[TowerTalk] dumbing down...extra class test

[R. Kevin Stover]

Thomas Beltran wrote:


> 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?

There are few very basic things that, IMHO, all Hams should know.
The basic antenna formulas, basic AC-DC theory, acceptable operating 
practices, FCC rules and regs.

> 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?

Nope, the guys who had to sit in front of FCC examiners and actually 
diagram oscillator circuits had it the toughest. Admittedly, the test I 
took for Extra class wasn't as tough as those. The Extra class test 
today, just 6 years later, isn't as tough as the one I took.

> 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.

Why not? Isn't that what the bar exam is SUPPOSED to do for lawyers and 
the legal system. Aren't we, the ignorant lay public, supposed to trust 
that the lawyers who've passed the bar are at some basic level competent?

> Or perhaps they had been  engineers, who (unlike Mr. Stover) easily passed
> the extra,

Hehehehe....I thought I did pretty well going from zero to Advanced, 
including the CW test, in one session. Apparently I'm in the presence of 
true greatness. Shakespeare was right.


-- 
R. Kevin Stover	ACØH

K2/100 #4684

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