My Dad had the First Class Radiotelephone license, before it was converted
to the General. He was a bit disappointed by that restructuring, as he was
quite proud of that certificate. I understand that earning it was a real
bear, too.
The GROL is, well, weird. I was never sure exactly what it was aimed at. It
has a little bit of tube stuff in it, not much. A fair bit of digital
stuff, some solid state and some basic AC circuit theory. It asked a bit
about aviation instrument landing systems. Since I'm also a pilot, none of
that was totally foreign. It asked a fair bit about antennas and
transmission lines, though that was all very easy. I saw nothing about
programming, and nothing about surface mount. The radar stuff was more
fun, but still relatively basic stuff. I've done a fair bit of research
with weather radars (I'm a research meteorologist), so I knew the basics of
that, too. Learning more of the details was fun, though.
The element for GMDSS Maintainer looks to be mainly trouble shooting and a
bit more fun than the GROL, though it also contains some regulatory stuff
that's unique to ships (naturally). Of course, that license certainly
wouldn't be a very useful one to have in the middle of Oklahoma, unless sea
level rises by about 900 ft or so...
Kim Elmore, N5OP
At 07:29 PM 9/9/2004, you wrote:
God,
I took the general radiotelephone operators test about 25 years ago
(still have it), and it was loads of tube circuit trouble shooting
questions,
frequency allocations, antenna stuff.
Both it and the general ham test were easy as stink, because
I was actually interested in the stuff.
Seems these days, its all totally pointless, they need to ask
questions about IC chips, surface mount, software programming, etc.
Most radio stuff these days is easier to program than a VCR.
Brett
N2DTS
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kim Elmore
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2004 6:32 PM
To: Discussion of AM Radio
Subject: [AMRadio] Re: Converting old 1.8-4.0 MHz AM Marine Radios
I don't have an answer for you, but this sparks a non-amateur boat-anchor
question:
I recently took (and passed) my Second Class radiotelegraph test. I did
this simply because I wanted to, not because I ever expect to be a marine
radio operator. And yes, the FCC still issues this otherwise dead license.
I also passed the GROL with radar endorsement; I figured I might as well,
while I'm at it.
Because I'm a 20-wpm-Extra, I was grandfathered for the CW element (20 wpm
plain text, 16 wpm coded ciphers). The written test was pretty arcane,
asking how to adjust a bug (I used one for years, so I know), how to handle
traffic (did that on CW nets, so I had a clue), lots of non-amateur
Q-signals, some oddball abbreviations mainly for radio direction finding,
and finally a surprising amount of stuff about *regenerative receivers.*
Now, this last part got me to wondering: were regenerative receivers made
and used commercially in shipboard service within living memory? I know
something about them only because my Dad (W5JHJ) and I built some when I
was kid. But, when were they produced commercially? And when were they
used in commercial service? I can only guess that it was for a short time
around the 1920's or so, but I may be way off. My Dad was amused by this,
too.
Anyone have any good answers?
Kim Elmore, N5OP
Kim Elmore, Ph.D.
University of Oklahoma
Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies "All of
weather is divided into three parts: Yes, No, and Maybe. The greatest of
these is Maybe" The original Latin appears to be garbled.
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______________________________________________________________
AMRadio mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/amradio
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.html
Post: mailto:[email protected]
Kim Elmore, Ph.D.
University of Oklahoma
Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies
"All of weather is divided into three parts: Yes, No, and Maybe. The
greatest of these is Maybe" The original Latin appears to be garbled.
