are getting that license. But in fact there's a built-in additional source of Technicians from upgraded Novices and reclassified Tech Pluses. In fact, if you look at the combined number of Technicians and Technician Pluses over time, it hardly changes at all, and is actually down from where it was in 2000, in both total and percentages. All of this is a minor side issue to the really important things: How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air? 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| WA4KCN | 2009-12-17 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| W5ESE: Interesting numbers! - Couple more factors about the early 1930s boom: - back then, licensing records were all by hand, so a license that reached expiration might not be immediately removed from the files. - With such rapid growth, the "old timers" were completely outnumbered by the newcomers. (Of course in 1932 there had only been licensing for 20 years!) - The World Radio Conference of 1927 was a turning point for Amateur Radio. It was at that conference that Amateur Radio received worldwide treaty recognition as a separate and distinct radio service, with its own bands and regulations written into the treaty. There was also a uniform callsign arrangement, so that each country's stations had definitive prefixes. But that recognition came at a price. The new rules, which went into effect in 1929, required much cleaner signals than many ham rigs of the 1920s could produce without modification. Pure DC notes and other standards became mandatory requirements. Often a transmitter needed major rework or a complete rebuild to meet the "1929 rules". Morse Code and written testing became mandatory for all countries that issued amateur licenses. The US ham bands were cut down considerably by the new treaty. 40 went from 1000 kc to 300, 20 went from 2000 kc to 400. 30, 17, 15 and 12 meters weren't ham bands at all back then. You'd think that the higher transmitter standards plus the narrowed bands would have a put a real damper on growth, but the opposite happened. 73 de Jim, N2EY Jim have you considered writing a book on the history of amateur radio picking up where 200 Meters And Down left off. I think it would sell. 73 Russ WA4KCN Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-16 W5ESE: Interesting numbers! Couple more factors about the early 1930s boom: - back then, licensing records were all by hand, so a license that reached expiration might not be immediately removed from the files. - With such rapid growth, the "old timers" were completely outnumbered by the newcomers. (Of course in 1932 there had only been licensing for 20 years!) - The World Radio Conference of 1927 was a turning point for Amateur Radio. It was at that conference that Amateur Radio received worldwide treaty recognition as a separate and distinct radio service, with its own bands and regulations written into the treaty. There was also a uniform callsign arrangement, so that each country's stations had definitive prefixes. But that recognition came at a price. The new rules, which went into effect in 1929, required much cleaner signals than many ham rigs of the 1920s could produce without modification. Pure DC notes and other standards became mandatory requirements. Often a transmitter needed major rework or a complete rebuild to meet the "1929 rules". Morse Code and written testing became mandatory for all countries that issued amateur licenses. The US ham bands were cut down considerably by the new treaty. 40 went from 1000 kc to 300, 20 went from 2000 kc to 400. 30, 17, 15 and 12 meters weren't ham bands at all back then. You'd think that the higher transmitter standards plus the narrowed bands would have a put a real damper on growth, but the opposite happened. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : W5ESE on 2009-12-16 > There have been times when the number of US hams > grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, > the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when > the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as > the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of > factors influence growth, not just the license > requirements. Here's data from the late 20's to early 30's. The growth was quite spectacular. My source is the book '200 Meters and Down'. 1928 16928 1929 16829 1930 18994 1931 22739 1932 30374 1933 41555 1934 46390 1935 45561 1936 46850 By 1934-1935, the growth spurt had come to an end. The book cited several reasons for the growth: o term of the license extended to 3 years o separate license required for portable work o increase in leisure time owing to unemployment o decline in cost of equipment between 1929 to 1934 ($150 -> $50) o migration from the shortwave listening hobby 73 Scott W5ESE Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-16 KB6QXM: Thanks! The information posted is a start, but I don't have lots of old Callbooks. For information back to about 1996, the AH0A website has plenty. Maybe AH0A would consider adding historic data? -- There have been times when the number of US hams grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of factors influence growth, not just the license requirements. In fact, there is sometimes a negative correlation in that increasing the requirements correlated with more, not less, growth. As previously mentioned, the rules connected with the licenses must be known and understood to make logical conclusions about the growth as well. For example, the number of Novice licenses was very small until the 1970s, when the license became 5 year renewable. With a 1 or 2 year nonrenewable license, Novices were under considerable pressure to upgrade before the license ran out. Making the license 5 year renewable removed that pressure, so the numbers grew. The Conditional had a sizable percentage of US amateurs back in the 1950s and 1960s in part because, for about a decade after 1953, it was available to anyone who was more than 75 miles from a quarterly exam point. This included a lot of Americans. But in 1964 the "Conditional distance" was increased from 75 to 175 miles, and the number of exam points increased, so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional territory". The number of Conditionals then began to fall. And one of the major reasons for resistance to the "incentive licensing" changes of the late 1960s was the burden of travel it would impose on hams who didn't live near exam points. Another rules-change effect is vanity calls. Normally, an amateur license can only be renewed in the last 90 days before expiration, or in the two-year grace period after expiration. (FCC defines "expiration" as the end of the 10 year license term, not the final removal from the database after the grace period ends). But a vanity call can be requested at any time, and when one is issued, there's an automatic renewal. Changes to the vanity-call rules usually result in a surge of applications, which can distort the whole how-long-to-expiration picture. Since April 15, 2000, the Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced licenses have been closed to new issues. This is the second time this has happened to the Advanced; the first time was at the end of 1952. And just like the first time, the number of Advanceds is dropping very slowly compared to the other classes. After almost a decade of no new Advanceds, their numbers are down to about 60% of the May 2000 total. Novices are down to about a third of their May 2000 total, indicating lots of cancellations and upgrades. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the last Novice and Advanced class licenses to go away, either from upgrade or cancellation. Some Advanceds have vowed never to upgrade to Extra, so it may be a very long time. The fastest decline of all has been the Technician Plus, but that's understandable because of the rules change of April 2000. Not only are no new Technician Pluses being issued, but when an existing Tech Plus is submitted for renewal or vanity call, the FCC changes the class to Technician. This auto-reclassing reduces the number of Tech Pluses and increases the number of Techs in a way that is different from all other license classes. Also, any Novice who passes the Tech written gets a Technician, not a Technicians Plus. So the Technician class isn't just growing because of new hams, but because of upgrades from Novice and automatic class change from Technician Plus. This is almost identical to what happened to the General back in the 1970s when the Conditional was phased out. IOW, if you look at the number of Technicians without reference to the rules changes, it can (erroneously) appear that their numbers are growing only because lots of new hams are getting that license. But in fact there's a built-in additional source of Technicians from upgraded Novices and reclassified Tech Pluses. In fact, if you look at the combined number of Technicians and Technician Pluses over time, it hardly changes at all, and is actually down from where it was in 2000, in both total and percentages. All of this is a minor side issue to the really important things: How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air? 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| N2EY | 2009-12-17 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| NI0C: y'know, I think you have a very good point I can't do 160 but I can do 80 CW. Maybe I'll see you there. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-16 N2EY writes: "How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air?" Here's some more questions: How many licensed amateurs spend their hobby time in online discussions such as these, and what are they writing about? Are they assisting others in some way in the actual conduct of on the air radio operations, or are they merely stuck in a loop writing over and over again about licensing requirements and their own experiences with same? There are literally thousands of words written above, and we've heard most of it before. Only a handful of people read this garbage. I'm not one of them. I'm having too much fun on 160m CW this winter. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-16 KB6QXM: Thanks! The information posted is a start, but I don't have lots of old Callbooks. For information back to about 1996, the AH0A website has plenty. Maybe AH0A would consider adding historic data? -- There have been times when the number of US hams grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of factors influence growth, not just the license requirements. In fact, there is sometimes a negative correlation in that increasing the requirements correlated with more, not less, growth. As previously mentioned, the rules connected with the licenses must be known and understood to make logical conclusions about the growth as well. For example, the number of Novice licenses was very small until the 1970s, when the license became 5 year renewable. With a 1 or 2 year nonrenewable license, Novices were under considerable pressure to upgrade before the license ran out. Making the license 5 year renewable removed that pressure, so the numbers grew. The Conditional had a sizable percentage of US amateurs back in the 1950s and 1960s in part because, for about a decade after 1953, it was available to anyone who was more than 75 miles from a quarterly exam point. This included a lot of Americans. But in 1964 the "Conditional distance" was increased from 75 to 175 miles, and the number of exam points increased, so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional territory". The number of Conditionals then began to fall. And one of the major reasons for resistance to the "incentive licensing" changes of the late 1960s was the burden of travel it would impose on hams who didn't live near exam points. Another rules-change effect is vanity calls. Normally, an amateur license can only be renewed in the last 90 days before expiration, or in the two-year grace period after expiration. (FCC defines "expiration" as the end of the 10 year license term, not the final removal from the database after the grace period ends). But a vanity call can be requested at any time, and when one is issued, there's an automatic renewal. Changes to the vanity-call rules usually result in a surge of applications, which can distort the whole how-long-to-expiration picture. Since April 15, 2000, the Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced licenses have been closed to new issues. This is the second time this has happened to the Advanced; the first time was at the end of 1952. And just like the first time, the number of Advanceds is dropping very slowly compared to the other classes. After almost a decade of no new Advanceds, their numbers are down to about 60% of the May 2000 total. Novices are down to about a third of their May 2000 total, indicating lots of cancellations and upgrades. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the last Novice and Advanced class licenses to go away, either from upgrade or cancellation. Some Advanceds have vowed never to upgrade to Extra, so it may be a very long time. The fastest decline of all has been the Technician Plus, but that's understandable because of the rules change of April 2000. Not only are no new Technician Pluses being issued, but when an existing Tech Plus is submitted for renewal or vanity call, the FCC changes the class to Technician. This auto-reclassing reduces the number of Tech Pluses and increases the number of Techs in a way that is different from all other license classes. Also, any Novice who passes the Tech written gets a Technician, not a Technicians Plus. So the Technician class isn't just growing because of new hams, but because of upgrades from Novice and automatic class change from Technician Plus. This is almost identical to what happened to the General back in the 1970s when the Conditional was phased out. IOW, if you look at the number of Technicians without reference to the rules changes, it can (erroneously) appear that their numbers are growing only because lots of new hams are getting that license. But in fact there's a built-in additional source of Technicians from upgraded Novices and reclassified Tech Pluses. In fact, if you look at the combined number of Technicians and Technician Pluses over time, it hardly changes at all, and is actually down from where it was in 2000, in both total and percentages. All of this is a minor side issue to the really important things: How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air? 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| K6LHA | 2009-12-16 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| W5ESE wrote on December 16, 2009: "Here's data from the late 20's to early 30's. The growth was quite spectacular. My source is the book '200 Meters and Down'." "1928 16928" I'm sure that is "interesting" to historians. Feel free to compare the USA amateur radio regulations of 1928 to those of 2008, a mere 80 years later. :-) If a comparison is needed, research the WHOLE of 'radio' not just amateurs. You will find that 'radio' had just BEGUN to expand in other radio services. 'Radio' is only 113 years old, first demonstrated publicly as a communications medium in 1896. In Italy and Russia that same year...by a well-to-do Italian entrepreneur and a Russian academician. ................. W5ESE: "By 1934-1935, the growth spurt had come to an end." By July 2, 2003, the growth spurt in MODERN USA amateur radio licensees, all classes totalled, had come to an end. That peak has not even been caught up with by 16 Dec 09 (6 1/2 years later) and is still 9,962 shy of that peak. [source: www.hamdata.com on-line "fccstats" page and includes Club licenses in 2003 and 2009] ================= As far as the technology of 'radio' there is no applicable comparison because the gap due to the exploding states of the art of all electronics is so great by now that a comparison would be ludicrous. I can cite several sources for the simple reason I've been IN the electronics industry for so long and don't need any "official" ARRL publications to prove it. Some examples: Vacuum tubes were still in their childhood in 1928 and costly in small quantities. The term "semiconductor" wasn't in the electronics lexicon. The only semiconductor-like diodes were the Galena crystal detector (a form of point-contact diode), the selenium rectifier with its wonderful aroma when overheated, and a cadmium sulphide "photocell." Frequency control in amateur radios consisted of relying on the data from quartz crystal manufacturer's measurements or by L-C "wavemeters." Note: The Phase-Locked Loop had to wait until 1932 and its invention in France. The frequency region above 30 MHz might as well have been Neverland for radio amateurs due to its "strange, complex requirements." Compare that to 2008. Transistors were then a mature product and Integrated Circuits made many, many features/options available to cover most of the allocated frequency ranges with rather absolute accuracy down to 1 Hz increments. The Analog Devices AD9851 can provide the QRPer with selectable frequencies down to better than 1 Hz in a single IC and at very low DC power demand. AM voice can be emitted using the very same RF power amplifier used for "CW" or Data modes; it is the standard in ready-built amateur radios and does not require a large audio power amplifier to "modulate" a Class C PA stage. FM radio was proven as a communications mode by commercial designers prior to WWII. The USA has NO amateur radio band allocations below the bottom of the AM BC band yet the Europeans have had such for years. Amateur band allocations have long since been approved on up to the 300 GHz international allocation limit and ready-built VHF-UHF transceivers are on the market to go above the 70cm band. Data modes can easily go as high as USA amateur allocations allow thanks to modern solid-state circuitry and devices. There are a (few) VNAs or Vector Network Analyzer that yield very good complex impedance-admittance data on any frequency from the bottom of MF on up to UHF. Anyone can design, build, innovate anything they want now with assurance that lumped constant components are fully characterized in frequency. Very few do and their non-advocates trumpet the "Back to the Future" theme of "pioneering radio" (?) with "CW" on low HF bands in the new millennium. .................. W5ESE: "The book cited several reasons for the growth: o term of the license extended to 3 years" 80 years later (even 70 years later) the term was 10 years plus a 2-year grace period for renewal. NO ONE granted a new license in the last 9 years requires ANY testing in their whole life as long as they make mail or e-mail renewals within the regulated time. "o separate license required for portable work" No such thing needed now, but then that regulation would have been imposed by a predecessor to the FCC. The FCC was created in 1934. The concept of "portability" with a radio of tube architecture in the 1928-1934 era is ludicrous. :-) "o increase in leisure time owing to unemployment" The GREAT DEPRESSION in the USA began in 1928. To most in here it is merely a historical footnote. If they heard stories of it in their families it was from grandparents and great-grandparents. The unemployment rate reached 28% at its worst, roughly three out of ten of the available workforce. Yes, one could say it was "LEISURE TIME" from the comfort of being well-fed NOW. "o decline in cost of equipment between 1929 to 1934 ($150 -> $50)" :-) There was no such thing as "war surplus" radios available then as it was after WWII. I don't know if "dumpsters" (even close to the modern design) were available then for amateurs to scrounge for parts. As I remember it, there were just plain garbage dumps or burning pits in northern Illinois back then. :-) Had you mentioned 'radio' to anyone in the public THEN they would have thought of the then-new home entertainment medium of BROADCASTING. Few in the public knew about amateur radio THEN just as few in the general public know about amateur radio NOW. There are lots of copies of old radio equipment catalogs on the Internet that cover that time, PRICES included. I've downloaded a few just for old-radio references. Its a curiosity, nothing more. How would you describe those 1928 receivers insofar as "features," stripping away the marketing laguage phrases? Were they even comparable? I don't think so, but then, despite being born in that era, I have no love or affection for it. My radio world is not limited to just broadband AM and "CW" (with a BFO). ................ "o migration from the shortwave listening hobby" To HAVE a listening hobby requires stations there to listen to. In the 1928-1934 period AM broadcasting on MF had expanded to take on a semblance of a mature entertainment industry. It enabled the fledgling "radio parts industry" in the USA to grow prior to WWII. There really wasn't much to listen to on the "shortwave" (HF) bands yet since Europe was getting close to a shooting war and most of the European SW BC stations were oriented towards their own languages for coverage to their nations citizens in colonies or embassies elsewhere or to their maritime crews. No SW BC listener could decode commercial SSB data sent along the newly-established message carriers. Expansion into other-country broadcasting (i.e., to the general public) would not really become large until AFTER 1945 with most of the hostilites in Europe and Asia much reduced. Note: It will take considerable historical data searching to find ANY period of time when hostilities have actually ceased worldwide between 1945 and now! As a matter of fact, "SW BC" is now available through commsats, some of which require subscriptions for downlinking, some countries abandoning "SW" (HF) broadcasting. ==================== The 1928-1934 time period may be "interesting" to some but so few here have LIVED IN it, let alone lived through it that its "discussion" is limited to quibbling about a few "official" ARRL books or texts available elsewhere which the ARRL doesn't want to talk about (it can't resell them to make a profit). There is data about that era in electronics industry trade publications but those are about (gasp! horrors!) "professional electronics!" :-) 73, Len AF6AY (two years older than the FCC) Reply to a comment by : W5ESE on 2009-12-16 > There have been times when the number of US hams > grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, > the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when > the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as > the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of > factors influence growth, not just the license > requirements. Here's data from the late 20's to early 30's. The growth was quite spectacular. My source is the book '200 Meters and Down'. 1928 16928 1929 16829 1930 18994 1931 22739 1932 30374 1933 41555 1934 46390 1935 45561 1936 46850 By 1934-1935, the growth spurt had come to an end. The book cited several reasons for the growth: o term of the license extended to 3 years o separate license required for portable work o increase in leisure time owing to unemployment o decline in cost of equipment between 1929 to 1934 ($150 -> $50) o migration from the shortwave listening hobby 73 Scott W5ESE Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-16 KB6QXM: Thanks! The information posted is a start, but I don't have lots of old Callbooks. For information back to about 1996, the AH0A website has plenty. Maybe AH0A would consider adding historic data? -- There have been times when the number of US hams grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of factors influence growth, not just the license requirements. In fact, there is sometimes a negative correlation in that increasing the requirements correlated with more, not less, growth. As previously mentioned, the rules connected with the licenses must be known and understood to make logical conclusions about the growth as well. For example, the number of Novice licenses was very small until the 1970s, when the license became 5 year renewable. With a 1 or 2 year nonrenewable license, Novices were under considerable pressure to upgrade before the license ran out. Making the license 5 year renewable removed that pressure, so the numbers grew. The Conditional had a sizable percentage of US amateurs back in the 1950s and 1960s in part because, for about a decade after 1953, it was available to anyone who was more than 75 miles from a quarterly exam point. This included a lot of Americans. But in 1964 the "Conditional distance" was increased from 75 to 175 miles, and the number of exam points increased, so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional territory". The number of Conditionals then began to fall. And one of the major reasons for resistance to the "incentive licensing" changes of the late 1960s was the burden of travel it would impose on hams who didn't live near exam points. Another rules-change effect is vanity calls. Normally, an amateur license can only be renewed in the last 90 days before expiration, or in the two-year grace period after expiration. (FCC defines "expiration" as the end of the 10 year license term, not the final removal from the database after the grace period ends). But a vanity call can be requested at any time, and when one is issued, there's an automatic renewal. Changes to the vanity-call rules usually result in a surge of applications, which can distort the whole how-long-to-expiration picture. Since April 15, 2000, the Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced licenses have been closed to new issues. This is the second time this has happened to the Advanced; the first time was at the end of 1952. And just like the first time, the number of Advanceds is dropping very slowly compared to the other classes. After almost a decade of no new Advanceds, their numbers are down to about 60% of the May 2000 total. Novices are down to about a third of their May 2000 total, indicating lots of cancellations and upgrades. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the last Novice and Advanced class licenses to go away, either from upgrade or cancellation. Some Advanceds have vowed never to upgrade to Extra, so it may be a very long time. The fastest decline of all has been the Technician Plus, but that's understandable because of the rules change of April 2000. Not only are no new Technician Pluses being issued, but when an existing Tech Plus is submitted for renewal or vanity call, the FCC changes the class to Technician. This auto-reclassing reduces the number of Tech Pluses and increases the number of Techs in a way that is different from all other license classes. Also, any Novice who passes the Tech written gets a Technician, not a Technicians Plus. So the Technician class isn't just growing because of new hams, but because of upgrades from Novice and automatic class change from Technician Plus. This is almost identical to what happened to the General back in the 1970s when the Conditional was phased out. IOW, if you look at the number of Technicians without reference to the rules changes, it can (erroneously) appear that their numbers are growing only because lots of new hams are getting that license. But in fact there's a built-in additional source of Technicians from upgraded Novices and reclassified Tech Pluses. In fact, if you look at the combined number of Technicians and Technician Pluses over time, it hardly changes at all, and is actually down from where it was in 2000, in both total and percentages. All of this is a minor side issue to the really important things: How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air? 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| K6LHA | 2009-12-16 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| NI0C wrote on December 16, 2009: "How many licensed amateurs spend their hobby time in online discussions such as these, and what are they writing about?" As one out of nearly three quarter million USA amateur radio licensees, I wrote up a small study of the changes in USA amateur radio classes since the elimination of the code test from all USA amateur radio license examinations. Then I've replied to ten kinds of disrespect from long-timers who complain bitterly about us "newcomers not doing exactly as THEY say we SHOULD!" :-) ................. NI0C: "Are they assisting others in some way in the actual conduct of on the air radio operations, or are they merely stuck in a loop writing over and over again about licensing requirements and their own experiences with same?" Are you a JAG (Judge Amateur General) who has authority under the UCAJ (Un-unified Code of Amateur Justice)? Are you going to charge some of us with a violation of "Article 31" of the UCAJ and have us tried before a Summery Court of "winter-haired elders in amateurism?" :-) Ya know, "elder statesman," I examined the Regulations of USA Amateur Radio service very carefully prior to my license tests of 2007. Ya know what? NOWHERE in those regulations does it say a licensee MUST operate an RF emitter within USA-allocated amateur bands for any length of time during their 10-year license term. [amazing but true!] We aren't even required to make a LOG to show authorities except for Spread Spectrum. Not even to the Raddio Kops! Feel free to put on your shiny Raddio Kop shield and have the Raddio Poe-lice hustle me down to the lock-up (or is it 'lock-out'?). I am sure one of the very amateur Poe-lice will snarl "You'll never QSO in this town again!!!" :-) Go ahead, make my day...:-) ................. NI0C: "There are literally thousands of words written above, and we've heard most of it before. Only a handful of people read this garbage. I'm not one of them. I'm having too much fun on 160m CW this winter." Then WHY are YOU here? Do you have some bipolar disorder that compels you to jump into forums and snarl at all you don't like? That is NO way to "help" the "cause" of USA amateur radio, is it? ================= Well, now, you just go back to 160m "CW" and have ever so much fun. Nobody is stopping you. Odd it is that you jump in here decry others writing about regulations in here and then call it "garbage." Gosh, it must be that I am such a "newcomer" to radio and don't "have respect for my radio elders!" Yeah, that's it! I'm a mere 77 who started in HF radio 56 1/2 years ago as a militry professional. I'm such a "beginner!" We "beginners" should all be respectful of all you old-timers busy going back to the non-future past in amateurism...because YOU say we should. <shrug> Have a wonderful Holiday time Grinch. AF6AY Reply to a comment by : NI0C on 2009-12-16 N2EY writes: "How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air?" Here's some more questions: How many licensed amateurs spend their hobby time in online discussions such as these, and what are they writing about? Are they assisting others in some way in the actual conduct of on the air radio operations, or are they merely stuck in a loop writing over and over again about licensing requirements and their own experiences with same? There are literally thousands of words written above, and we've heard most of it before. Only a handful of people read this garbage. I'm not one of them. I'm having too much fun on 160m CW this winter. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-16 KB6QXM: Thanks! The information posted is a start, but I don't have lots of old Callbooks. For information back to about 1996, the AH0A website has plenty. Maybe AH0A would consider adding historic data? -- There have been times when the number of US hams grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of factors influence growth, not just the license requirements. In fact, there is sometimes a negative correlation in that increasing the requirements correlated with more, not less, growth. As previously mentioned, the rules connected with the licenses must be known and understood to make logical conclusions about the growth as well. For example, the number of Novice licenses was very small until the 1970s, when the license became 5 year renewable. With a 1 or 2 year nonrenewable license, Novices were under considerable pressure to upgrade before the license ran out. Making the license 5 year renewable removed that pressure, so the numbers grew. The Conditional had a sizable percentage of US amateurs back in the 1950s and 1960s in part because, for about a decade after 1953, it was available to anyone who was more than 75 miles from a quarterly exam point. This included a lot of Americans. But in 1964 the "Conditional distance" was increased from 75 to 175 miles, and the number of exam points increased, so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional territory". The number of Conditionals then began to fall. And one of the major reasons for resistance to the "incentive licensing" changes of the late 1960s was the burden of travel it would impose on hams who didn't live near exam points. Another rules-change effect is vanity calls. Normally, an amateur license can only be renewed in the last 90 days before expiration, or in the two-year grace period after expiration. (FCC defines "expiration" as the end of the 10 year license term, not the final removal from the database after the grace period ends). But a vanity call can be requested at any time, and when one is issued, there's an automatic renewal. Changes to the vanity-call rules usually result in a surge of applications, which can distort the whole how-long-to-expiration picture. Since April 15, 2000, the Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced licenses have been closed to new issues. This is the second time this has happened to the Advanced; the first time was at the end of 1952. And just like the first time, the number of Advanceds is dropping very slowly compared to the other classes. After almost a decade of no new Advanceds, their numbers are down to about 60% of the May 2000 total. Novices are down to about a third of their May 2000 total, indicating lots of cancellations and upgrades. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the last Novice and Advanced class licenses to go away, either from upgrade or cancellation. Some Advanceds have vowed never to upgrade to Extra, so it may be a very long time. The fastest decline of all has been the Technician Plus, but that's understandable because of the rules change of April 2000. Not only are no new Technician Pluses being issued, but when an existing Tech Plus is submitted for renewal or vanity call, the FCC changes the class to Technician. This auto-reclassing reduces the number of Tech Pluses and increases the number of Techs in a way that is different from all other license classes. Also, any Novice who passes the Tech written gets a Technician, not a Technicians Plus. So the Technician class isn't just growing because of new hams, but because of upgrades from Novice and automatic class change from Technician Plus. This is almost identical to what happened to the General back in the 1970s when the Conditional was phased out. IOW, if you look at the number of Technicians without reference to the rules changes, it can (erroneously) appear that their numbers are growing only because lots of new hams are getting that license. But in fact there's a built-in additional source of Technicians from upgraded Novices and reclassified Tech Pluses. In fact, if you look at the combined number of Technicians and Technician Pluses over time, it hardly changes at all, and is actually down from where it was in 2000, in both total and percentages. All of this is a minor side issue to the really important things: How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air? 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| N2EY | 2009-12-16 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| W5ESE: Interesting numbers! Couple more factors about the early 1930s boom: - back then, licensing records were all by hand, so a license that reached expiration might not be immediately removed from the files. - With such rapid growth, the "old timers" were completely outnumbered by the newcomers. (Of course in 1932 there had only been licensing for 20 years!) - The World Radio Conference of 1927 was a turning point for Amateur Radio. It was at that conference that Amateur Radio received worldwide treaty recognition as a separate and distinct radio service, with its own bands and regulations written into the treaty. There was also a uniform callsign arrangement, so that each country's stations had definitive prefixes. But that recognition came at a price. The new rules, which went into effect in 1929, required much cleaner signals than many ham rigs of the 1920s could produce without modification. Pure DC notes and other standards became mandatory requirements. Often a transmitter needed major rework or a complete rebuild to meet the "1929 rules". Morse Code and written testing became mandatory for all countries that issued amateur licenses. The US ham bands were cut down considerably by the new treaty. 40 went from 1000 kc to 300, 20 went from 2000 kc to 400. 30, 17, 15 and 12 meters weren't ham bands at all back then. You'd think that the higher transmitter standards plus the narrowed bands would have a put a real damper on growth, but the opposite happened. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : W5ESE on 2009-12-16 > There have been times when the number of US hams > grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, > the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when > the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as > the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of > factors influence growth, not just the license > requirements. Here's data from the late 20's to early 30's. The growth was quite spectacular. My source is the book '200 Meters and Down'. 1928 16928 1929 16829 1930 18994 1931 22739 1932 30374 1933 41555 1934 46390 1935 45561 1936 46850 By 1934-1935, the growth spurt had come to an end. The book cited several reasons for the growth: o term of the license extended to 3 years o separate license required for portable work o increase in leisure time owing to unemployment o decline in cost of equipment between 1929 to 1934 ($150 -> $50) o migration from the shortwave listening hobby 73 Scott W5ESE Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-16 KB6QXM: Thanks! The information posted is a start, but I don't have lots of old Callbooks. For information back to about 1996, the AH0A website has plenty. Maybe AH0A would consider adding historic data? -- There have been times when the number of US hams grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of factors influence growth, not just the license requirements. In fact, there is sometimes a negative correlation in that increasing the requirements correlated with more, not less, growth. As previously mentioned, the rules connected with the licenses must be known and understood to make logical conclusions about the growth as well. For example, the number of Novice licenses was very small until the 1970s, when the license became 5 year renewable. With a 1 or 2 year nonrenewable license, Novices were under considerable pressure to upgrade before the license ran out. Making the license 5 year renewable removed that pressure, so the numbers grew. The Conditional had a sizable percentage of US amateurs back in the 1950s and 1960s in part because, for about a decade after 1953, it was available to anyone who was more than 75 miles from a quarterly exam point. This included a lot of Americans. But in 1964 the "Conditional distance" was increased from 75 to 175 miles, and the number of exam points increased, so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional territory". The number of Conditionals then began to fall. And one of the major reasons for resistance to the "incentive licensing" changes of the late 1960s was the burden of travel it would impose on hams who didn't live near exam points. Another rules-change effect is vanity calls. Normally, an amateur license can only be renewed in the last 90 days before expiration, or in the two-year grace period after expiration. (FCC defines "expiration" as the end of the 10 year license term, not the final removal from the database after the grace period ends). But a vanity call can be requested at any time, and when one is issued, there's an automatic renewal. Changes to the vanity-call rules usually result in a surge of applications, which can distort the whole how-long-to-expiration picture. Since April 15, 2000, the Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced licenses have been closed to new issues. This is the second time this has happened to the Advanced; the first time was at the end of 1952. And just like the first time, the number of Advanceds is dropping very slowly compared to the other classes. After almost a decade of no new Advanceds, their numbers are down to about 60% of the May 2000 total. Novices are down to about a third of their May 2000 total, indicating lots of cancellations and upgrades. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the last Novice and Advanced class licenses to go away, either from upgrade or cancellation. Some Advanceds have vowed never to upgrade to Extra, so it may be a very long time. The fastest decline of all has been the Technician Plus, but that's understandable because of the rules change of April 2000. Not only are no new Technician Pluses being issued, but when an existing Tech Plus is submitted for renewal or vanity call, the FCC changes the class to Technician. This auto-reclassing reduces the number of Tech Pluses and increases the number of Techs in a way that is different from all other license classes. Also, any Novice who passes the Tech written gets a Technician, not a Technicians Plus. So the Technician class isn't just growing because of new hams, but because of upgrades from Novice and automatic class change from Technician Plus. This is almost identical to what happened to the General back in the 1970s when the Conditional was phased out. IOW, if you look at the number of Technicians without reference to the rules changes, it can (erroneously) appear that their numbers are growing only because lots of new hams are getting that license. But in fact there's a built-in additional source of Technicians from upgraded Novices and reclassified Tech Pluses. In fact, if you look at the combined number of Technicians and Technician Pluses over time, it hardly changes at all, and is actually down from where it was in 2000, in both total and percentages. All of this is a minor side issue to the really important things: How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air? 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| KB9MWR | 2009-12-16 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| The most alarming trend I noticed in the last three years was that most of the new hams in my area have no electronics background or interest. Most of the new guys are community emergency response ARRL boyscouts. These numbers mean little to me. They are far more important to the ARRL's membership department and for the commercial ham manufactures, etc. What is the average age of hams today? And what is their interest in ham radio? Both of these questions you can't tell by parsing a FCC database.... Both are also the result of ham radio PR from a national level. Reply to a comment by : W5ESE on 2009-12-16 > There have been times when the number of US hams > grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, > the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when > the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as > the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of > factors influence growth, not just the license > requirements. Here's data from the late 20's to early 30's. The growth was quite spectacular. My source is the book '200 Meters and Down'. 1928 16928 1929 16829 1930 18994 1931 22739 1932 30374 1933 41555 1934 46390 1935 45561 1936 46850 By 1934-1935, the growth spurt had come to an end. The book cited several reasons for the growth: o term of the license extended to 3 years o separate license required for portable work o increase in leisure time owing to unemployment o decline in cost of equipment between 1929 to 1934 ($150 -> $50) o migration from the shortwave listening hobby 73 Scott W5ESE Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-16 KB6QXM: Thanks! The information posted is a start, but I don't have lots of old Callbooks. For information back to about 1996, the AH0A website has plenty. Maybe AH0A would consider adding historic data? -- There have been times when the number of US hams grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of factors influence growth, not just the license requirements. In fact, there is sometimes a negative correlation in that increasing the requirements correlated with more, not less, growth. As previously mentioned, the rules connected with the licenses must be known and understood to make logical conclusions about the growth as well. For example, the number of Novice licenses was very small until the 1970s, when the license became 5 year renewable. With a 1 or 2 year nonrenewable license, Novices were under considerable pressure to upgrade before the license ran out. Making the license 5 year renewable removed that pressure, so the numbers grew. The Conditional had a sizable percentage of US amateurs back in the 1950s and 1960s in part because, for about a decade after 1953, it was available to anyone who was more than 75 miles from a quarterly exam point. This included a lot of Americans. But in 1964 the "Conditional distance" was increased from 75 to 175 miles, and the number of exam points increased, so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional territory". The number of Conditionals then began to fall. And one of the major reasons for resistance to the "incentive licensing" changes of the late 1960s was the burden of travel it would impose on hams who didn't live near exam points. Another rules-change effect is vanity calls. Normally, an amateur license can only be renewed in the last 90 days before expiration, or in the two-year grace period after expiration. (FCC defines "expiration" as the end of the 10 year license term, not the final removal from the database after the grace period ends). But a vanity call can be requested at any time, and when one is issued, there's an automatic renewal. Changes to the vanity-call rules usually result in a surge of applications, which can distort the whole how-long-to-expiration picture. Since April 15, 2000, the Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced licenses have been closed to new issues. This is the second time this has happened to the Advanced; the first time was at the end of 1952. And just like the first time, the number of Advanceds is dropping very slowly compared to the other classes. After almost a decade of no new Advanceds, their numbers are down to about 60% of the May 2000 total. Novices are down to about a third of their May 2000 total, indicating lots of cancellations and upgrades. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the last Novice and Advanced class licenses to go away, either from upgrade or cancellation. Some Advanceds have vowed never to upgrade to Extra, so it may be a very long time. The fastest decline of all has been the Technician Plus, but that's understandable because of the rules change of April 2000. Not only are no new Technician Pluses being issued, but when an existing Tech Plus is submitted for renewal or vanity call, the FCC changes the class to Technician. This auto-reclassing reduces the number of Tech Pluses and increases the number of Techs in a way that is different from all other license classes. Also, any Novice who passes the Tech written gets a Technician, not a Technicians Plus. So the Technician class isn't just growing because of new hams, but because of upgrades from Novice and automatic class change from Technician Plus. This is almost identical to what happened to the General back in the 1970s when the Conditional was phased out. IOW, if you look at the number of Technicians without reference to the rules changes, it can (erroneously) appear that their numbers are growing only because lots of new hams are getting that license. But in fact there's a built-in additional source of Technicians from upgraded Novices and reclassified Tech Pluses. In fact, if you look at the combined number of Technicians and Technician Pluses over time, it hardly changes at all, and is actually down from where it was in 2000, in both total and percentages. All of this is a minor side issue to the really important things: How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air? 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| W5ESE | 2009-12-16 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| > There have been times when the number of US hams > grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, > the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when > the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as > the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of > factors influence growth, not just the license > requirements. Here's data from the late 20's to early 30's. The growth was quite spectacular. My source is the book '200 Meters and Down'. 1928 16928 1929 16829 1930 18994 1931 22739 1932 30374 1933 41555 1934 46390 1935 45561 1936 46850 By 1934-1935, the growth spurt had come to an end. The book cited several reasons for the growth: o term of the license extended to 3 years o separate license required for portable work o increase in leisure time owing to unemployment o decline in cost of equipment between 1929 to 1934 ($150 -> $50) o migration from the shortwave listening hobby 73 Scott W5ESE Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-16 KB6QXM: Thanks! The information posted is a start, but I don't have lots of old Callbooks. For information back to about 1996, the AH0A website has plenty. Maybe AH0A would consider adding historic data? -- There have been times when the number of US hams grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of factors influence growth, not just the license requirements. In fact, there is sometimes a negative correlation in that increasing the requirements correlated with more, not less, growth. As previously mentioned, the rules connected with the licenses must be known and understood to make logical conclusions about the growth as well. For example, the number of Novice licenses was very small until the 1970s, when the license became 5 year renewable. With a 1 or 2 year nonrenewable license, Novices were under considerable pressure to upgrade before the license ran out. Making the license 5 year renewable removed that pressure, so the numbers grew. The Conditional had a sizable percentage of US amateurs back in the 1950s and 1960s in part because, for about a decade after 1953, it was available to anyone who was more than 75 miles from a quarterly exam point. This included a lot of Americans. But in 1964 the "Conditional distance" was increased from 75 to 175 miles, and the number of exam points increased, so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional territory". The number of Conditionals then began to fall. And one of the major reasons for resistance to the "incentive licensing" changes of the late 1960s was the burden of travel it would impose on hams who didn't live near exam points. Another rules-change effect is vanity calls. Normally, an amateur license can only be renewed in the last 90 days before expiration, or in the two-year grace period after expiration. (FCC defines "expiration" as the end of the 10 year license term, not the final removal from the database after the grace period ends). But a vanity call can be requested at any time, and when one is issued, there's an automatic renewal. Changes to the vanity-call rules usually result in a surge of applications, which can distort the whole how-long-to-expiration picture. Since April 15, 2000, the Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced licenses have been closed to new issues. This is the second time this has happened to the Advanced; the first time was at the end of 1952. And just like the first time, the number of Advanceds is dropping very slowly compared to the other classes. After almost a decade of no new Advanceds, their numbers are down to about 60% of the May 2000 total. Novices are down to about a third of their May 2000 total, indicating lots of cancellations and upgrades. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the last Novice and Advanced class licenses to go away, either from upgrade or cancellation. Some Advanceds have vowed never to upgrade to Extra, so it may be a very long time. The fastest decline of all has been the Technician Plus, but that's understandable because of the rules change of April 2000. Not only are no new Technician Pluses being issued, but when an existing Tech Plus is submitted for renewal or vanity call, the FCC changes the class to Technician. This auto-reclassing reduces the number of Tech Pluses and increases the number of Techs in a way that is different from all other license classes. Also, any Novice who passes the Tech written gets a Technician, not a Technicians Plus. So the Technician class isn't just growing because of new hams, but because of upgrades from Novice and automatic class change from Technician Plus. This is almost identical to what happened to the General back in the 1970s when the Conditional was phased out. IOW, if you look at the number of Technicians without reference to the rules changes, it can (erroneously) appear that their numbers are growing only because lots of new hams are getting that license. But in fact there's a built-in additional source of Technicians from upgraded Novices and reclassified Tech Pluses. In fact, if you look at the combined number of Technicians and Technician Pluses over time, it hardly changes at all, and is actually down from where it was in 2000, in both total and percentages. All of this is a minor side issue to the really important things: How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air? 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| NI0C | 2009-12-16 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| N2EY writes: "How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air?" Here's some more questions: How many licensed amateurs spend their hobby time in online discussions such as these, and what are they writing about? Are they assisting others in some way in the actual conduct of on the air radio operations, or are they merely stuck in a loop writing over and over again about licensing requirements and their own experiences with same? There are literally thousands of words written above, and we've heard most of it before. Only a handful of people read this garbage. I'm not one of them. I'm having too much fun on 160m CW this winter. 73, Chuck NI0C Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-16 KB6QXM: Thanks! The information posted is a start, but I don't have lots of old Callbooks. For information back to about 1996, the AH0A website has plenty. Maybe AH0A would consider adding historic data? -- There have been times when the number of US hams grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of factors influence growth, not just the license requirements. In fact, there is sometimes a negative correlation in that increasing the requirements correlated with more, not less, growth. As previously mentioned, the rules connected with the licenses must be known and understood to make logical conclusions about the growth as well. For example, the number of Novice licenses was very small until the 1970s, when the license became 5 year renewable. With a 1 or 2 year nonrenewable license, Novices were under considerable pressure to upgrade before the license ran out. Making the license 5 year renewable removed that pressure, so the numbers grew. The Conditional had a sizable percentage of US amateurs back in the 1950s and 1960s in part because, for about a decade after 1953, it was available to anyone who was more than 75 miles from a quarterly exam point. This included a lot of Americans. But in 1964 the "Conditional distance" was increased from 75 to 175 miles, and the number of exam points increased, so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional territory". The number of Conditionals then began to fall. And one of the major reasons for resistance to the "incentive licensing" changes of the late 1960s was the burden of travel it would impose on hams who didn't live near exam points. Another rules-change effect is vanity calls. Normally, an amateur license can only be renewed in the last 90 days before expiration, or in the two-year grace period after expiration. (FCC defines "expiration" as the end of the 10 year license term, not the final removal from the database after the grace period ends). But a vanity call can be requested at any time, and when one is issued, there's an automatic renewal. Changes to the vanity-call rules usually result in a surge of applications, which can distort the whole how-long-to-expiration picture. Since April 15, 2000, the Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced licenses have been closed to new issues. This is the second time this has happened to the Advanced; the first time was at the end of 1952. And just like the first time, the number of Advanceds is dropping very slowly compared to the other classes. After almost a decade of no new Advanceds, their numbers are down to about 60% of the May 2000 total. Novices are down to about a third of their May 2000 total, indicating lots of cancellations and upgrades. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the last Novice and Advanced class licenses to go away, either from upgrade or cancellation. Some Advanceds have vowed never to upgrade to Extra, so it may be a very long time. The fastest decline of all has been the Technician Plus, but that's understandable because of the rules change of April 2000. Not only are no new Technician Pluses being issued, but when an existing Tech Plus is submitted for renewal or vanity call, the FCC changes the class to Technician. This auto-reclassing reduces the number of Tech Pluses and increases the number of Techs in a way that is different from all other license classes. Also, any Novice who passes the Tech written gets a Technician, not a Technicians Plus. So the Technician class isn't just growing because of new hams, but because of upgrades from Novice and automatic class change from Technician Plus. This is almost identical to what happened to the General back in the 1970s when the Conditional was phased out. IOW, if you look at the number of Technicians without reference to the rules changes, it can (erroneously) appear that their numbers are growing only because lots of new hams are getting that license. But in fact there's a built-in additional source of Technicians from upgraded Novices and reclassified Tech Pluses. In fact, if you look at the combined number of Technicians and Technician Pluses over time, it hardly changes at all, and is actually down from where it was in 2000, in both total and percentages. All of this is a minor side issue to the really important things: How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air? 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| N2EY | 2009-12-16 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| KB6QXM: Thanks! The information posted is a start, but I don't have lots of old Callbooks. For information back to about 1996, the AH0A website has plenty. Maybe AH0A would consider adding historic data? -- There have been times when the number of US hams grew rapidly, such as during the early 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1970s, and other times when the numbers grew slowly or not at all, such as the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. All sorts of factors influence growth, not just the license requirements. In fact, there is sometimes a negative correlation in that increasing the requirements correlated with more, not less, growth. As previously mentioned, the rules connected with the licenses must be known and understood to make logical conclusions about the growth as well. For example, the number of Novice licenses was very small until the 1970s, when the license became 5 year renewable. With a 1 or 2 year nonrenewable license, Novices were under considerable pressure to upgrade before the license ran out. Making the license 5 year renewable removed that pressure, so the numbers grew. The Conditional had a sizable percentage of US amateurs back in the 1950s and 1960s in part because, for about a decade after 1953, it was available to anyone who was more than 75 miles from a quarterly exam point. This included a lot of Americans. But in 1964 the "Conditional distance" was increased from 75 to 175 miles, and the number of exam points increased, so that very little of CONUS was "Conditional territory". The number of Conditionals then began to fall. And one of the major reasons for resistance to the "incentive licensing" changes of the late 1960s was the burden of travel it would impose on hams who didn't live near exam points. Another rules-change effect is vanity calls. Normally, an amateur license can only be renewed in the last 90 days before expiration, or in the two-year grace period after expiration. (FCC defines "expiration" as the end of the 10 year license term, not the final removal from the database after the grace period ends). But a vanity call can be requested at any time, and when one is issued, there's an automatic renewal. Changes to the vanity-call rules usually result in a surge of applications, which can distort the whole how-long-to-expiration picture. Since April 15, 2000, the Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced licenses have been closed to new issues. This is the second time this has happened to the Advanced; the first time was at the end of 1952. And just like the first time, the number of Advanceds is dropping very slowly compared to the other classes. After almost a decade of no new Advanceds, their numbers are down to about 60% of the May 2000 total. Novices are down to about a third of their May 2000 total, indicating lots of cancellations and upgrades. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the last Novice and Advanced class licenses to go away, either from upgrade or cancellation. Some Advanceds have vowed never to upgrade to Extra, so it may be a very long time. The fastest decline of all has been the Technician Plus, but that's understandable because of the rules change of April 2000. Not only are no new Technician Pluses being issued, but when an existing Tech Plus is submitted for renewal or vanity call, the FCC changes the class to Technician. This auto-reclassing reduces the number of Tech Pluses and increases the number of Techs in a way that is different from all other license classes. Also, any Novice who passes the Tech written gets a Technician, not a Technicians Plus. So the Technician class isn't just growing because of new hams, but because of upgrades from Novice and automatic class change from Technician Plus. This is almost identical to what happened to the General back in the 1970s when the Conditional was phased out. IOW, if you look at the number of Technicians without reference to the rules changes, it can (erroneously) appear that their numbers are growing only because lots of new hams are getting that license. But in fact there's a built-in additional source of Technicians from upgraded Novices and reclassified Tech Pluses. In fact, if you look at the combined number of Technicians and Technician Pluses over time, it hardly changes at all, and is actually down from where it was in 2000, in both total and percentages. All of this is a minor side issue to the really important things: How many *active* amateurs are there? What are they doing on the air? 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| KB6QXM | 2009-12-15 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| Jim N2EY wrote: What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. Jim, I will build the website for you, if you desire. Let me know. 73 Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-15 KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| K6LHA | 2009-12-15 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| KB6QXM, applauding "CW," wrote on December 15, 2009: "Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job." In reality, his numbers have NO bearing on the three years following the elimination of morse code testing in USA amateur radio license examinations. That three year period was stated as such in the title of this article. He could just as well have cribbed statistics beginning with the creation of the FCC in 1934 and be just as "applicable." At NO time since the 'Restructuring' of USA amateur radio NINE YEARS AGO has there been any stoppage of the ABILITY and OPTION of ALL to use International Morse Code on USA amateur radio bands. There have been regulations FORBIDDING modes/modulations other than "CW" in most USA amateur radio bands, yet "CW" is allowed almost anywhere in USA amateur radio bands NOW. The only "elimination" was to EXCLUSIVITY on some HF bands such as expansion of voice modes in the 80-75m band nearly a decade ago. Legally any USA radio amateur can operate "CW" in the upper part of 80m band. It is IN the USA (FCC) regulations. The curious part of these "CW Bigotry" displays by a few long-timers overlooks the legal ABILITY and OPTION for *ANY* USA radio amateur licensee to USE OOK CW as they wish, REGARDLESS of whether or not they tested for International Morse Code cognition in the USA at any time in the past. NO code test is required to USE the mode of code, any class! [amazing, but true] A few barracks lawyers follow the ARRL standard in "sinning by omission." For example, a constant 'rebuke' is "Since 2000 Technician-Plus have been renewed as Technician." N2EY uses that often, almost always after I have made some remark in amateur radio forums that mentions Technician class. :-) Jimmy never states that, of the SIX classes of USA amateur radio licenses existing prior to mid-2000, THREE are NOT being issued as NEW. A Renewal of an existing license is NOT a NEW license grant. According to FCC regulations, NO NEW Novice licenses were granted in the last 9 1/2 years; NO NEW Advanced class licenses were granted in the last 9 1/2 years. All of that has been KNOWN for 10 years since the Memorandum Report and Order establishing 'Restructuring' was published in December 1999. Constantly repeating it year after year does no good, just wastes archive space on amateur radio forums. A few others, vainly looking for something to be negative about, cite things that were "overlooked" such as AGE of licensees. Since that data was not available through the sole source of USA amateur radio license data (the FCC publicly-available ULS database), it could not be shown NOW. While PAST history may be "interesting" to SOME, let's face it, the FCC was created in 1934 and is 75 years old this year. It is the ONLY civil radio regulatory agency in the USA. To argue some nebulous connection to regulations of the 1930s, the 1940s, the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, etc. for "keeping CERTAIN regulations (forever and ever)" in the USA amaetur radio service is invalid, facetious, and quite a bit ludicrous. The insistance of some that CERTAIN regulations be KEPT because those 'somebodies' met regulations of LONG AGO is merely self-serving and vain on their part. They think they can posture and preen because anyone who was involved in radio communications a half-century or more ago is extremely rare on this forum. <shrug> It does no good for the USA amateur radio service to MAINTAIN and NOURISH the deep divide in the service created by these long-timers who favor CERTAIN modes and modulations. That is the antithesis of "keeping up the state of the art." It is regressing or stagnation of skills despite their claimed proficiency. For example, in the more recent "Mad Scientist" article on e-ham there was an opening remark about "EMCOM weenies." "Weenies" is a colloquial pejorative, in this case directed as a sneering remark about newcomers. If it was intended as "humor," then it failed a test of applicability to a large group such as over-700-thousand licensed radio amateurs in the USA. USA amateur radio regulations had a MAJOR CHANGE in the year 2000. The number of NEW license classes was changed from SIX to just THREE and International Morse Code cognition rate dropped to 5 words per minute equivalent maximum for ALL class examinations needing code testing. That came after a long, protracted Comment period (extended twice) on NPRM 98-143 and a final decision published by the FCC in December 1999. That was NINE YEARS AGO. The decision was LAW. Following the Report and Order on 'Restructuring' came no less than EIGHTEEN Petitions, all aimed at trying to repeal Restructuring or to change it EVEN MORE, most regressing to the state of older regulations. Those might have been well-intentioned for a clique(s) but did not address the desires for maintenance of regulations for present and future citizens, licensed in anything or not. The FCC manages to explain their decisions clearly in every Memorandum Report and Order. That a particular decision "goes against" some clique is only unfortunate for them. That clique LOST and does not have grace or manners to accept such loss. What appears to be the most "damaging" to the collective prides of long-timers was NPRM 05-235 released on 19 July 2005. Its main item was the elimination of ALL code testing for any license class. NPRM 05-235 gathered 3,994 Comments and Replies to Comments plus TWO MORE Petitions for Reconsideration that came in after the close of Comments on 25 Nov 05. Those two Petitions by Mssrs Ward and Gordon were both dismissed. Memorandum Report and Order 06-178 was published on 19 December 2006 with an effective date to be established later. That date of cessation of code testing was 23 Feb 07. That was TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO. The decision is LAW. The FCC does NOT have any charter to nourish the prideful hunger of long-timers seeking to keep their braggadoccio well-fed indefinitely. That anyone passed a federal test in some skill a long time ago does not mean it defines these individuals as being superior to ordinary folk for eternity. In NO way is their opinion somehow "better" than ordinary folk, nor is it imprimateur of their being some kind of "boss" who can establish "what is good for all." Stubbornly, so many think that some or all of those syndromes do not apply to their own selfish illness. Thus the deep divide is maintained in USA amateur radio, true hobbyists on one-hand, the vocal bigots who want desperately to CONTROL amateur radio in their own image on the other side. We cannot have it both ways. ========================= There IS some hope for the code cliques and those who demand regression to 'their' standards. Simply craft a well-worded Petition to the FCC seeking to change regulations. That is a lawful process, has been done often in the past. Such a Petition may or may not be disseminated for public commentary, depending on the opinion of the FCC. However, there were 18 Petitions up before public scrutiny between establishment of 'Restructuring' and the NPRM on code test elimination. Several of those Petitions were a cross-purposes of other Petitions. Two more Petitions were disseminated AFTER the code test elimination law, both demanding a return of code testing. Those two ('Ward' and 'Gordon') were eventually dismissed. The fact that a Petition is published does NOT mean it is universally liked/worshipped/damned. It is merely up in the public eye, a public that does NOT share your divine wisdom nor guru-guidance. One has to be mentally STRONG to put up a Peition and then face the consequences of public opinion. ========================== Cliques can forget the Petition idea and just sit in forums and newsgroups and bitch and moan for ever, damning newcomers via all sorts of pejoratives. That only reinforces evidence of continuing division in amateur radio. That division was there earlier than 15 years ago and shows no sign of ceasing. The pollyanish phrasing "amateur brotherhood" is a hypocritical nonsense statement. It is a vaporous myth. ========================== Fair warning: Code cliques will eventually be outnumberd. As of this morning (15 Dec 09) there were 344,455 Technician licensees out of a total 716,779 individual licensees in the USA. Just that ONE class has 48.06 percent of ALL individual licensees. In the last 12 months 30,865 NEW licensees were added to the USA total but 26,727 EXPIRED. The net gain in numbers is not much but it is more fantasy voyaging to presume those newcomers are all favoring morse mode. AF6AY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| N2EY | 2009-12-15 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| KB6QXM writes: "Good research. Well written. Good Job." TNX, but it wasn't much, really. What would be really cool IMHO would be to get the numbers from all of the various Callbooks down through the years and put them on a website. Complete with graphs to show the changes. 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-15 Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| KB6QXM | 2009-12-15 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| Jim, N2EY. Good research. Well written. Good Job. Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-14 Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| N2EY | 2009-12-14 | |
|---|---|---|
| US Amateur Radio License Numbers | ||
| Here's some data on the number of US amateur operators over the years. Source of each set of numbers is also shown. In some cases the exact date of the numbers is not given in the source. Also, it is not clear whether the numbers include licenses that are expired but in the grace period, or only current unexpired licenses. It's important to know the history surrounding the license rules if one wants to intelligently analyze the data. Failure to take these facts into account will lead to erroneous conclusions. Some examples: 1) Until the mid-1970s, the Novice was a nonrenewable license with a term of one or two years. In the mid-1970s it became a 5 year renewable license like all the others. 2) From 1953 until 1967, the Advanced was closed to new issues but existing Advanceds could renew and modify their licenses 3) The Conditional license was a separate class of license equivalent to a General-by-mail until the mid-1970s. It was phased out by renewal of all Conditionals as Generals. 4) The license term of renewable US amateur licenses was 5 years until 1984, when it became ten years. One result of this was that no US amateur licenses expired from 1989 until 1994. 5) There were time periods when Novices had privileges that Technicians did not. During some of that time, it was possible to hold both classes of license simultaneously. 6) The Technician license was created in 1951, and until 1991 all Technicians had to pass a 5 wpm code test. In 1991 the FCC dropped the code test for Technician, but did not immediately create a new license class or other method of differentiating code-tested Technicians, who had some HF privileges, from non-code-tested Technicians, who did not. In June, 1994, the Technician Plus license was created by FCC to separate the two groups, with code-tested Technicians be reclassified as Technician Pluses upon renewal. In April 2000, FCC reversed direction and began reclassifying all Technician Pluses as Technicians upon renewal. No new Technician Pluses were issued after the change. The end result is that since 1991 the Technician class has consisted of a mixture of code-tested and noncodetested amateurs. Since 2007 they have all had the same privileges. However it is an error to assume that the growth or decrease of the Technician or Technician Plus is due solely to the 1991 changes. The number of current Technician Pluses is now less than 350, down from over 128,000 ten years ago. There's more; those are just the high points. Now for some numbers: --- Year End 1948 (from QST March 1949, referencing FCC tabulation) 76,666 operators, 77,338 stations. --- 1963 (from: QST December 1963, referencing Radio Amateur Callbook, Winter edition) Operators in CONUS: Novice: 16,795 Technician: 58,656 Conditional: 40,259 General: 95,250 Advanced: 40,296 Extra: 3,164 Operators outside CONUS (AK, HI, possessions, not broken down by license class): 4,167 Total Operators: 258,587 --- End of September 1978 (from QST January 1979, referencing FCC issued numbers) Novice: 62,930 Technician: 68,281 General: 117,805 Advanced: 82,454 Extra: 21,792 Total Operators: 353,262 --- Year End 1978 (from QST April 1979) Novice: 62,856 Technician: 68,738 General: 118,808 Advanced: 83,436 Extra: 22,498 Total Operators: 356,336 --- January 31, 1984 (from QST April 1984) Novice: 85,482 Technician: 77,518 General: 118,023 Advanced: 95,782 Extra: 34,674 Total Operators: 411,479 --- September 30 1985 / September 30 1986 (from QST December 1986) Novice: 76,337 / 79,107 Technician: 83,117 / 86,148 General: 117,340 / 116,864 Advanced: 97,825 / 98,195 Extra: 37,968 / 40,768 Total Operators: 412,587 / 421,082 --- May 31, 1987 (from QST September 1987) Novice: 86,175 Technician: 87,631 General: 115,045 Advanced: 97,880 Extra: 42,136 Total Operators: 428,867 --- March/April/May 1988 (from QST August 1988) Novice: 82,705 / 82,780 / 82.675 Technician: 95,256 / 95,810 / 96,888 General: 113,900 / 113,623 / 113,648 Advanced: 98,505 / 98,403 / 98,493 Extra: 44,617 / 44,819 / 45,208 Total Operators: 434,983 / 435.435 / 436,912 --- 1993 Radio Amateur's Callbook Novice: 99,193 Technician: 184,392 General: 122,735 Advanced: 106,964 Extra: 59,382 Total Operators: 572,666 --- 73 de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : KB6QXM on 2009-12-13 Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| KB6QXM | 2009-12-13 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: 2003 was due to a bubble | ||
| Steve, K4YZ: In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Well we have all heard of what happened on Valentine's Day in Chicago. Valentine's day 1993 was the day that was the beginning of the end for ham radio, as I and many hams knew it. I remember that day well. Fitting that the new rule was implemented on that day. Reply to a comment by : K4YZ on 2009-12-13 In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. Actually, it was Valentine's Day, 1991 73 Steve, K4YZ Reply to a comment by : KASSY on 2009-12-06 I talked with an ARRL staffer a few years ago at a hamfest and she told me an interesting thing...well, observation? ARRL's conjecture? In 1993 the no-code tech license came into being. A major push between ARRL and emcomm support agencies encouraged people to get licensed, and there was a HUGE influx of hams at that time. But these people were not interested in ham radio, they were interested in emergency preparedness. For most people, communications is not high on the list for emergency preparedness. So these new hams, in the emergency preparedness classes, learned that their first focus was on developing a sustainable water and food supply, and learning how to stay properly sheltered. They started putting time into that instead of ham radio. And, they learned quickly that ARES/RACES have stultifylingly complicated hierachies, pseudo-government, that nobody in their right mind would want to be part of - although power mongers love them. So, we lost almost the entire "generation" of new hams that came into the hobby in 1993 - their licenses expired in 2003. Therefore, the key learning from 2003 is not that, for some reason, there was a peak in 2003, but finally, an artificial bubble had passed, and we returned to a more normal condition. Bringing people into the hobby under the guise of emergency preparedness is always temporary. As soon as the world, overall, feels less tense, the people who got into it for "emergency preparedness" lose interest. BTW, ham radio is getting younger. Another chance encounter I had at a hamfest was with a Quality Engineer - these people are the world's best at understanding what statistics and population studies show. He said that while the average age of ham radio has increased from 59 to 61 since the mid-70s, the average age of America has increased by 8 years. So, ham radio is younger, comparitively. I noticed at the last few hamfests I attended, that there were way more young people than I have ever seen at ham functions. They don't go to clubs, though - their generation communicates on Twitter and by texting, not at in-person meetings. Clubs may well be dying, but not because ham radio is dying. It's just that the youth are not so interested in clubs. Gotta watch what I say here, some people would call me young. I do clubs and I do Twitter, so I'm a tweenie, I suppose.... - k Reply to a comment by : N2EY on 2009-12-06 To WB0OEW: Thanks! The graph makes it easy to see the trends. For example, it's easy to see that the number of Generals and Extras has climbed pretty steadily for more than a decade, while the number of Technician/Tech Pluses has pretty much stayed the same. Would it be possible for you to show the number of Advanceds and Novices? Maybe as dashed lines? One minor point: The FCC didn't drop any license classes in 2000, they just closed them to new issues. 73 es tnx agn de Jim, N2EY Reply to a comment by : WB0OEW on 2009-12-06 I posted a plot of the licenses at http://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/stats/index.html . Reply to a comment by : KH6AQ on 2009-12-06 Where are the graphs? I want to see graphs. Reply to a comment by : K3AN on 2009-12-06 According to census figures I found, the U.S. population grew about 1% each year from 2000 to 2008. Ham population grew just 0.64 percent in two and a half years. Not an alarming trend, but not a healthy one either. Reply to a comment by : N8RGQ on 2009-12-06 This is another Article spun to make a good thing into a bad one ! We have made it back to 2004 levals of hams ! The fact is we are growing again and the auther doesn't like it that the changes have worked ! 73, Terry N8RGQ | ||
| K6LHA | 2009-12-13 | |
|---|---|---|
| RE: Amateur Radio License Statistics of 1988 | ||
| On posting the above 1988 Statistics data, the font conversion did not work out. I do not control the e-ham formatting. If anyone desires a .TXT format copy of that 1990 communication just e-mail me privately (AF6AY@aol.com) and I will send the .TXT format in private reply. 73, Len AF6AY Reply to a comment by : K6LHA on 2009-12-13 There have been a few 'challenges' on "old data" of amateur radio statistics. For those I offer the following correspondence copy that dates back to PRE-Internet days. Note that the Internet did not go public until 1991, therefore it was saved by someone unidentified from one of the commercial services (such as Compuserve). I do not recognize the format of this text message since I was not on any of those commercial services in 1990 so I cannot ascertain if it IS factually one of those. On checking various amateur radio sites this Sunday morning, both N0LOX and WT9T are listed as being current licensees. As with the "state of the art" in national/in | ||