Can Novice licenses be renewed? I seem to remember only having a year or two to upgrade back in 1976 when I got mine (I was an Advanced before a year was up though)...
Your old Novice, and all since the mid 1970s, are renewable. Since the Novice hasn't been available to new issues since April 2000, the only way there could be any curren unexpired Novice licenses left is if they were renewed.
Here's the history:
When the Novice was created in 1951, it was good for just one year and could not be renewed. It was also one-to-a-customer - you couldn't get another Novice by taking the tests again. And you couldn't have a Novice if you'd ever held any class of amateur license.
In 1967, as part of the "incentive licensing" changes, the Novice term was doubled to 2 years, but all the other rules remained in place. The reason for this was that too many Novices were dropping out when their licenses expired.
In the early to mid 1970s the Novice license rules were changed again. First the one-to-a-customer/no retest rule was
changed. If a Novice license expired, the licensee could get another Novice by passing the tests again after 1 year off the
air. That only lasted a short time before the 1 year wait was eliminated, and a Novice with an expired license could get
another one by retaking the tests. All through this time the Novice license term was 2 years.
Finally, in the mid 1970s the Novice became 5 years renewable, just like all the other license classes. When the license term
was doubled to 10 years in 1984, the Novice was included.
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The original concept of the Novice license was that it was only meant as a sort of "learner's permit", not a regular license.
Remember that before 1951 all US hams had to pass 13 wpm code (10 wpm before 1936) and the Class B/General written exam just to get started. The Novice concept back then was that it would be easier to learn both code and theory up to the
General standard by actually doing, rather than study, study, study.
One of the effects of the Novice was a lowering of the age of typical newcomers. While there had always been young hams,
(W3OVV passed Class B in 1948 at the age of nine), the Novice brought a lot more teenagers into the ranks of US hamdom.
Of course the Novice license wasn't the only factor; the general prosperity of the period and the abundance of surplus
and inexpensive kit and manufactured gear aimed at the Novice helped too. The peak of this development was, IMHO,
the Heathkit HW-16.
I think what killed off the Novice was repeaters. When they became the Big New Thing in the 1970s, hams started bypassing
the Novice and going straight for Tech in order to access 2 meter and 440 repeaters. The easing of Tech written testing
in 1987 and dropping of the Tech code test in 1991 sealed the deal.
73 de Jim, N2EY