K3UD
04-13-2004, 04:04 PM
I received an interesting email concerning Incentive Licensing and how it possibly came to be. The writer had a theory that the widening perceived technology gap between the US and the Soviet Union in the 50s which led to the Soviets placing Sputnik into orbit at a time when our rockets were blowing up on the launching pad and our schools were not emphasizing science and advanced math forced the FCC into an evaluation of the Amateur Radio service, at a time when our whole technical infrastructure was being re-evaluated.
There is an interesting sidebar to the Sputnik episode. According to some sources, Werner Von Braun had a proposal for putting an American satellite in low earth orbit by as early as 1955. He was going to use very improved versions of the V2 to construct a 4 stage booster that would put a very lightweight satellite into a short lived low orbit.
Apparently, Eisenhower nixed the idea saying that he did not want to deal with the international implications of an American orbital vehicle. There is also some information that suggests he thought it was more of a technical trick than and actual step ahead. It is interesting to speculate what would have happened if Von Braun was able to pursue this.
It was a good insight concerning Sputnik. Whether or not it had any impact on the incentive licensing proposals of 1963 is certainly debatable although my research into the genesis of the proposals has not revealed an outstanding link. It is possible that, as implied, the US would do whatever it took to catch up with the perceived Soviet technology gap. This could have led to discussions at the FCC concerning perceived declining technical expertise of the existing amateur radio operator pool.
It should be pointed out that the initial request for contact between the FCC and ARRL concerning restructuring came from the FCC itself in 1957 or 58 and reportedly the ARRL at first ignored them. When the FCC followed up a year or two later the ARRL immediately signed on. Wayne Green of 73 magazine has always maintained that there were conversations between the FCC and the ARRL concerning incentive licensing and that the ARRL told the FCC to go ahead and make a proposal, and they would back it. Say what you want about Wayne Green but he has been consistent with this from 1963 even up to the present.
It can be argued that IF there was a technology gap it was small. The US was concentrating on weapons of war development and building the finest cold war arsenal. Although latter day critics have denounced this effort, it did lead to some of the best military hardware ever produced to that point. The B52 bomber was part of this effort with design work started around 1949 and final production ending in 1962. They still fly today.
It needs to be noted that one of the main purposes of the Amateur Service was to provide a trained pool of qualified operators in time of national emergency and it could certainly be argued that since the Soviets had one satellite in space, the time was coming when they would have more with perhaps some being able to carry weapons of mass destruction. There was probably a real fear of an impending national emergency. Of course the term "trained operator" at that time meant CW ops, and also implied the technical skills needed to build and keep a station on the air.
One of the stated reasons for the ARRL making and supporting incentive
licensing proposals was in fact the perceived decline in the number of
amateurs who actually used CW on a regular basis. Other reasons included the increase in poor operating habits, declining courtesy on the bands, and lack of ongoing technical development among amateurs as a whole. This last reason actually boiled down to the noticeable decline in amateurs who did not homebrew much gear.
As I stated in many previous postings on the subject, the 50 Years Of ARRL book indicated that the 50s was the era of the greatest technological advances by amateurs. Three years later they implied that the situation had reversed and painful medicine was needed to put things right.
I first became licensed as a Novice in 1964 at age 13 and although I was an ARRL member this issue was completely over my head at the time as any changes would not affect me for a long time. 1964-1968 is an eternity in the life of a 13 year old. As I got older and upgraded the license I started to see some of the implications of what might happen. In the end I ended up taking the Advanced test in 1969 primarily to retain some VHF privileges I was going to lose if phase 2 of the incentive licensing proposal was implemented.
Yes there were two phases of this. The first one, which took away many privileges from the General, Advanced, and Novice went into effect in 1968. Phase 2 was going to be more onerous for the General and Technician class operators. It is interesting to note that phase 2 was never implemented. It is my opinion that the ARRL realized that they had created a Frankenstein's monster and convinced the FCC not to go ahead with it. I guess you could say that losing some VHF privileges was incentive enough for me to upgrade but I never felt good about it.
Many never upgraded and were packed into band slices packed with QRM. Some nights it was almost impossible to operate. Many just gave up. Hamfests of the period 1969 through about 1973 were packed with gear as hams who had given up sold it off. The 70s are often refered to as the golden age of hamfests, maybe for this reason. Used equipment markets became flooded. As this happened, activity levels dropped, AM ops switched to SSB and QRM levels on HF became manageable.
I have an extensive collection of QST from the mid 30s to the present, 73 from the first issue to about 1987 and CQ from 1949 to the early 90s. Incentive licensing has become a fascinating subject for me and I believe a lot of the directions amateur radio took or did not take came as a direct result of it. This library has enabled me to read every article, editorial, and letter to the editor that was published about incentive licensing from its first discussions to its post mortems in the mid 70s when almost all of the American radio manufactures were either out of business or struggling. As you may have guessed I have my own theory as to why this happened:
1. The ARRL in its history never liked phone operation. (ARRL meaning the QST editor, technical writers, the Board and some staff) In the late 30s they had a short lived section in QST called "With The Phonies", the implication being obvious. In the 40s they changed it to "Phone Band
Phunies" The ARRL was mostly a CW oriented organization with a nod given to RTTY every now and then. This made some sense though when you remember the stated purpose of the Amateur Radio Service..... A pool of trained operators... which meant CW.
2. In the late 40s the ARRL began to push SSB as a much more efficient
means of communication than AM phone. They were right and the SSB articles and primers written for QST during the period were magnificent and most likely the best technical writing ever produced for QST. The problem was that Amateurs were not changing over at a fast enough rate, it was thought to be too complicated, too expensive, difficult to build and debug, and finally, difficult to receive correctly on the receivers of the day,
3. In 1952 a new system of licensing went into effect establishing the
Novice and Technician licenses but more importantly in the scheme of things, granting full amateur privileges to General Class license holders.
Overnight the Generals invaded the hollowed ground of the Advanced and Extra class.
At the time, in terms of privileges the Advanced class (or class A) was at the top of the heap. The Extra did not have any additional privileges. Since I was not there at the time (only 1 year old) I can only relate to what I read about what was taking place during this time period.
It seems that some, or more than some in the Advanced (Class A) and Extra classes were outraged at the FCC and the ARRL for allowing this to happen. Of course it could be argued that opening all the bands up to Generals, establishing the Novice and Technician license eventually led to the period of great amateur technological achievement that the ARRL was later talking about.
4. By the end of the 50s AM was still the major player on the phone bands. During this time period there were calls for the FCC to outlaw the use of AM below 30 megacycles. All of the pushing of SSB by the ARRL was having limited effect.
It is my opinion that incentive licensing, as pushed by the ARRL was a means to right the perceived wrongs of 1952 and force the use of SSB. The latter being accomplished by forcing Generals into very crowded band segments where the only alternatives were to either give up AM and switch to SSB in order to have a fighting chance at a Friday night QSO or upgrade and use the relatively QRM free bands of the Advanced and Extra classes.
Incidental data that was gathered during the time period prior to the incentive licensing proposals in the early 60s suggested that Advanced and Extra class operators who used phone (many were CW only) were migrating to SSB in much larger percentages than General Class operators. It was perceived that this was because the higher classes were more technically oriented than the General class.
The thinking seemed to be that all that was needed was an upgrade of the General's technical skills and he would suddenly see the value of SSB and convert to it. If he did not, then he would be confined to the QRM purgatory of very limited phone bands segments until he finally saw the light.
My opinion is that it was not a technical skill situation as much as it was an economic one. Older Advanced and Extra class operators most likely had more dollars to spend as individuals than the demographically younger General class hams.
The irony was that technical advances and manufacturing efficiencies
collaborated to bring to the market very good and very affordable SSB gear. There was not much affordable and utilitarian gear available prior to about 1962 with Collins, and Johnson leading the way with rather high priced SSB equipment.
The advent of the SBE-33, The Swan and Heath single banders and later the Swan 350 and Heath 100 series all band units, and the National and Hallicrafters units eased the way in. There were also low priced two and three band radios from WRL and Galaxy And the high quality lower priced alternative to Collins, Drake.... brought the SSB mode into the realm of most amateurs by 1970 when there was a good amount of used SSB gear around.
In the end the only things that incentive licensing accomplished were
generating ill will among the amateur community, very crowded sub bands that served to impinge on traffic net operation, having a number of amateurs drop out of the service, a slow down in equipment purchases for a time period long enough to hurt the major American manufacturers, a sizable decline in the average page count of most major ham magazines, especially CQ from about 1971 - 1975.
The largest negative impact of incentive licensing was probably the caste system that was set up in the Amateur Radio service. This most likely led to the slowdown in the growth rate in Amateur Radio in the 70s which in turn led to Novice enhancement, the creation of the no code Technician license which in 1997 was cited by the ARRL as the reason to change the licensing system once again which in turn led to the 5-WPM Extra, and now will lead to the no code General. If this is not irony...............
73
George
K3UD
There is an interesting sidebar to the Sputnik episode. According to some sources, Werner Von Braun had a proposal for putting an American satellite in low earth orbit by as early as 1955. He was going to use very improved versions of the V2 to construct a 4 stage booster that would put a very lightweight satellite into a short lived low orbit.
Apparently, Eisenhower nixed the idea saying that he did not want to deal with the international implications of an American orbital vehicle. There is also some information that suggests he thought it was more of a technical trick than and actual step ahead. It is interesting to speculate what would have happened if Von Braun was able to pursue this.
It was a good insight concerning Sputnik. Whether or not it had any impact on the incentive licensing proposals of 1963 is certainly debatable although my research into the genesis of the proposals has not revealed an outstanding link. It is possible that, as implied, the US would do whatever it took to catch up with the perceived Soviet technology gap. This could have led to discussions at the FCC concerning perceived declining technical expertise of the existing amateur radio operator pool.
It should be pointed out that the initial request for contact between the FCC and ARRL concerning restructuring came from the FCC itself in 1957 or 58 and reportedly the ARRL at first ignored them. When the FCC followed up a year or two later the ARRL immediately signed on. Wayne Green of 73 magazine has always maintained that there were conversations between the FCC and the ARRL concerning incentive licensing and that the ARRL told the FCC to go ahead and make a proposal, and they would back it. Say what you want about Wayne Green but he has been consistent with this from 1963 even up to the present.
It can be argued that IF there was a technology gap it was small. The US was concentrating on weapons of war development and building the finest cold war arsenal. Although latter day critics have denounced this effort, it did lead to some of the best military hardware ever produced to that point. The B52 bomber was part of this effort with design work started around 1949 and final production ending in 1962. They still fly today.
It needs to be noted that one of the main purposes of the Amateur Service was to provide a trained pool of qualified operators in time of national emergency and it could certainly be argued that since the Soviets had one satellite in space, the time was coming when they would have more with perhaps some being able to carry weapons of mass destruction. There was probably a real fear of an impending national emergency. Of course the term "trained operator" at that time meant CW ops, and also implied the technical skills needed to build and keep a station on the air.
One of the stated reasons for the ARRL making and supporting incentive
licensing proposals was in fact the perceived decline in the number of
amateurs who actually used CW on a regular basis. Other reasons included the increase in poor operating habits, declining courtesy on the bands, and lack of ongoing technical development among amateurs as a whole. This last reason actually boiled down to the noticeable decline in amateurs who did not homebrew much gear.
As I stated in many previous postings on the subject, the 50 Years Of ARRL book indicated that the 50s was the era of the greatest technological advances by amateurs. Three years later they implied that the situation had reversed and painful medicine was needed to put things right.
I first became licensed as a Novice in 1964 at age 13 and although I was an ARRL member this issue was completely over my head at the time as any changes would not affect me for a long time. 1964-1968 is an eternity in the life of a 13 year old. As I got older and upgraded the license I started to see some of the implications of what might happen. In the end I ended up taking the Advanced test in 1969 primarily to retain some VHF privileges I was going to lose if phase 2 of the incentive licensing proposal was implemented.
Yes there were two phases of this. The first one, which took away many privileges from the General, Advanced, and Novice went into effect in 1968. Phase 2 was going to be more onerous for the General and Technician class operators. It is interesting to note that phase 2 was never implemented. It is my opinion that the ARRL realized that they had created a Frankenstein's monster and convinced the FCC not to go ahead with it. I guess you could say that losing some VHF privileges was incentive enough for me to upgrade but I never felt good about it.
Many never upgraded and were packed into band slices packed with QRM. Some nights it was almost impossible to operate. Many just gave up. Hamfests of the period 1969 through about 1973 were packed with gear as hams who had given up sold it off. The 70s are often refered to as the golden age of hamfests, maybe for this reason. Used equipment markets became flooded. As this happened, activity levels dropped, AM ops switched to SSB and QRM levels on HF became manageable.
I have an extensive collection of QST from the mid 30s to the present, 73 from the first issue to about 1987 and CQ from 1949 to the early 90s. Incentive licensing has become a fascinating subject for me and I believe a lot of the directions amateur radio took or did not take came as a direct result of it. This library has enabled me to read every article, editorial, and letter to the editor that was published about incentive licensing from its first discussions to its post mortems in the mid 70s when almost all of the American radio manufactures were either out of business or struggling. As you may have guessed I have my own theory as to why this happened:
1. The ARRL in its history never liked phone operation. (ARRL meaning the QST editor, technical writers, the Board and some staff) In the late 30s they had a short lived section in QST called "With The Phonies", the implication being obvious. In the 40s they changed it to "Phone Band
Phunies" The ARRL was mostly a CW oriented organization with a nod given to RTTY every now and then. This made some sense though when you remember the stated purpose of the Amateur Radio Service..... A pool of trained operators... which meant CW.
2. In the late 40s the ARRL began to push SSB as a much more efficient
means of communication than AM phone. They were right and the SSB articles and primers written for QST during the period were magnificent and most likely the best technical writing ever produced for QST. The problem was that Amateurs were not changing over at a fast enough rate, it was thought to be too complicated, too expensive, difficult to build and debug, and finally, difficult to receive correctly on the receivers of the day,
3. In 1952 a new system of licensing went into effect establishing the
Novice and Technician licenses but more importantly in the scheme of things, granting full amateur privileges to General Class license holders.
Overnight the Generals invaded the hollowed ground of the Advanced and Extra class.
At the time, in terms of privileges the Advanced class (or class A) was at the top of the heap. The Extra did not have any additional privileges. Since I was not there at the time (only 1 year old) I can only relate to what I read about what was taking place during this time period.
It seems that some, or more than some in the Advanced (Class A) and Extra classes were outraged at the FCC and the ARRL for allowing this to happen. Of course it could be argued that opening all the bands up to Generals, establishing the Novice and Technician license eventually led to the period of great amateur technological achievement that the ARRL was later talking about.
4. By the end of the 50s AM was still the major player on the phone bands. During this time period there were calls for the FCC to outlaw the use of AM below 30 megacycles. All of the pushing of SSB by the ARRL was having limited effect.
It is my opinion that incentive licensing, as pushed by the ARRL was a means to right the perceived wrongs of 1952 and force the use of SSB. The latter being accomplished by forcing Generals into very crowded band segments where the only alternatives were to either give up AM and switch to SSB in order to have a fighting chance at a Friday night QSO or upgrade and use the relatively QRM free bands of the Advanced and Extra classes.
Incidental data that was gathered during the time period prior to the incentive licensing proposals in the early 60s suggested that Advanced and Extra class operators who used phone (many were CW only) were migrating to SSB in much larger percentages than General Class operators. It was perceived that this was because the higher classes were more technically oriented than the General class.
The thinking seemed to be that all that was needed was an upgrade of the General's technical skills and he would suddenly see the value of SSB and convert to it. If he did not, then he would be confined to the QRM purgatory of very limited phone bands segments until he finally saw the light.
My opinion is that it was not a technical skill situation as much as it was an economic one. Older Advanced and Extra class operators most likely had more dollars to spend as individuals than the demographically younger General class hams.
The irony was that technical advances and manufacturing efficiencies
collaborated to bring to the market very good and very affordable SSB gear. There was not much affordable and utilitarian gear available prior to about 1962 with Collins, and Johnson leading the way with rather high priced SSB equipment.
The advent of the SBE-33, The Swan and Heath single banders and later the Swan 350 and Heath 100 series all band units, and the National and Hallicrafters units eased the way in. There were also low priced two and three band radios from WRL and Galaxy And the high quality lower priced alternative to Collins, Drake.... brought the SSB mode into the realm of most amateurs by 1970 when there was a good amount of used SSB gear around.
In the end the only things that incentive licensing accomplished were
generating ill will among the amateur community, very crowded sub bands that served to impinge on traffic net operation, having a number of amateurs drop out of the service, a slow down in equipment purchases for a time period long enough to hurt the major American manufacturers, a sizable decline in the average page count of most major ham magazines, especially CQ from about 1971 - 1975.
The largest negative impact of incentive licensing was probably the caste system that was set up in the Amateur Radio service. This most likely led to the slowdown in the growth rate in Amateur Radio in the 70s which in turn led to Novice enhancement, the creation of the no code Technician license which in 1997 was cited by the ARRL as the reason to change the licensing system once again which in turn led to the 5-WPM Extra, and now will lead to the no code General. If this is not irony...............
73
George
K3UD