Jim Hampton wrote:
"KØHB" wrote in message
ink.net...

As has been cussed and discussed here, ARRL has petitioned FCC to
reduce the number of license classes from six down to three,
namely Novice, General, and Extra.

snip

If you haven't read the entire petition (it runs somewhere around
35 pages, each page laden with microscopic-print footnotes) you
may have missed the fact that there will actually be 5
sub-classes of General.

73, de Hans, K0HB


Hans,

This appears to reflect what is going on in society in general. The company
I worked for had various apprenticeships - one was for automation. It was a
four year apprenticeship. Today, the same apprenticeship is three years in
duration - plus you end up with an *associate's degree*! I would tend to
question whether an individual actually learned more in three years to
deserve that degree or not, but the fact remains that the 3 year graduate is
now qualified to go into many other fields as a technician whilst the 4 year
graduate is not.

If an 8 year old can pass the extra exam (itself pretty much a cakewalk
today), why the necessity of a field promotion for someone that didn't take
all of the theory elements for a general?

Meanwhile, back in Rochester, NY, I went to one of those fast food outlets
about a month ago. The cash register operator took my $20.00 (the bill was
something like $11.83), hit a button, and - the look on her face told me she
punched a button which told the machine I gave her $11.83. She took a five
out of the register .... slowly took a single .... then after frowning for
several seconds, another single .... then she had to get the manager to make
change. Heck, if she learns to add and subtract, maybe they'll grandfather
her to a bachelor's degree


I think Rochester had a one time upgrade of second graders to HS
diplomas a while back, didn't they?


All in all, it is frightening to see newly minted extras asking such
questions as "I have an SWR of 2 to 1. What can I do to lower it?".

I know what you mean. All they have to do is take the face off of the
meter, and manually push the needle down. If their meter uses LED's,
they can put tape over the offending lights.

We'll see more replays of such things as happened on Guam "sparkplug1 this
is sparkplug. You are loud, but garbbled." - hey guys, take out the antenna
and stick a coat hanger in the antenna jack. Either that, or lower the rf
gain ) But they were the experts, right?

Were they actually Extra's? The SWR thing I can almost see, if a person
is inexperienced, and considering the religious like pursuit of 1:1 SWR.

But what you describe after that is pretty dum for shure!


- mike KB3EIA -