This morning, I received the following e-mail from a reader:
I came across your 2014 April Fool’s post while searching for something else but I was curious enough to check it out. Admittedly, I noticed the “April 1” date and, as for many others, “Dotty Dasher” gave it away.
Despite the tongue-in-cheek report, there were parts that struck a nerve, specifically “We’re beginning to think that if an applicant passes an amateur radio license exam it should mean that he or she actually knows something”
Some of your readers seemed put off by this, and I didn’t think it was funny at all…because it’s true. I know *several* operators who raced through online study guides and got their Extra Class licenses yet cannot tell the difference between a resistor, capacitor, and diode. When I gently asked about the need to know those things, one op said “It’s not about knowing this stuff since I have no intention of building anything”.
Yikes, but then again, he might have a point.
My newest rig is from 1968 and I’ve never worked the WARC bands so it’s hard for me to think of the hobby as plug and play. I’d much rather pick up a 1950s boatanchor at a hamfest than a 1990s synthesized transceiver. Which has the greater chance of being able to be made to work? How would someone replace a 128 pin surface mount microprocessor chip that hasn’t been made in 20 years?
Sorry for the rambling, but your article said more about the direction of amateur radio than most people might realize.
I replied:
Thanks for your e-mail. It’s really difficult to devise a test that can’t be passed by rote memorization, and even if you did do that, then it would be so hard to pass that it would turn away people that should be hams. That’s really not a good approach if you ask me.
What I tell those who pass the tests without at least wanting to learn the material is that they’re really cheating themselves. No matter how good the radios get, you still have to assemble the station and get everything hooked up properly. That takes some knowledge. You also have to know something to use all the features that modern transceivers have. And what happens when something goes wrong? You have to know enough to troubleshoot the problem.
Sure, they could probably fool around and make some contacts, but they’re certainly not going to get the best out of their equipment if they really know nothing. I think that, in the end, those that truly don’t know anything, don’t stick in the hobby.
Having said that, I think you’re cheating yourself–and not just a little–by not taking advantage of the newer technology. Let’s just take one feature – digital signal processing. Digital signal processing makes HF operation so much more enjoyable, especially if you can’t afford to go with the likes of Drake or Collins gear.
You’re right that fixing one of these digitally-synthesized radios is no easy chore, but the flip side of that is that the electronics in these radios is much more reliable than the electronics in tube gear. Chances are that you’ll never need to replace that 128-pin surface-mount device, and if you really had to, you could find someone with the equipment to do it for you, or even figure out how to do it yourself.
At any rate, I think there’s room in this hobby for all of us, including those that used to be called “appliance operators,” lovers of vintage radio, and those that are playing with new technology. It is, after all, just a hobby.
Shortly after this April Fool’s post, I wrote that it might be a good thing to make the General Class and Extra Class tests a little more difficult. I’m not criticizing the question pool committee, though. They have a very tough job as it is. It might be something to think about though.
What do you think?