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Old 06-11-2014, 08:02 PM   #6
NN5I
Carl, nn5i
 
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Location: Tallahassee, FL
Posts: 1,441
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There could be many reasons a person would fail to renew. I am an example. After being a Novice (KN4SCK) in 1957 and a Tech (K4SCK) in 1958, I failed to renew in 1963 because at that time you had to have been active to renew; had to state it on the Form 610. I hadn't been active for a couple years because I was an engineering student, totally broke, with no equipment. So eventually I had to start over. Got a new Tech (N5DRU) in 1980, Advanced (KD5BH) in 1981, and Extra in 1982. I was, I think, the very last person to pass the Extra at the Dallas FCC office. That's when the FCC stopped giving exams at FCC offices. I was a VE at what I believe to have been the second-ever VE exam session in the US, in Dallas a few months later. It was about a year and a half after that, that the ARRL VEC finally got into gear; meanwhile, the DeVry ARC became the first certified VEC, and W5YI was second, followed by Dallas ARC; I was one of DeVry's VEs and later became an ARRL VE. DeVry VEC shut down after ARRL finally got its act in gear; so did Dallas ARC VEC; but they filled the long gap when it was necessary. W5YI VEC is still active, though W5YI himself is no longer around. Fred was quite a character. On Thursday evenings at 8:00 Fred read his W5YI Report on the (Dallas) Metro Information Net, of which I was the Net Control for 18 straight months. It was a big net; only those with business for the net checked in -- there was no roll call, and those just listening didn't check in. I usually had at least 80 checkins for the net, some with announcements but most offering swap-meet items (which had to be ham radio related); sometimes 100 or more. One memorable night I had 120+ -- that was a long net. Among the things I learned along the way was that when net control is transmitting, nothing is getting done. I learned to be terse. Maybe I should recall that right now.

Enough reminiscing -- back to the subject at hand.

Some people, like me, couldn't meet the activity requirement (which no longer exists). Some, perhaps, were out of the country when it came time to renew. Maybe some were sick. Maybe some had a temporary lapse of interest. But all had shown interest, ability, and a certain amount of knowledge. If A could renew without re-proving he knew stuff, why shouldn't B be able to reapply without re-proving it? To me it makes no sense.

Besides, anyone who passed the General decades ago had to show much more competence than it takes for Extra today. How many of today's Extra-Light licensees can even read and understand a schematic, let alone draw one from scratch and explain how it works? It's been dumbed down, diluted, watered down, and most applicants nowadays merely rote-memorize answers whose meaning is as foreign to them as the Ancient Etruscan language is to the average purebred Cocker Spaniel.

*** Added later ***

I ought to add that it's not that I think there's anything wrong with our new applicants. I think nearly all are assets to the hobby, especially by comparison to many old hams of my generation. But the testing method (published question pools and multiple-guess testing) encourages people not to learn the principles. Some will eventually learn, but if they were really going to be tested in a meaningful way, they'd start learning sooner. Many never start learning at all.
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