I suspect that many Novices never really get on the air....I suspect that the Novice was sometimes earned by administrators, noted journalists, and others in the public eye as a token recognition and promotion of ham radio. That does not begin to explain the large number of Novices still on the books. Furthermore, it's surprising that many Novices have renewed. This phenomenon is quite baffling.
Not IMHO. Here's why:
First off, by the 1990s the number of Novices was quite small compared to the total number of US hams. Today only about 1 in 50 US hams is a Novice. Second, many of those with Novice licenses may be members of ham families who got it to be part of the group, and hams who intend to become active once they retire/kids leave home/work lets up a little/they move etc. Reading QSTs old and new, as well as knowing many local hams, there are plenty of cases of hams who were gone from ham radio except for the license for years or decades, and then came back.
Most of all we don't really know who is on the air and who isn't.
The odd thing about the Novice today is that it conveys no test-element-credit towards upgrading.
When I started out as a ham, I was encouraged to go for the Tech Plus out of the box so that I could practice CW on HF and also get on the club repeater. I followed my Elmers' advice and did so. In retrospect, I wisely spent most of the next two years on HF and worked my code up to 20, but also kept in touch with my Elmers and other club members by FM. The Tech Plus was a superior substitute for the traditional Novice training license. I wonder how many new hams in the early to mid 90's were encouraged to skip the Novice given its meagre frequency allotments.
That trend was in place in the 1980s. It got a big boost in March 1987 when the Tech/General written was split in two parts. Novices couldn't use 2 or 440, Techs could use both - and that's where the repeaters were.
In the bad old days most hams started as Novices on HF CW - usually 80 or 40 meters - with simple gear. Just getting on the air was a serious project. Usually the new ham went through several steps: build/buy HF receiver with simple antenna, learn code and theory (with practice oscillator, key and some books), put up better antenna, pass license tests, build/buy transmitter while waiting for license, get on air when license arrived. A lot of practical radio that wasn't on any test was learned in the process. Until the 1970s the Novice was a short-term one-time upgrade-or-leave-the-air license, so newcomers had a big incentive to get everything ready before the license arrived.
What if the FCC abolished the Novice in the late 70's/early 80's and replaced the Novice with the "Communicator Class", perhaps also as a trial run in VEC examination? Jim would know better, but did the proposed Communicator Class allow all of 2m and 70cm without the 5 WPM test?
I don't think so. The Communicator was first proposed in 1975 and was a companion to the Novice, not a replacement.
we might've pre-empted the early 90's no code/know code ham ideological war, or at least have muted its ferocity. After all, time has shown that most hams start out with V/UHF FM repeater communications. Perhaps this was already apparent by the late 70's. If so, the FCC should have introduced the Communicator Class then rather than drag the issue out past the introduction of the VEC.
I have to disagree on all counts.
The 1970s were the peak of the cb boom, and most hams then were trying to prevent ham radio from becoming like cb. Besides the clear memory of the loss of 11 meters, there were proposals to turn 220-225 into a new cb band as well ("Class E").
Hams of the day saw any proposal to make licenses much easier to get as the road to turning ham radio into cb - and a very bad thing. It didn't take much of an imagination to envision huge numbers of cb folks getting Communicator licenses and bringing the cb culture with them. The number of US hams was growing very quickly in the 1970s and 1980s, too.
the Comm. Class license would have reduced the written exams to four. Perhaps a Communicator could've earned Novice CW HF privileges by passing the 5 WPM. This would not have changed the existing Technician/General combined exam except that a person who earned the Communicator + 5 WPM would simply need to pass the Tech/General written exam to get all privileges above 50 MHz.
Actually, I am convinced that the FCC's gesture towards no-code licensing was an early sign that the commission desired to get out of the examination business at least in part. That suspicion is irrelevant to the question at hand. Still, not long after the Communicator proposal the FCC indeed turned exams over to the VEC. One wonders.
The original Communicator proposal was 8 years before the VEC system. The two were driven by very different things. The Communicator was part of a "two-ladder" 7 license class system proposal that would have made things even more complex. The VEC/QPC system was budget-cutting, pure and simple, with the side benefit that it put Dick Bash out of business.
All ancient history now. By 1990 the cb boom/fad was over. In fact, around here I see more cars and homes with ham antennas than with cb antennas, and it's been that way for years.
73 de Jim, N2EY