I might argue that this entire thread is to some degree ignoring
technical advances and economic realities.

Speaking strictly of broadcasting, when the industry got its start
there were no PLL frequency control systems, locked to a
precisely-controlled 10MHz oscillator. There wasn't even crystal
control. If you didn't have a skilled engineer, temperature changes
and physical movement of the antenna would have your station running
all over the dial. With no TV, MP3 players, or streaming media, if
your station *did* drift on top of the Columbia station in the nearby
city, half the audience would lose their nightly entertainment.

(I note with interest this page: http://jeff560.tripod.com/1923am.html
.. Note the large gap in the radio dial -- with no stations between 790
and 870, except for the dozens listed on "833" (actually a wavelength
of 360m). These were a separate "class" of station - with looser
technical requirements - and contemporary reports suggest they tended
to drift among, and sometimes beyond, the 800-860 band, making it a bad
idea to assign any other stations there!)

If you didn't have a skilled engineer, a valuable business might not be
where its customers (or at least its audience) expected to find it --
and it could be interfering with the ability of its competitors to do
business. Orderly business required strict regulation.

Today, an amateur can, in a few minutes, build a crystal-controlled
oscillator that will stay on-channel with no attention whatsoever.
Virtually all of our neighbors make daily use of portable UHF
transmitters, in all temperatures and locations, without any concerns
about off-frequency operation, and with no attention whatsoever.
(usually they aren't even turned on/off) And at the same time, with
media players, cable TV, and the Internet, radio is simply no longer
the critical lifeline it was in the 1930s. The most popular radio
station in town could go off the air for hours and 90% of the
population wouldn't even notice.

The risk of interference from an unattended transmitter has plummeted,
and the economic consequences if it *does* cause interference have also
plummeted.

To put it a bit differently, I might venture that the ESPN station Mike
cited feels the losses they're taking by airing two programs
simultaneously or losing spots are less than the cost of hiring a
qualified engineer.

(you might, on the other hand, argue that if the station were willing
to invest in ensuring a proper signal, their advertising revenue might
increase by a factor greater than the cost of hiring the engineer.
Their management may have decided operating without an engineer makes
economic sense, but management isn't always right!)

=============

I would suggest the goal of amateur licensing has also changed over the
years.

Just as with commercial broadcasting, in the early days the improper
operation of an amateur transmitter could easily cause massive
interference, even outside the amateur service. Much important traffic
(especially international traffic) was handled by radio and fragile to
interference. If amateurs were to exist, it would be critical that
they know how to confine their transmissions to their own bands.
Commercially-built transmitters were rare, and even when they did exist
a skilled operator was necessary to keep them on-channel. Tough
technical examinations were necessary to ensure against interference.

Today, it's darned near impossible to radiate a signal outside amateur
spectrum unless you want to. I would suggest the FCC would probably be
fine with lifting the requirement for licensing examinations
altogether! - really, we're not likely to cause interference to anyone
except ourselves.

The only reason we still have amateur licensing exams is because *we*
want them.

=============

I would also suggest the licensing exam has not become *easier* over
the years, only *different*. Maybe to put it a bit differently, we've
gone from deeply testing a few areas of knowledge, to shallowly testing
a wide variety of knowledge.

When we were shut down for WW2, we had one MF band, four HF bands, and
two VHF bands. We had three legal emission modes - CW, AM, and FM.
Repeaters & satellites were unheardof, unless you were Arthur C.
Clarke.

Today, we have one MF band, nine HF bands, and four commonly-used
VHF/UHF bands. If you count all "digital" modes as a single mode, I
still count six emission modes in common use on HF.

There's a lot more to know about. If we still expected amateur
applicants to be able to sketch the diagram of a transmitter or figure
the proper biasing of a common-cathode amplifier or explain how to keep
an oscillator from drifting, it would take days to write the exam and
months to grade it.

--

Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View, TN EM66