[UK-CONTEST] Off Topic (Licensing)

[Ken Eastty]

There was a precedent for a fast track route to the amateur licence. 
Admittedly it was a long time ago but I believe that after WW2 anyone 
who had been in the services in a communications role was granted an 
amateur licence without taking the exam or Morse test, perhaps there’s 
an early G3... around who could confirm this.

I view the licensing issue from the perspective of having passed the old 
(written) RAE when I was 14 and many years later (in the 1980’s) as an 
RAE instructor. This leads me to believe that the RAE either in written 
or multi-choice format was never difficult to pass. In the 1960’s (and 
later) many schoolboys passed the exam before even taking their GCE's. 
As an RAE instructor I found that a very high percentage of students 
from a wide range of backgrounds, abilities & age were able to pass the 
RAE at the first attempt (I should point out that even then and to my 
surprise very few prospective amateurs were following the SWL route).

What then was wrong with the C&G RAE ? I think that the C&G process was 
incredibly slow especially for a multi-choice exam which could almost 
have been marked on the spot. From memory enrolment for the May exam was 
in February and the result wouldn’t be received until August. Missing 
the enrolment deadline meant waiting until December for the next exam 
with a further wait for the result.
I can imagine that today many people would lose interest at this point 
especially when paying around over £50 (?) for the privilege.

The present scheme does appear to make up for some of the deficiencies 
of the C&G. I believe that in some areas it’s almost possible to take 
the exam on demand with a quick result. Parts of the practical element 
are might be useful but being able to demonstrate soldering and fitting 
a plug is probably of less use to most amateurs today than the 
(unfortunately) defunct Morse test. However it’s still necessary to take 
three exams to get the full licence & I’m told that this costs more than 
taking the old single RAE and in some places I understand that it's 
difficult to find anywhere to sit the advanced exam.

I too fail to see where ‘incentive’ comes into the scheme when the only 
difference between the three classes is the power level. Many M3-6 &2E’s 
seem to be using 100W transceivers ‘turned down’ to 10 or 50 W. At the 
very least there should still have been some restriction on the 
frequencies available to M3-6’s /2E’s.

How successful have the Foundation/Novice schemes been? I’ve not seen 
any figures for examination passes for many years. One thing is certain 
there are few M3-6/2E’s active on VHF at least around here and the 
general level of activity on these bands is far less than when the Class 
B VHF licence existed, remember use or lose? If contest entries are any 
measure of activity both HF & VHF contests show very little activity by 
M3-6’s/2E’s.

I believe that one objective of the foundation licence was to bring 
youngsters into the hobby, perhaps someone has some statistics to see 
how successful this has been. The impression that I have today is that 
most new licensees are approaching retirement age, perhaps it’s this 
group which we should be encouraging. It’s not surprising given that the 
youngsters who in the past might have been interested in amateur radio 
now have their mobile phones, PC’s etc. are all very much occupied with 
their school work show no interest in the hobby.

One final thought, when I was first licensed there were around 6,000 G 
licences, now I believe the number is 60,000 therefore should we worry 
about the number of new people coming into the hobby although I can see 
that this might concern the Amateur Radio Dept. of RSGB PLC.

73...

Ken

G3LVP