FINALLY!!!!!!

The R&O made it in the Federal Register this morning

Effective Feb 23, 2007  No More Code Test!!


 

Now can we put it to rest and work for the advancement
of our great hobby?  

 

Pffffft - Troll

N1YDX - Lee

 

Yes!!!
Seeing how those of us who passed code tests did such a crappy job before you came along.

Hooray we are saved!!!!

 

WONDERFULL !!!

Which cereal box will be having the licenses in?






<span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>edited to put the be after the will and before the having</span>

 

W0URZ, look out the window, the sky is still up there.

 

While I think this is a good thing there has been damage that has been done. I hope I am wrong but this is what I feel. I'm sure there is going to many who will call me a troll or fishing but this from my heart.

What has passed for &quot;knowledge&quot; in the ARS has been merely the ability to decode CW. Instead of focusing on anything actually related to radio knowledge the service has been fixated on one thing. The ability to decode morse -not even the ability to SEND it -just decode it. Real knowledge was not important or tested very deeply.

Yeah, the code is hard -especially for many people who don't have a good ear for it. No doubt about that. It acted as a barrier to many, many qualified radio experimenters and knowledgeable electronics experts. The fall-off in the number of bleeding-edge technological advances in radio being spear-headed by hams has been very evident of late. The new frontiers are being expanded by non-hams now. Technological knowledge wasn't valued by the community -only CW was.

The theory and principles of radio -propagation as well as electronics is not comprehensively tested by even element 4. The tests are way too easy. What has passed for a &quot;knowledge&quot; test is the ability to hear code and all other radio knowledge was not a key focus. Get the code test behind you and the other tests are just eye-candy. The only important thing was the code.

What do we have now? A gutted mulitiple-choice test that is so easy that we have Advanced amateurs that can't even figure out how to design a simple audio circuit.

Can we turn this around? maybe. But what I see is an intitial surge of techs who wish to upgrade now that the code is no longer holding them back. They probably will have no trouble with the general test -not many will. An hour or so studying and anyone can pass Element 3. A couple more and element 4 is behind them. But after those people have upgraded I have a bad feeling that the number of new hams will not continue to be any higher than it is now. The long, slow decline will go on.

There is a general disdain for ham radio. The general public thinks we are geeks and doesn't understand the allure of radio. For so long the ARS has turned away anyone who didn't have an ear for CW. Lots of people think that ham radio is only for hopeless geeks and as our numbers have shrunken in proportion to the general public so much that we have dropped out of view.

Whatever cool factor we had amongst the technical set has been lost when the ARS went for code knowledge as the defining aspect of the hobby over real technical knowledge. I fear the damage has already been done and I really don't know what can be done to overcome the past 20-30 years of going down the dead end of only pursuing &quot;knowledge&quot; that was not, in itself, technical in nature.. If the code would have been totally eliminated as an entrance to the hobby back in 1975 maybe we wouldn't be in the pickle we are now. Now, I think it is too little too late. But only time will tell.

Flame on. Your mileage may vary but in the end I think 'future history' will bear me out.

 

I thought this thread was about somebody FINALLY getting DXCC #100, or FINALLY working the VU7 station, or some such Personal Achievement .

Bummer.

 

You guy got what you want.

&quot;Getting Rid Of The Barrier&quot;


And dumbing down the Service. Now you don't have to Apply yourselves, don't have to study and put in any effort to get an upgrade.


So just upgrade and shut up with this stuff on here !!

 

Fixed your post.

 

I finally worked the VU7 station on 17m this past Monday.

Does that count?

 

Putting words into my mouth?

Yes, I agree the MC test is a joke. How are they going to fix that? It should be harder, of course. The question pool could be made larger. But to be fair and even it has to be some sort of multiple-choice test.

But modern technology could fix a lot of the problems. The math and theory questions could be set up like a spread sheet. Instead of fixed numbers they should be randomly generated with the answers being calculated by the program that is giving the test and not SHOWN to the person. Make it fill in the blank -right or WRONG. Ask questions about the theory and make them acutally DO the equations. -not just memorize the right number for the answer.

The band limit questions should be fill in the blank. If you are going to make someone memorize anything THIS is something they should memorize -not how the right answer &quot;looks&quot; in relation to the wrong ones on the test. I have to admit that I'm bad at memorizing numbers. If you asked me to write down the numbers on a fill in the blank test I'd have to REALLY think about them. But just looking at the test on QRZ, the right one is just obvious. The wrong ones just look wrong. People just memorize the 'shape' of the right answer. I know I do when it comes to these band limits questions.


Maybe the test should be a computer program given out by the FCC or through the ARRL and people could download it and study it but they would have to take it at the VEC session under supervision. That would allow all sorts of interactive questions and such while still complying with governmental regulations about openness. But make it hard and more random. Give the test-takers a TIME LIMIT for god's sake. Let them use a built-in calculator in the test program and a scratch pad area. It realy wouldn't be that hard to fix up the question pool to make it both fair and tough. I wouldn't have a problem if only 50% of the people who applied were able to pass. It would not be that difficult for the VE's to have to load the test onto a room full of computers and sit the test-takers down in front of them and let them go. Keep an eye on them and let the computer do the evaluating. It's an idea.

But make the darn thing about RADIO! not about one specific mode. The CW test is so out of date as a means of evaluating an amateur's skills and knowledge that is worthless as anything but a HURDLE to keep anyone who doesn't have an ear for dits and dahs out forever. Is that what anyone wants? Don't answer that. I know the answer from a lot of people -that is sad. A private little dit-dah club. It might as well be through the internet if you want to do dit-dah with someone across the world. Or over a land line. I wonder why there are no more advances in the art coming from the ARS. It's not what it is about for the past 20 years. It's Dit-Dah only.

Make it about real knowledge. Maybe have a typing test of 50WPM as 5% of the grade. If you must have CW then make a small test for that and make it 5% of the grade too. But make the test so that no ONE thing is make or break. It's just not healthy for the amateur service. Everyone has different abilities and different things they are good and bad at. That is just the facts of life.

 

Not really, just speaking the truth.

You're saying that now, but would you re-test if that became effective?

It doesn't. Making it MC only makes it easier to grade. It doesn't make it any more fair and even.

I like the idea of the questions and answers not being shown to people. That is why a lot of people supported the morse requirement - because now anyone can just memorize the question pool and gain full privileges.

While element 1 didn't really test anything other than the ability to send and receive morse, it did make it at least moderately difficult to earn your privileges.

Now? It's easy as hell, and to be honest since it is now easy as hell, the value of the license and privileges have now become devalued.

Just like you have people complaining about code, you'll have people complaining about this too.

I would like to see this myself, mind you, but it's not going to happen.

Why, even No Code International has been opposed to beefing up the written tests.

1. The ARRL shouldn't have a monopoly on this.

2. Good luck. Computer based testing isn't going to happen. Who's going to pay for the computers? Certainly not my VE team, and ARRL is not going to raise my membership dues, nor is the Government going to raise my taxes to pay for this, nor is the VEC fee going to be raised to cover this. Paper testing works, and it works well.

It should be an option, however, given through a secure website (less chance of problems with incompatible software). It's not hard to do.

BUt I suspect we won't have computer based testing for the same reason we won't have computer based voting - fraud is way too easy.

CW was only less than 10% of the requirement from April 15, 2000 onwards and was very, very easy.

It's only people like you that made a mountain out of a molehill that thought otherwise.

A friend of mine has a saying - morality and standards always fall at your own two feet.

 

None.

We'll be sending out box tops to get licenses...

 

I have already ordered a black arm-band. CU on CW..
73 Joe W4CBJ

 

Are the gonna give licences in cereal boxes now? is it gonna be called winers instead of wheaties ?