Radio Collector's Afficionado's Resource

The Amateur Radio Service has an almost unduplicated position for a recreational activity/leisure time pursuit because of it is with respect to history tight coupling to the wireless telecommunications, broadcasting, and military communications industries. Few other hobbies have supplied such a sizable number of both motivated and trained workers and of utile technical improvements to their affiliated mercantile industries.

There was once a time in the industry when it would have been routinely assumed that an applicant for a technical occupation was a licensed Amateur and had a station on-air. No longer is that true, of course. But, whether or not most people in the industry explicitly recognize it, the health and survival of the Amateur service is still very crucial for the industry – if for no other reason, because Amateur radio is one of the few remaining services where an person may still fabricate practical, hands-on, trial-and-error RF experience on his own! And since such practical RF experience is getting scarce in today’s raging digital flood, that’s not a little concern.

In the Curmudgeon’s view the health of the Amateur Service today is only average. Not robust but just “so-so,” a kind of flabby middle-age. And that is ironic, for the level of RF engineering science available to the Service has bettered tremendously in the fifty years since the Curmudgeon earned his firstborn license. But for the duration of these decades the sociology related with the Service has degraded considerably. That degradation extends to licensees’ on-air behavior, to their motivation and interest to learn and to experiment, and to their willingness just to “lend a hand” to gain others, whether in helping new initiates to qualify for licenses or in public service activities.

Today’s Amateur Service is not your grandfather’s hamming. “Yep, Bubb, it genuinely was more fun back then!” Too galore of today’s active hams are too disinclined to pick up a soldering iron, too egocentric in their on-air operating practices, too focalized on artificially-produced competitiveness when joint operation would work evenly as well. The reputation of the Service has degraded over the decades, perchance tracking that of the more prominent American culture, and the evident question is “Why?”

The Curmudgeon ascribes the sociology problem to two causes, one natural and one man-made. The natural cause is the aging-out of the senior ham population and with that the demise of a good deal of semblance of historical understanding, experience, and quality in the ranks. That of course is unstoppable. The man-made cause is something that the Curmudgeon now has to confess that he erred in initially favoring. That was the restructuring of the FCC license exam procedure as manifested by the institution a few years ago of the “No Code” Amateur Radio licenses (i.e., no requisite to demonstrate capacity to send/receive the International Morse Code, plus other unrelated changes).

Prior to the advent of restructuring, earning an Amateur license in all likelihood required more than the amount of work and dedication that would have been proportional to the reward, and thence the arduous licensing requirements overly restricted the entrance of new participants. Now the qualifications for the restructured Amateur licenses are in all likelihood set too low, and this has resulted in the influx of telecommunications buyers and casual hobbyists in quantities that threaten to gravely modify the nature of the Service.

To be fair, the elimination of the code proficiency requirement itself was inevitable; it was a modify that occurred in the same time amount of time when Morse Code was also being dropped as an authorized emissions mode for other (commercial) radio services. By itself “No Code” is in all likelihood not sufficient to account for all the degradation. Rather, the Curmudgeon believes that the open publication of the license exam question pool, with it is “just cram for the exam” ethic, and the concurrent rise of mercantile “Amateur exam quick study courses” of respective kinds has devised much of the damage.

Just consider the advertisements for the nascent “FCC Amateur exam preparation industry.” In one case an enterpriser advertises that an person may go from zero telecommunications cognition to passing the (entry level) Technician Class exam in a one-weekend “camp!” In another case an person possessing the entrance grade license reported that he with great success passed the (highest level) Extra Class exam after just twelve hours of study using an on-line (for profit) Web site. There are testimonials likewise from humans who claimed to have passed all three current levels of license exams from scratch in the course of only two months, using the respective exam preparation services! These rapid time scales and minimal work loads were unknown in the Service prior to restructuring.

But perchance the most telling example of the lowered level of the current exams involves an English ham…a chap who is a graduate engineer and a long-time holder of the most eminent level UK ham license. Recently he attended a UK national ham convention where he unexpectedly came across that the US Amateur license exams were being given. With no preparatory studying whatsoever, never having ever read the FCC’s Part 97 Rules, and acting rigorously on impulse, he instantaneously decisive to take the US exams. Ninety minutes later he departed with a new US Amateur Extra Class license! A “special case,” of course, but what does it say regarding the quality of the current exams?

The Curmudgeon asks, “Where is the growth of achievements and noesis that comes with invested time, experience, and commitment to the Service, fabricating as a natural consequence the ever-increasing capacity to pass the exams? Where are the proven gains from this new license structure to the Amateur Service? To the industry? Isn’t this just more instant gratification for the ‘I want it….and NOW!’ crowd?” And so the culture and quality of the Service shift and carry on to move over time.

Overall, this is a severe problem, and there aren’t any quick and easy solutions. Much of any reform that may occur will have to come from within the Amateur Service itself. But there is a definitive role for the industry in the pursuit of this reform: recognizing, encouraging, supporting, and demanding the betterment of the Amateur Service! Not solely as a pro bono initiative; it’s in truth in the self-interest of the industry too!

Guide Ham Radio 73 Publication

From back cover – Advice on choosing a transceiver and power supply; Practical info to help you choose and install economical antennas; Science of how signals travel; Using your voice on the HF bands; Code conversations; Digital Universe; Chasing contacts and awards; FM No static at all; Weak signals and the world above 50 Mhz. (Description by http-mart)

Guide Ham Radio 73 Publication Photo

Guide Ham Radio 73 Publication Image

Guide Ham Radio 73 Publication Image

Guide Ham Radio 73 Publication Picture