Wa6bfh@aol.com wrote, in part:
> I first started really worrying about Ham radio in the early 90's....
> Most of the folks I run into can neither speak of radio electronics, nor
> many other areas........... Now it seems that concepts
> of resonance, reactance, bandwidth, or even DC Ohms law are beyond
> the average Ham!
> Do you think there might be a link to the reduction of licensing standards,
> and this other condition?
Hi John,
Of course, and also the general decline of good science teachers
in the high schools, even the middle school level, am afraid! Many of
those now "getting" amateur licenses are only interested in communicating;
not in the technology at all.
I note that there has been a huge increase in the number of those holding
Extra Class licenses these days, now at 105,863 at the end of Sept. '04!
That is up from 77,530 the month the drop to 5 wpm CW and the other
requirements
were relaxed for the Extra and other classes of license. Also, that same
month,
April, 2000, there were 678,539 US amateur license holders; today that has
dropped to 674,297. end of Sept. again. So yes, it is MUCH easier to get
an Extra Class license, or any class from General on up than 4 1/2 years ago,
the total number of US hams is down over 4000 holders, but there are
28,300 more Extra licenses --Expert in all areas of amateur radio
technology??-- over the same 4 1/2 year time spread!!
There is a fellow out here right now preparing to take the Extra test at the end
of this week. Only a week ago I had to explain what pi was to him and why
it was involved in calculations of inductive and capacitive reactance -- he
listened, but the only "idea" I believed he grasped was that the number:
3.14159......... was not magic, it is only the numerical value of the ratio
of the circumference of a circle divided by the diameter of that same circle,
and what is "magic" about it is that it holds for ALL circles -- even the
circle scribed by a sine wave if looked at not vs. time, but actually versus
the locus of a single point on a circular wheel rolling along a plane.
We made a start on his understanding about reactance -- energy stored
for a time in either a magnetic or electric field (inductive or capacitive)
and not available at the moment for energy transfer, or "lost" just for
the moment in a "reactance", but recoverable while that energy lost in
"resistance" has been converted into heat, and is lost to our radio
energy transfer purposes for all time (some times we want that, of
course!)
As all of the linear RF behavior of radio is in sine waves, the number pi
sits as part of the "bedrock" of what we use to do arithmetic to come up
with numbers useful to our understanding/designs for our hobby.
Our new, 4 1/2 year old license standards, as low as they now are,
only serve to provide licenses to those who have never learned the
concepts and principles that "early" radio amateurs found so fascinating
and were eager to learn and explore. Of course, all the correct answers
to EVERY question on any of the amateur license exams are published
and available for memorizing. Yes there are hundreds of questions in the
pool, but many are the same question asked several different ways;
so it is NOT that hard to just memorize all the correct answers, which
are easily recognized when the test is taken as, again they are all
printed right there in multiple choice format and just exactly as you
had studied/memorized!
What I don't understand is why some want an amateur radio license. And
I suspect that many who do get one, very quickly learn that they are
completely ill prepared to do even the most simple tasks to get a station
up and operating successfully on the ham bands. As a result, they soon
drop out and go on to using their cell phones and the Internet for their
personal communication desires, hi. This lack of understanding to get
a station going seems to hold even for those who have gone out and
bought everything from HRO, Ten Tec or some other, even the antenna!
"Read the manuals, they are too long, I'll just turn this stuff on and get
started,
that's all I need to do.........".
Rambling on too long, so will stop.
73, Jim, now W6KPI, gave up the KH7M call a couple weeks ago,
went back to my 1950 call rather in protest to what is going
on now. I no longer felt any pride whatsoever in holding a 2x1 call.
So I returned to what is certainly recognized as a very old call, hi.
BTW, the Novice and "Conditional" class licenses began later on in
1951, and in my opinion, things seem to have gone down hill since,
at least since the time that your new Novice/Conditional license
could last for more than 1 year, after which you were originally
required to upgrade to General IF you wanted to continue in the
hobby and contribute to the art of radio and communications
using same.
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