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Author Topic: Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation UK  (Read 303 times)

G3ZHI

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Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation UK
« on: February 17, 2021, 04:20:21 AM »

Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation

Communications Manager | February 17, 2021

The RSGB’s Examination Standards Committee (ESC) is launching a consultation today to ask for the views of the amateur radio community on a new, Direct to Full licence exam which would run in parallel with the existing three-tier system.

The background to this consultation and a link to the proposed syllabus can be found on the RSGB website.

There is also a link to a short survey which asks specific questions but also gives you an opportunity to add additional comments or questions.

The consultation will run until Sunday 14 March 2021 after which we will gather the results and announce them in due course.

We would encourage everyone to take part in this consultation.

Tony Kent, G8PBH
Examination Standards Committee Chair


https://rsgb.org/main/about-us/committees/examination-standards-committee/direct-entry-to-full-licence-rsgb-consultation

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Direct-to-Full-licence




Category: Front Page News, RSGB Notices
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W9IQ

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Re: Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation UK
« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2021, 04:31:56 AM »

I do like the syllabus.

- Glenn W9IQ
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- Glenn W9IQ

God runs electromagnetics on Monday, Wednesday and Friday by the wave theory and the devil runs it on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday by the Quantum theory.

SOFAR

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Re: Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation UK
« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2021, 04:40:44 AM »

I like the 'Morse Appreciation Practical' requirement for the foundation license.

You don't have to actually copy code. You listen and write down the dots and dashes. Then look at a Morse chart to covert it.  :)
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W6MK

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Re: Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation UK
« Reply #3 on: February 17, 2021, 11:36:14 AM »

You don't have to actually copy code. You listen and write down the dots and dashes. Then look at a Morse chart to covert it.  :)

I'd call that copying. Listening to dits and dahs; translating them into dots and dashes and then looking them up.

Problem is that it's copying the hard way. Much easier to listen to dits and dahs and automatically recognize them as characters.

I'd guess is that the method described, if that's actually what's done, is designed to encourage prospective hams to learn Morse Code the easy way.
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K3UIM

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Re: Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation UK
« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2021, 02:39:00 PM »

"I'd guess is that the method described, if that's actually what's done, is designed to encourage prospective hams to learn Morse Code the easy way."

Mike,

That's how we operated when first becoming Novices. We'd hear . _ and then think ._ "Oh yah! "A" then jot "A" down. After the 30th or so QSO we had learned the basics, QTH, Name, RST, etc. and found we could copy most of the contacts by ear. Eventually we were in the 20 wpm's and just writing those necessities down.

Have we gone full circle?  ::) LOL

Charlie
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Charlie. K3UIM
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KBKZ2105

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Re: Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation UK
« Reply #5 on: February 17, 2021, 03:07:55 PM »

I'm not even sure I understand this but I don't see many young people wanting to learn code.  If there are it's going to be a very small number.  I just don't see the incentive for young people to be involved in this antique hobby when there are much more modern modes of communication in 2021.

Good luck though.       
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W4KYR

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Re: Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation UK
« Reply #6 on: February 17, 2021, 06:06:01 PM »

https://rsgb.services/public/publications/esc/210211%20Direct%20to%20Full%20-%20Complete%20Specification.pdf

"Recall that the Foundation and Intermediate Licences do not permit operation of the Radio Equipment from a Vessel at Sea."

"Recall that airborne operation within the UK is not permitted at any Amateur Licence level."


I don't think we have those kind of restrictions in the U.S.  If you fly own your own plane, then why can't you operate amateur radio from it in the U.K. ?  If someone from the U.K. wants to explain it, then please do. I don't get the vessel at sea thing, sure they want you to encourage you to upgrade your Foundation and Intermediate Licences. But is there a mad dash of ham operators wanting to operate from a vessel at sea? lol
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K3UIM

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Re: Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation UK
« Reply #7 on: February 17, 2021, 06:56:14 PM »

2105: "I just don't see the incentive for young people to be involved in this antique hobby "
Is that why you don't have a license, and if so, why do you stick around this forum complaining just about anything that comes up? Have you nothing to do but complain? Can't you do it on a CB forum where it just might apply?

Charlie
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Charlie. K3UIM
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So be nice to us old fogies!!

W6MK

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Re: Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation UK
« Reply #8 on: February 18, 2021, 10:12:40 AM »

I'm not even sure I understand this but I don't see many young people wanting to learn code.  If there are it's going to be a very small number.  I just don't see the incentive for young people to be involved in this antique hobby.

What you can't see is the issue.

Ham radio has never been as popular as other consumer culture hobbies: cars, motorcycles, hi fi, etc.

Ham radio has do-it-yourself and learn about something which has has to do science and engineering aspects. Buying and using a telephone is mostly about mass-market "join the crowd" appeal.

Lots of creative types do things in a way which gives them insight into the world. Why paint a picture when you can take a photograph with your "smart" phone?

The incentive is of the same class as mountaineering (a commercial jet gets you higher, faster, cheaper), looking at the past of the universe via a telescope (future-watching telescopes await the new app for your "smart" phone). How about learning Greek or Latin? How about learning to speak the dialect from the European province from which one's ancestors came?

It's about the joy of learning something new. Exercising the brain muscles.

Flabbiness in the head is no virture, IMHO.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2021, 10:21:20 AM by W6MK »
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W6MK

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Re: Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation UK
« Reply #9 on: February 18, 2021, 10:28:16 AM »

We'd hear . _ and then think ._ "Oh yah! "A" then jot "A" down.

We wanted radios to work. Not because we didn't have telephones or there wasn't postal service, but because it was an interesting, invisible force that needed to be accessed via boxes with all sorts of odd knobs and buttons. You had to get a license. You had to study a little bit.

So we learned Morse Code in a few weeks and started talking to one another via code. We got our Novice licenses and developed our operating skills. After a year your Novice license would be up and you had to go into an FCC office to take your General exam. Even had to draw a schematic diagram of a radio circuit.

Learning was fun, no biggie. No fear of putting something in your head that a neighbor would not understand. You just did it.

Now all formerly-interesting learning tasks are assumed to be difficult. You need a computer in order to put something into your head. Or maybe it's replacing your head with a computer.

Computers don't have as much fun as people, as far as I can tell.
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K3UIM

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Re: Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation UK
« Reply #10 on: February 18, 2021, 10:51:00 AM »

Mike,
100 %!! It wasn't easy, but it was a lot of fun and coming out of the Buffalo testing building, our steps were 6" above ground and, until the evening after we said, "I do!" it was the most exciting moment in our lives! (Almost.) LOL (That might have been over 60 years ago, but I still remember.)  ::) ::)
Charlie
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Charlie. K3UIM
Where you are: I was!
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So be nice to us old fogies!!

KBKZ2105

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Re: Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation UK
« Reply #11 on: February 18, 2021, 03:32:00 PM »

What you can't see is the issue.

Ham radio has never been as popular as other consumer culture hobbies: cars, motorcycles, hi fi, etc.

Ham radio has do-it-yourself and learn about something which has has to do science and engineering aspects. Buying and using a telephone is mostly about mass-market "join the crowd" appeal.

Lots of creative types do things in a way which gives them insight into the world. Why paint a picture when you can take a photograph with your "smart" phone?

The incentive is of the same class as mountaineering (a commercial jet gets you higher, faster, cheaper), looking at the past of the universe via a telescope (future-watching telescopes await the new app for your "smart" phone). How about learning Greek or Latin? How about learning to speak the dialect from the European province from which one's ancestors came?

It's about the joy of learning something new. Exercising the brain muscles.

Flabbiness in the head is no virture, IMHO.

I agree with what you said but you might want to look at it from a slightly different angle. 

Ham radio was the smart phone back in the day. The old timers who had horses not cars as kids, probably said why don't you talk in person instead of on that stupid box.  Be a man. 

Now you are telling kids in 2021 that they have to take a test to use antique technology and pay thousands of dollars in equipment costs to get on the air to talk to who?  Have you been on HF phone lately. 

These kids don't need ham radio they need to engineer something new.  Like a new and better smart phone or computer or whatever.  They need to keep thinking about something new and be creative. 

carry on. 

 
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KBKZ2105

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Re: Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation UK
« Reply #12 on: February 18, 2021, 03:38:30 PM »

2105: "I just don't see the incentive for young people to be involved in this antique hobby "
Is that why you don't have a license, and if so, why do you stick around this forum complaining just about anything that comes up? Have you nothing to do but complain? Can't you do it on a CB forum where it just might apply?

Charlie

Cmon Charlie this website has more complainers than a welfare line it's not just me. 
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W6MK

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Re: Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation UK
« Reply #13 on: February 18, 2021, 03:53:02 PM »

Ham radio was the smart phone back in the day. The old timers who had horses not cars as kids, probably said why don't you talk in person instead of on that stupid box.  Be a man. 

Now you are telling kids in 2021 that they have to take a test to use antique technology and pay thousands of dollars in equipment costs to get on the air to talk to who?  Have you been on HF phone lately. 

These kids don't need ham radio they need to engineer something new.  Like a new and better smart phone or computer or whatever.

You seem to live on Fantasy Island. Ham radio never was a smartphone. Ham radio was, and is, where the operator needs to know a little bit about electricity, RF engineering, how to listen in a noisy audio environment, operating procedures, frequency allocations, etc. Smartphones are mass market consumer devices which require no interest in, or understanding of, the topics above.

I don't subscribe to the utility of an uninformed, sexist and ageist view of history. Lots of people still use horses, especially where there isn't a freeway or even a dirt road for 50 miles. You can't climb a
12,000 ft. peak in your SUV. There are also lots of people who ride horses simply for pleasure, or competition. You seem never to have spent a day at the track. Horse people are men and women.
You must be what they call a "dude."

I'm not telling "kids" anything. I'm saying that ham radio is a scientific/engineering/historical hobby that attracts a certain, quite limited, group of people. They tend not to be "in with the in-crowd." The kids I started in ham radio with became physicians, heads of state bureaucracies, successful business persons. Not stupid; not tied to what's trendy.

Lots of us don't buy all our gear. We buy some, build some, modify most. Your smartphone operator only has to put out a few hundred dollars once a year to get the latest and greatest model. After being told to do so by the smartphone itself. That's a very smart phone, and profitable for someone who already has lots of dough.

I avoid HF "phone." CW is more poetic, musical, creative. CW ops are, in my experience, interesting folks.

Conspicuous consumer culture kids don't engineer anything. They consume expensive products which are designed to be addictive.

This reminds me of the tale of a guy named Albert who was a founder of many of our contemporary concepts of physics and cosmology. Started the "spacetime" ball rollling. He didn't use a smartphone, or a telephone or a spark gap radio. He thought about things and came up with new ways of seeing the world via what was in his head. No shiny contraptions needed.

« Last Edit: February 18, 2021, 03:55:29 PM by W6MK »
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K3UIM

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Re: Direct Entry to Full Licence: RSGB Consultation UK
« Reply #14 on: February 18, 2021, 04:12:11 PM »

2105: "I just don't see the incentive for young people to be involved in this antique hobby "
Is that why you don't have a license, and if so, why do you stick around this forum complaining just about anything that comes up? Have you nothing to do but complain? Can't you do it on a CB forum where it just might apply?
Charlie

Cmon Charlie this website has more complainers than a welfare line it's not just me.

Prove it! Go somewhere else, for all of our sanities and patience.
And Mark me as "Ignored". PLEASE!!!
 
Charlie
« Last Edit: February 18, 2021, 04:16:42 PM by K3UIM »
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Charlie. K3UIM
Where you are: I was!
Where I am: You will be!
So be nice to us old fogies!!
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