[N7OQ]

I'm in no way saying that all VE's allow cheating not even the majority of them it is just a few and like everything in life it is the few who ruin it for all. The VE's here at our local club keep everything above board, they do a great job and their classes teach then material not the test. We have a local Ham who I really look up to him, he works so hard to recruit, and teach new Hams and he is such a good mentor, his radio discipline is outstanding and rubs off on to other hams.

But I know a a lot of hams who just memorized the questions and answers and if you took the same question like one where you need to use a formula like ohms law and changed the values they could not pick out the right answer. But just because you have a good memory and pass the test that doesn't make you a bad operator we have a lot of great operators who got a ticket that way. It's the system in place now in place that I think cheapens then whole thing, in the past a extra class operator was one who had been around the block and had a lot of skills. This friend of mine who just made extra could not help anyone sense he is still learning it himself so it just makes me feel bad that I'm teaching him, helping him with basic Hams operating procedures and he holds the same ticket I do.

I often think that we might as well go to one class of license and call it a day.