The few... the proud... the Advanced. 
I earned the Novice in 1967, age 13. Nobody in my family or immediate neighborhood was a ham. Learned radio from books, taking apart radios and TVs, and building radios out of the parts. Learned code by listening to hams on 80 CW, one hand on the receiver controls, the other on the pencil.
Hardest part was finding a volunteer examiner for the Novice test. Nobody in my family knew any hams and they weren't at all keen on me getting a license anyway. Eventually I found Jim, K3NYT, who lived less than a mile away. Getting a Novice in 1967 required patience; the by-mail process had many steps and each step took weeks. Fail one part of the testing and it was back to the beginning.
The longest wait was for the FCC to issue the license. A failed written test meant a thick envelope with failure notice, another Form 610, and instructions on how to re-test. Whole procedure would have to be done again; there was no credit for the code tests if you failed the written.
What arrived was the treasured "small envelope" with just the license inside. October 14, 1967, license effective October 12, 1967. It took so long for FCC to process the written test that I'd built my transmitter and TR system while waiting. And so I was on the air, with 10 watts input to a 6V6GT on 3726 kc. The test material wasn't nearly enough to know how to build the transmitter; I learned that from books.
That was just before the changes known as "Incentive Licensing" went into effect. I got one of the very first 2 year Novices, because of the changes. But there was much more to come.
I remember so clearly how, back then, there was a lot of hand-wringing, wailing and gnashing of teeth about "Incentive Licensing", and all sorts of stories by folks much older and more experienced than me, telling how incredibly difficult the Advanced was, and how you pretty much had to be a combination Ted McElroy and Major Armstrong to pass the Extra, which was so much harder and required 20 wpm code too. How incentive licensing would destroy amateur radio, make our gear worthless, etc. Boo hoo hoo.
A sensible person might have been intimidated, but I was too young, dumb, clueless and inexperienced to realize that there was no hope for a kid like me to pass such exams....
The next step would be the General license. The nearest FCC office was in Philadelphia, and the Technician had no HF privileges, so it would have to be at least the General to make any difference.
There was no "uphill both ways in the snow" for me. I grew up in Upper Darby, PA, birthplace of B&W, Jim Croce, Todd Rundgren and Tina Fey. (You're welcome). The FCC office was at 2nd and Chestnut in Philly. All I had to do was walk less than a mile to the 69th Street Terminal, ride the El downtown (25 cents in those days), walk a few blocks to the Customs House and ride the elevator to the 10th floor. Piece of cake, really.
The Big Problem was that FCC exams were only given on a few weekdays - Mondays and Wednesdays for tests involving code. For people with day jobs this meant at least a half-day off work. For kids in school, like me, this meant waiting for summer vacation, or a day when school was not in session but Federal offices were open AND it was a Monday or Wednesday. This didn't happen too often!
Playing hooky was not an option; the FCC Examiner would want to know why you weren't in school. Getting parental permission was out; I knew better than to even ask. Even I wasn't dumb enough to try either. So it was a matter of timing.
In those days, the FCC Examiner was very explicit about the code tests. You got 5 minutes of code, and when the code stopped, you put your pencil DOWN. You did not go back and fix or fill in, and The Examiner would not ask you questions on your copy. It had to be legible to
him. This was all spelled out in detail by The Examiner before the test started. You had to send, too, and all the FCC provided was a J-38 straight key and oscillator.
By early summer 1968 I thought I was ready for the General, so I went to the FCC office and took the tests. But the FCC Examiner couldn't read my parochial-school "Palmer Method" longhand well enough to find the required 65 consecutive legible characters. But he did find 25 consecutive legible characters, so I got 5 wpm credit, passed the General written, and got a Technician. The Examiner said all I had to do for the General was come back and pass 13 wpm code. Back then you could hold both a Technician and a Novice simultaneously. With no VHF/UHF gear, the Tech was useless to me except for the fact that it meant I could focus entirely on code, and could work the 6 meter station on Field Day by myself.
In those days, if you failed an FCC test, you had to wait 30 days or more before a retest would be allowed. So I went home and taught myself to block-print at 30 wpm. Copied code with it night after night after night until I could put down an 18 wpm W1AW bulletin solid, beginning to end, clear, legible and no mistakes. Whole process took 6 weeks or so.
I went back to the FCC office later in the summer of 1968 and passed the 13 wpm code easily. As I was about to leave, The Examiner suggested I try the Advanced while I was there. I hadn't studied for it at all, but I knew better than to say no to The Examiner, so I tried it.....and passed. Got an Advanced instead of a General.
I was 14 years old then, and 1968 was the summer before I entered high school. So how hard could the Advanced have really been back then?
In those days you had to have at least 2 years' experience as a General or higher before you could even try the Extra tests. When I got home that day, I drew up a calendar for the next two years, to figure out when the first FCC exam session would be where I could take the Extra. It worked out to late summer, 1970.
The Advanced license arrived in due time, and I had full privileges for a few weeks until November 22, 1968, when the "incentive licensing" rules went into effect.
I was ready for the Extra by mid-1969, but the 2 years' experience requirement made me wait until that late summer day in 1970. On the first day when I could try the Extra, I was there at the FCC office well before the 8 AM start time, to be sure to get a spot.
The waiting room was pretty full that day, and I was the youngest one there by far. Right at 8 AM The Examiner came into the waiting room and asked if anyone was there for 20 wpm code. I was the only one there for the Extra. The Examiner motioned for me to follow him into the exam room, and left everyone else waiting.
For code testing there was a big table with chairs around it. The Examiner went to a locked file cabinet, unlocked it, and took out paper, pencils, headphones, key, code machine, and paper tapes for the code machine, arranging them all on the table, and pointing to where I should sit.
The code machine they used in the Philly office was a small thing that used punched paper tape. It ran on batteries and had an oscillator built in. Speed was changed by changing the drive spindle for the paper tape.
The Examiner gave the standard speech about 5 minutes of code, 1 minute of correct consecutive legible copy, and putting your pencil DOWN after the code stopped. I'd done this twice before, but everyone got the standard speech, so no one could claim they didn't understand the procedure. To pass 20 wpm required 100 consecutive legible characters or more.
He asked "Ready?" I put on the phones and nodded.
He started the machine, and the code was loud and clear in the phones. I started copying in big block letters, getting every character. This was certainly easier than trying to copy CW NTS message traffic through summer QRN and QRM.
The Examiner watched me from across the table. Then he came around behind me, watching over my shoulder as I copied. Then he walked back around the table and looked at the code machine. All the while I was copying the code, trying to concentrate, trying not to miss any, and to make the copy legible. If I messed this up, it would be a long time before I could try again, because summer break would be over.
Then The Examiner shut the machine off! Only about 90 seconds had gone by - two minutes at most! Was I in trouble? What about the 5 minutes of code?
The Examiner then said "That was pretty easy, huh, kid?"
All I could manage was "I guess so...."
"It should be" he replied. "That was only 13 words per minute. Here's 20"
And he quickly produced another drive spindle and swapped it with the one in the machine. Then he restarted the machine, and the REAL test began. The code came much faster, and all I could do was write it down as best I could. That time I got the full five minutes, and when the code stopped, I put the pencil down and The Examiner took the paper.
After a few moments, he said "You passed".
Then it was sending on the J-38 at 20 per - no big deal; all I had at home then was a J-37 straight key anyway. Passed that, and then it was time for the written. During the written test, other hopefuls were allowed into the exam room.
I passed the written and went home to wait for the Extra license to arrive.
I will never know if The Examiner simply forgot to change the drive spindle that morning so long ago, or if he was trying to rattle me. Either way, I passed, and in a few weeks started 11th grade.
I wasn't an unusual case; there were Advanceds and Extras much younger than me back then. Today there are Extras in elementary school, some whose ages aren't even double-digits yet.
It's been 51 years since that summer of 1970 when I earned the Extra, and 53 years since that summer of 1968 when I earned the Advanced, and I still wonder - if a dumb kid like me could get the Advanced and then the Extra, self-taught, could the tests really have been all that hard for anyone willing to learn a little radio? What was all the fuss about?
Also...in 1968, the license test fee was $4. Doesn't sound like much, but $4 in 1968 was about equivalent to $30 today. In 1970, the fee went to $9, equivalent to about $60 today. So falling a test was expensive.
And yes, I could still pass all those tests today - or the current ones - with zero preparation. Nothing to it. Piece of cake. Bring 'em on!
73 de Jim, N2EY