And then there are those of us that busted our butts with the code and theory to climb the license ladder far enough to obtain the beautiful thing called THE GENERAL ticket, {Tah-Dah!!}which gave us the privilege of building, modifying and experimenting with just about full band privileges at the time.
Busted your butts? Really? The tests weren't all that hard. I've got several of the old License Manuals from 1948 to 1971, and the old tests were quite basic, really.
Heck, I earned the Advanced in 1968 in the summer between 8th and 9th grades. I'd been a ham less than a year then. No big deal.
A year later I was ready for the Extra, but had to wait another year because of the old experience rule.
No formal electronics or radio education. No kindly Elmer spoon-feeding "how to be a radio amateur". Nobody in my neighborhood or family was a ham, and the local club wasn't much help at all. Just a few books on radio and a bit of self-education.
The hardest part of passing the license tests was getting to an FCC exam session. The FCC office was easy to get to - walk less than a mile, El ride downtown, walk a few blocks and up to the 10th floor. The problem was that the exam sessions were only held on a few weekday mornings, and skipping school was NOT an option. The tests themselves were no big deal if one knew the basic material.
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Test cheating has always been rare in Amateur Radio, but it's not new. From the 1920s to the 1970s there was the Conditional license, which was a "General by mail" for those who lived far from an FCC exam point or were physically disabled. Such a license could be earned with a single volunteer examiner (note the lack of capitalization). There were....stories.....of how certain volunteer examiners who lived just beyond the required distance would "help" newcomers get their Conditional license.....
Then there was Dick Bash and his famous "study guides" which were almost word-for-word versions of the tests. He got the information by asking people who had just taken the tests what they remembered, and paying for the answers. FCC put him out of business with the VE system.
(One thing Bash revealed was that there weren't all that many different versions of the written tests. Someone who repeatedly failed a written test would soon discover they got the exact same test again.)