msg wrote:

Experimenter Techs were the norm IMHO before the debacle of license
class changes

I may have met one or two Tech experimenters but the only reason they were
Tech experimenters and not General or Extra experimenters was they couldn't
get their code speed up. Which is why I always thought that the concept of
a Tech being an experimenter type license kind of silly.

Heck there is an electronics whiz named Cecil with a web site all about neat
antenna ideas of his. He surely fits the experimenter mold. For eons on
these newsgroups he said he wouldn't have an Extra if they gave it to him.
Absolutely no need said he. But when the code went away guess what. Yup
he's an Extra. So IMO the license class has little to do with being an
experimenter...

I may have met one or two Tech experimenters but the only reason they were
Tech experimenters and not General or Extra experimenters was they
couldn't
get their code speed up. Which is why I always thought that the concept of
a Tech being an experimenter type license kind of silly.

Heck there is an electronics whiz named Cecil with a web site all about
neat
antenna ideas of his. He surely fits the experimenter mold. For eons on
these newsgroups he said he wouldn't have an Extra if they gave it to him.
Absolutely no need said he. But when the code went away guess what. Yup
he's an Extra. So IMO the license class has little to do with being an
experimenter...

This whole line is silly because there are all kinds of experimenters in all
license classes (and unlicensed) so how does the fact that I can experiment
on any frequency make any difference.

BTW repeaters are old hat. Hams were doing remote bases and repeaters in
the 50's. The biggest changes have been all the available off-the-shelf
equipment since the 70's that spawned the appliance operators that need help
to put up a mag mount antenna.

BTW, if anyone knows, I'd appreciate knowing what the grace period after
expiration was in 1975 (I was told by a field-office rep that my expired
Advanced couldn't be renewed and later I was told that I was probably
misinformed and was within a grace period, but I could never confirm that
fact).

Michael

I thought it was 2 years but it never affected me so I'm not positive. The
upside is you can probably go get a new one with a weeks worth of brush-up.

msg wrote:
AJ Lake wrote:

ken scharf wrote:

snip
As far as techs are concerned... Well I knew quite a few techs who were
very much into home brew radios.


As it should be. The Tech license was supposed to be for technical use,
not
just another operators license. But of course that was a laugh. Most
Techs
bought their equipment and set up shop on the nearest local repeater...

Experimenter Techs were the norm IMHO before the debacle of license
class changes in the late '70s, and anything related to repeaters before
then involved significant accomplishment Please don't lump 'new' Techs
with 'original' Techs.

BTW, if anyone knows, I'd appreciate knowing what the grace period after
expiration was in 1975 (I was told by a field-office rep that my expired
Advanced couldn't be renewed and later I was told that I was probably
misinformed and was within a grace period, but I could never confirm that
fact).

Michael

Hi Michael,

Yep -- there wasn't a lot of commercial off-the-shelf equipment available
(that didn't require any modification) until the mid-late 70s. It was
common for a VHFer to modify a Motorola/GE/etc unit to operate on the ham
bands.

IIRC, the grace period used to be 1 year but nowadays, it appears to be 2
years w/o having to retake a test:
http://wireless.fcc.gov/services/ind...enew_amateu r

vy 73 es cul,
Bryan WA7PRC

"Bryan" wrote:

there wasn't a lot of commercial off-the-shelf equipment available
(that didn't require any modification) until the mid-late 70s. It was
common for a VHFer to modify a Motorola/GE/etc unit to operate on the ham
bands.

There was modification of commercial/war surplus gear done by all classes of
hams, for all the ham bands, over much of ham history. The Technician (and
VHFer) had no lock on modification.

But more important for this discussion, the Technician Class License was
defined and supposed to be an 'experimenter' license not a 'modification'
license.

And of course most Techs, however they got their gear working, (modification
or appliance op), used it as a communicator anyway...

"JB" wrote:

there are all kinds of experimenters in all license classes

The Technician (only) was defined as an experimenters license (in the 50s).

This whole line is silly

That's what I said. All the Techs I knew then were mostly communicators.

BTW repeaters are old hat. Hams were doing...repeaters in the 50's.

Unattended repeaters were illegal in the 50s.

"AJ Lake" wrote in message
...
"JB" wrote:

there are all kinds of experimenters in all license classes

The Technician (only) was defined as an experimenters license (in the
50s).

This whole line is silly

That's what I said. All the Techs I knew then were mostly communicators.

BTW repeaters are old hat. Hams were doing...repeaters in the 50's.

Unattended repeaters were illegal in the 50s.

A remote base is different from an unattended repeater.

"JB" wrote:

A remote base is different from an unattended repeater.

An unattended anything in the 50s was illegal.

"AJ Lake" wrote in message
...
"JB" wrote:

A remote base is different from an unattended repeater.

An unattended anything in the 50s was illegal.

It isn't unattended if it has a control point.

All I know is that there was one in the late 50's. I'm not a lawyer or an
FCC spokesman but I suspect the statute of limitations is well past.

On Sep 8, 7:51*pm, Lawrence Statton wrote:
AJ Lake writes:
You need to understand that the FCC really doesn't want to be
bothered with Ham Radio at all.

I think that the ARRL had more to do with the snafu's of that era. For
example incentive licensing.

So, I'm a young whippersnapper (42 y/o ... got my Tech+ ticket in
1988): *Can someone, without adding TOO much editorial slant, explain
what the 1970s push to incentive licensing was, and with as little
slant as possible explain why it was a SNAFU (or as one 1x2 in the
first club I was in said: *Ruined the service).

--XE2/N1GAK

Here's a history in three parts. It was written in 1999 and so doesn't
cover the 2000 restructuring, but you'll find a lot of background in
there.

Part 1:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.r...n&dmode=source

or:

http://tinyurl.com/6o8bzf


Part 2:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.r...n&dmode=source

or:

http://tinyurl.com/6lupxx


Part 3:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.r...n&dmode=source

or:

http://tinyurl.com/6dosbw

---

A couple of points:

1) "Incentive licensing" came into being in the 1960s
2) It wasn't a new thing, but rather a return to the way things used
to be before 1953. Except it was a lot more complicated.
3) ARRL had a big role but wasn't the only one involved. There were at
least 10 other proposals given RM numbers by FCC, over 6000 comments
at a time before ECFS and the internet, and the result went into
effect in 1968.
4) The Tech had a code test until 1991.
5) The ARRL did not want the VE system. FCC pushed it on us to save
money.

73 de Jim, N2EY