So, all the old-timers took this "Cheating on online exam" topic as a reason to launch into another "I had to walk 100 miles uphill both ways in the middle of winter to get to the FCC office to take my exam" discussion? Seriously? You should, by this time, realize that constantly bitching about how "hard" you had it does nothing to impress those of us that were licensed more recently. We're really tired of it...
There's a HUGE difference between "this is how it was back-when" and "oh we had it SO hard".
Sometimes that difference is lost in translation.
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I became a ham in 1967 at the age of 13. Ham radio was a lot different then, and I
could tell you stories of how much harder the license tests were, how crude and expensive the equipment was, yada yada yada.....
But lots of others do that. So instead I'll tell you the dirty little secret of us OTs: In at least some ways, we had it a lot
easier than today. At least, it was that way in the mid-1960s, when I got started, and it extends back to at least the 1950s.
Here's why:
- In 1967, most new US hams got started as Novices, because the license was the easiest to get.
But the 1967 Novice license was only good for two years and you only got one of them.
So most Novices didn't get a license until they were ready to use it. The usual path was to get an HF receiver first, and string up some sort of wire antenna so as to hear other hams and learn the code. Theory and regs came from books and magazines. End result was that, by the time a newcomer took the license tests, they already had two-thirds of a station, and had at least some experience with the ham bands.
The 1967 Novice only allowed CW operation on parts of 80, 40 and 15 meters. There were some 2 meter privileges too, but in those pre-repeater days most newcomers stuck to HF. Power limit was 75 watts input and the transmitter had to be crystal controlled. And the Novice band segments weren't harmonically related, so you needed a crystal for each frequency.
New equipment was expensive. Even a basic setup like the Heath HR-10B/DX-60B would set you back $160, and they were kits that had to be assembled. ($160 then inflates to about $1000 today). The Drake 2C/2NT combo cost about double that.
So the typical Novice usually started out with used gear, or scrimped and saved to buy basic new gear. Also, many of us converted WW2 surplus (which was pretty cheap and readily available, both by mail and in stores in larger cities, as well as from other hams) or built our own stuff. No old TV set or AM BC set was safe in a ham's neighborhood, either; they were cannibalized for parts - and they had a LOT of usable parts.
The equipment was
really basic, and performed poorly by today's standards. But what this did was to make us learn operating skills and to really understand the meaning of words like "sensitivity", "selectivity", "tuning rate", etc. It also meant we could build, fix and modify our own stuff pretty easily. And it worked well enough to make a few contacts, which was all that mattered.
Because the Novice privileges were so limited, most of us settled on one or two bands (typically 80/40) and so things like antenna choice were simple. A basic dipole or random end-fed wire would do the trick. Most typical Novice transmitters had output circuits that could match such antennas, so we didn't worry too much about SWR or "antenna tuners". Nobody had ever heard of a G5RV.
Nobody had ever heard of an HOA or CC&R, either. Not involving antennas, anyway.
Everyone was used to seeing TV and radio antennas on homes - in fact, a big TV antenna was actually a status symbol, because it meant you had color TV! The only antenna issues were space, money and high supports.
You could get a lot of stuff locally, too. Around here. there were Lafayette, Radio Shack, and RESCO stores that carried all sorts of goodies. Your local hardware store (every town had one) had antenna wire, insulators, rope, etc.
Radio stuff cost so much that equipment choice was limited to what you could afford - which usually wasn't all that much. Made it easy to choose! Yet, the oldest gear typically seen by us was WW2 surplus, which was only 25 years old. Most ham gear then was even newer - a 1950s rx or tx was only 10-15 years old.
Using separate receivers and transmitters was complicated, but it also made improvements easy. Once the General or Advanced was earned, it was a pretty simple thing to get a VFO and move out of the Novice subbands. Improvements were made gradually - a better receiver one year, a higher-powered transmitter the next, an improved antenna over the summer. Getting a bug or a keyer was a really big deal - I still have and use my 1974 vintage Original Standard. Seven years on a straight key taught me to appreciate it.
There were books like "Understanding Amateur Radio" and "How To Become A Radio Amateur" that focused on what the new ham had to know. Such books could focus on a few subjects in depth, because the Novice license didn't allow much else anyway.
The ham mags and books of those days were full of articles that practically leapt off the page and screamed "BUILD ME!!!" at you. These were articles about receivers and transmitters, not just accessories and little doo-dads. Whether you built them or not, they gave you an idea of how radio worked, right down to the bolt-and-nut level.
There were lots of kits, too. Not just Heathkit but Knight (Allied), Eico, Johnson, and others. Hands-on experience!
The end result was that a lot of learning went on without us really knowing it. The few choices meant we learned the basics really well. The "Novice bands" were usually busy, both with newcomers and old-timers helping out.
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Today, a new ham has a very wide choice of rigs, bands, modes, antennas, and accessories. How to choose? That new rig may do 160 through 6, but what antenna do you put up? And what if it stops working?
73 de Jim, N2EY