You are not alone in your thoughts. Our Technician class is 9 weeks,
2 hours every Monday afternoon, then testing. When the individuals
obtain their licenses they are fully qualified and knowledgeable Hams
as well as fully qualified Emergency Communications citizens. We
start with 6, 7 and 8th graders with a few high schoolers and
parent/teachers tossed in and learn, not memorize what has to be
known to truly be Hams. Many have advanced to General and even Extra
from these classes.
Even though they at this point only have their Tech license, they are
fully qualified to operate all positions on our station, W7HMS. In
the event of an incident in the area, there will always be a higher
class licensee there so they do and can operate the HF as well as the
VHF/UHF rigs. Our school is an evacuation center so we have walkie
talkies for the kids to bird dog in the gyms and pass traffic
upstairs to the station for HF transmission to the Red Cross and
EOC. During exercises they put some of the "older" operators to
shame and the Fed monitoring teams always write glowing reports on
their performances.
After more than 50 years in the "Hobby", my personal thought is that
the people who run these memorization classes are doing a
dis-service to the students. There is NO way that these licensees
after 6 or 8 hours are going to know anything about Ham radio let
alone all of the ancillary benefits that go with being a true Ham.
Yes they know the answers to the questions but know nothing at all of
any background to the question or why the question is included in the
pool. After serving in numerous emergency situations, I have seen
where one wrong word in a message can cost lives. Are these new
licensees qualified, as the rules require, to be able to conduct
emergency communications?
My soap box is creaking so I'll just continue as we are and have been
doing. I learned also long ago that you do not easily change minds.
73
Les
I am sure it will be similar to the pent up demand we had when the
Technician license became code free and many new entrants took the test.
Because VHF and up is less compelling than daily occurence of longer
distance communications with HF, it may be that we will see continuing
interest.
A nearby city where I used to live and give the classes for Technician
and held VE sessions quite regularly, now has the "Ham in a day"
program. Basically, they will take anyone and go over the test questions
in the morning and early afternoon and then test later in the day. They
have a very high pass rate. Apparently, some students have had minimal
exposure to radio are able to pass.
I would not personally we willing to run such a test session, because
anyone who is not willing to meet for a couple of hours for six weeks
and study the material, will likely never stay with amateur radio
anyway. There are many competing interests out there and everyone picks
the things that interest them the most. We include a lot of "show and
tell", demonstrations of equipment and simple antennas, and hands on
components.
One thing that I don't fully understand is why people are taking element
3 or higher now. They will have to pay the fee all over again at another
VE test to have the paperwork submitted for the new no code General or
Extra Class license.
My wife, who is studying for her General, although she has very little
interest in HF, thought that the reason might be that they were ready
for the test and did not want to take the chance of getting stale by the
time of the next VE test session. Like most things, she is probably
right about that:)
73,
Rick, KV9U
James M Punderson IV wrote:
>Hi Rick,
>
>I work as a VE for some clubs here in NJ. We just had a session last
>Thursday at which instead of the usual 2 or 3 test takers, we had
>eleven of which seven were Technicians taking the General written exam.
>
>So if that's any indication, there is a lot of interest in HF out
>there. I think from talking to those folks at the session that this
>will enhance the chances of them sticking with ham radio.
>
>Jamie Punderson, W2QO
>
>
>
>
>
>
