[TenTec] Extra Class Licensing

[Jim Reid]

Hi,  yesterday,  I wrote,  in part:

> > 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.

Jim, W8KGI, responded  in part:

> Please don't be too hard on those of us who started as Novices.  I began in 
> 1952 when I was in the 8th grade as WN4VIV and W4VIV - got my Novice and 
> Technician tickets at the same, in-person FCC exam.  I copied the 13 wpm 
> test solid 9 months later, and then upgraded to Extra in 1967, the same 
> month I was also taking my Electrical Engineering PhD general exams. 

That is excellent,  Jim.  Please note that I had no quarrel at all with the
original Novice license -- it was only good for one year;  you either
upgraded or left the hobby!  But that changed,  that was the problem
I was discussing.

You were only a few years behind me as I was in high school in 1950
and finished at Stanford in 1957.  bit won only the BSEE degree (was
interested in more,  but got married in '54 and then in early '57 found
she had become pregnant -- can't imagine how that happened,  hi.
I was in the "honors" program at the time,  heading straight to the MS
degree.  Fred Terman allowed as to how I needed to leave school
right now to get a full time job so he would sign the papers allowing
Stanford to immediately grant me at least a BSEE degree.  I took it
and left in April '57 (I had oodles of credits,  just a matter of
subsituting a lot of grad level courses for undergrad classes I
had skipped,  hi!).

Never got back to school as life got very busy,  to say the least!
Moral:  unless you have lots of money,  don't get married too young,
and certainly not while still in school.........

73,  Jim  W6KPI