On Mar 4, 9:10�am, "Dee Flint" wrote:

My bet is that we'll indeed have a de facto two level license
system but I think they will be General and Extra. *The step from Tech to
General is not that difficult and the licensee will have access to all
modes, power levels and bands. *Unless you are into DXing, contesting or
being a VE, the additional privileges that Extra licensees have are not that
much of an advantage.

I, for one, encourage all those studying for Technician to go ahead and get
the General study guide and go for it either at the first sitting or as soon
as possible thereafter. *The Technician will be basically turn into a very
temporary way station on their climb up the ladder.

My fiftieth of a dollar:

There are really two issues here.

The first is "what's the best possible license
structure?" and the second is "what can we
realistically put in place in US amateur radio?"

The first step in answering either question is
to define what should be on the tests for a
license that gives *all* US amateur radio
privileges. Some think the testing for the current
full-privileges US amateur radio license isn't
near as comprehensive as it should be, others
think it covers too much, etc.

The answer is almost certainly going to be a
compromise between all those opinions.

The second step is to determine whether
it's a good idea to require a new amateur
to pass that test just to get started in amateur
radio, or whether it's better to have license
classes that require less knowledge in return
for fewer privileges.

Then decide how many steps are needed from
"not a ham" to "full privileges".

While doing this, it is important to remember
that what appears easy to someone with
significant radio/electronics/engineering/math
background may not appear easy to someone
who does not have that same background.

Then there's the whole question of what FCC can
be induced to do. In recent R&Os and other
writings, FCC has repeatedly said they consider
the optimum number of license classes to be
three.

So it seems the way to go is:

- an "entry level" license that is easy to get
and gives limited privileges

- a "middle level" license that requires more
knowledge, but not everything

- a "full privileges" license that has comprehensive
knowledge requirements for full privileges

That's close to what we have now, but there are
improvements that can be made. First is the
extreme unbalance in the privileges of the
Technician license. That may be a hard
sell to FCC.

---

It should be remembered that the old Novice class
was extremely successful in getting new hams
started in amateur radio, at least for the first 30-40
or so years of its existence. The main feature of
the old Novice that worked so well was that it
required minimal testing, so that newcomers could
get on the air and see if amateur radio was really
for them.

There was never any requirement for newcomers
to start with the Novice, yet for decades most new
hams did just that.

What's needed now is a "Novice license for the
21st Century", IMHO

73 de Jim, N2EY