[TowerTalk] dumbing down...extra class test

[Thomas Beltran]

AC0H wrote:

"It's just a little embarrassing to wander across an antenna conversation in
the 
Extra portion of 20m and notice that nobody involved knows the formula 
for a half wave dipole or quarter wave vertical."

I'm curious as to who should, in your opinion be embarrassed, and why?
Perhaps it comes down to who should be in the hobby - just engineers?  This
is just another way of asking, who is, or how does one define a ham?  One of
the most technically brilliant hams I have known, who could problably be
left on an island and build a complete station from found-junk, had very
little interest in going on the air.  In fact, he just went on the air to
test his radios.  But I can assure you, in taking the amateur test, not only
would his brain not have been toast, but it wouldn't have even gotten warm.
If everyone were like him however, we wouldn't have any frequencies left -
no one would be using them.  

But the opinion you express is one I hear quite a bit, interestingly not on
the air, but on the internet.   I would be one of those people who many
"professional" hams feel, should not be in the hobby, or at least, not be an
extra.  But thankfully, at least this discussion is more civil than the one
concerning CW.  

I studied, and passed the advanced and extra portion and extra code test in
1978 (I was first licensed in 1970).  At that time, I had only had a
semester in Algebra, and several semesters in statistics.  I was a liberal
arts major, just starting graduate school.  As I recall, the only study
guide I had was the ARRL license manual.  Perhaps the test was easiest then,
and got harder by 1992, and then (by your account) easier again?    So, lets
assume that although I didn't have the use of those awful crib-sheets that
are now available, I just slipped in a window when the test was very easy.
I took the test in person, at a session in Fargo North Dakota.  

I enjoy building fairly simple projects from scratch, kits, restoring old
radios, and operating.  But I have very little technical knowledge of
electronics.  But even the extra was to me, an admittedly non-technical
person, a fairly easy exam relative to other exams I had taken at that
point.  To try and create some level or standard of compentence on the basis
of about 45 minutes of testing is quite surprising to me.  

After attending law school, and having a family and family concerns, I've
been very busy - what little knowledge of electronics I had has certainly
been reduced over time.  I can say then, that even if I had been a
engineering student, and been able to rattle off the formula for a half-wave
dipole, now some 30 years later, I probably wouldn't be able to do it.  So
you might want to include some type of continuing education requirement in
your definition of a ham.  If you didn't lock me out in that window of time
where the FCC must have slipped and gave an easy test, get me and other
non-deserving hams out later with some tough continuing education
requirement - but it needs to be really tough.   Not building a K2, but I
suggest - given a large junk-box, design and build a complete ham station
with the junk-box parts.  Would that separate, as they say, the men from the
boys?

I find it absolutely amazing that so many people seem to feel that the ham
radio test, either the extra code test or theory tests were so difficult, or
should be so difficult, as to be a some type of guarantee of competence.
I'm sure there are other lawyers on this list, I wonder how many of you
would send a new associate into court alone on an important case?  After
all, if a short electronics test should mean something, someone with a
four-year degree and then three years of law school, and a (in California)
three-day bar exam under his or her belt should be an expert ready to argue
that next case before the U.S. Supreme Court - NOT.

There may be a lot of reasons for why those hams on 20 meters did not know
the formula for a dipole.  It could be that like me, they had other academic
interests, so they just learned what was necessary to get the ham license.
Or perhaps they had been  engineers, who (unlike Mr. Stover) easily passed
the extra, but thirty or forty years later, just have moved on to other
things.  I think it comes down to being a good citizen in the ham community.
Which for me would be first, an interest in the subject matter, good
operating habits, and a warm disposition to new hams and the varying
sub-interests within the hobby.  Of course, just my opinion.  Tom W6EIJ