"Michael Black" wrote


I suspect the whole thing about incentive licensing is overblown.

How did incentive licensing damage the inflow of young people to the
hobby? It was the already licensed hams who grumbled, and who lost
anything.


Michael,

I am convinced that incentive licensing remains the hands down all time
winner of the DAIOTC (Dumb Assed Idea of The Century) award.

When a lot of us got started in the hobby the bands were not subdivided
like they are today and it seems that we all, regardless of license
class, worked together to improve the Amateur Radio Service. I didn't
lose any privileges in 1968 because I had been an Extra for several
years, but I thought it was a really bad idea at the time, and I remain
convinced that it indelibly damaged Amateur Radio in the United States.

Back then, it seems that we all, regardless of license class, worked
together to improve the Amateur Radio Service.

Back then, nobody got a special deal because they could beep faster or
remember more electrical formulae than someone else. I got my Extra in
1964, well before disincentive licensing, and it was simply just another
personal accomplishment, and did not "elevate" me above other hams. We
all shared the same spectrum, worked together to solve the same
problems, competed in contests, trouble-shot each others radios, and
generally had fun together.

If you forgot the numbers for the dipole formula, it was OK to ask
someone else. If your Morse speed was 10WPM the speedier guys would
slow down for you, not QSY to some specially reserved band segment. The
one or two "old timers" on 75 meters who didn't like newcomers ("No
lids, no kids, not space cadets") were universally looked down on as
poor examples of what a ham ought to act like. The Novice bands were a
"cacophony of exuberance" to steal a term that K1ZZ used in a meeting
here in Minneapolis. Old hands were on those Novice bands also -- it was
not unusual to hear W4KFC or W5ZD patiently working WN4KKN or WV2CNL --
nobody remarked that it was "nice" of them to do that -- it was just
part of being a good ham.

The notion that you had earned a special band segment never occurred to
anyone -- we were just excitedly "playing in the ether", and there was
no distinction on the air between Extra, Advanced, General, or
Conditional -- elitist special callsign formats to celebrate the fine
granulations of your test taking/memorization skills had not been
invented.

36 years later we are still sliced and diced into 6 different classes,
carefully divided into our own special frequency segments, and Lord
protect the Extra who suggests that a new Technician might have
something to contribute to our beloved Amateur Radio service.

We'll never return to 'back then', unfortunately, and the intervening
years have not produced the breed of "superham" which we were promised
by ARRL and FCC; quite the opposite --- the technical acumen of the
typical amateur of today is many dB lower than it was back then.

Sunuvagun!

73, de Hans, K0HB