Hopefully you're not trolling, because this issue has been debated ad nauseam. Look for it on subsequent post pages. Otherwise troll on.....
A new General class OP argued with me that he HAD NOT memorized the test answers! He said, "ask me something!" So I asked him, "what is Ohm's Law?" He said, "D".
It was said that there's going to be a lot of opinions like assholes everybody has one!@!! Well here's my opinion, having been licensed well over 50 years and I'm still only in my mid-60s I hope I have another 20 or 30 years to go as a Ham! I saw incentive license and go into place, Volunteer examiner's come in, no code tech license (the tech written used to be the same as a general before that), no code extra classes, it would have mentioned before that VHF and UHF analog repeaters are not nearly as active as they used to be, FT8, DMR.......... my opinion is,,,, I really don't care as long as they don't mess with my Extra class. They took my First Class phone license away and made it a General phone license out of it, my 25 word a minute radio teletype license is obsolete now. But we all need to do is get on the air and make some contacts on HF.
And if I may add, its easier in the long run than having to ask every time you need to know something. 73 Rich
Listen to the 40 meter CW segment this Wednesday between 1300 and 1400 Z and afterward explain how CW is obsolete.
It is entirely possible now days, for an individual who is interested in amateur radio to gain all of the knowledge needed to pass a FCC exam with out any interaction with a licensed operator. Their only Elmer being the internet or a book. Their first contact with an amateur operator may actually be at a testing session. The numbers are staggering.... http://www.arrl.org/fcc-license-counts Over 383,000 licensed technician class amateurs, more than any other class. In fact there are more techs than all of the Novice, Advanced, General and Extra classes combined. It could be argued that with so many licensed Technicians, that the tech allocated portions of the bands should be alive with activity. Sadly they are not. All to often on the air, or in the forums, even on you tube, newly licensed amateurs share stories of disappointment with the hobby. Describing situations where they felt un-welcomed, shunned or worst yet ridiculed. Regardless of any opinion of the topic of this thread, at least agree that more should be and can be done to encourage more of those who are already licensed to get on the air and others to join the hobby. Perhaps, everyone who has replied to this thread should tune up their rigs on the technician portions of the band an put a call out for new hams. ask not what ham radio can do for you -- ask what you can do for ham radio.
I can not believe that ARRL is going to ask the FCC to make such a stupid change to amateur radio. I would think that they would be asking for only one completely new license class, the Double Special Extra. This would give every amateur all privileges with no test at all. Only a signature would be required, an X would suffice in place of a signature so as not to disenfranchise the illiterate. These certificates would of course be made from a non absorptive plastic so as to avoid drool stains from some applicants. All amateur frequencies would be channelized to 5 KHZ intervals. And the most important change would be that membership in the ARRL would henceforth be required by law under part 97. Of course I also hope they will adopt my suggestion that FCC no longer issue call signs but instead, users can just create a handle and register it with ARRL so the FCC doesn't have to be bothered with it. Also, all amateur frequencies can be channelized such that every channel is on an even number making it really easy for everyone to modulate with one another. Ahh, it's a brave new world.
