AC7AC wrote: >The FCC examiner sat there and listened to you send, and >judged whether the sending was acceptable or not - both speed >and accuracy. Yep. FCC supplied a straight key, but you could bring your own bug or keyer *if* it could interface to the FCC's setup easily. >I'm sure that's why the sending test was dropped. IIRC, the stated reason was that very very few people passed receiving and failed sending. IMHO the real reason was that FCC had a limited number of qualified examiners. >There wasn't a decent way to quantify the test >so it could be administered by VEC's. I disagree! IIRC, the sending test ended in the late 1970s but the VE system didn't appear until the early 1980s. About a 5 year gap. Exams by mail existed before the VECs. Novice, Technician and Conditional exams could be given by a volunteer examiner (no caps) if certain conditions were met. Testing included code sending and receiving, and proctoring the writtens. So FCC figured that any ham qualified to be a volunteer examiner was qualified to judge at least 13 wpm code. 73 de Jim, N2EY _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: [email protected] You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft
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