Since the FCC stopped issuing Advanced Class licenses, I’ve been telling everyone that the reason I haven’t upgraded to Extra is that I want to be the last living Advanced Class licensee in the U.S. My resolve is weakening, though, for several reasons:
- Vanity. Lately, a couple of new guys in our club have not only gotten their licenses, but have now passed the Extra Class test. I do get some mileage out of this by joking with them when they ask me questions by saying, “Well, how should I know? I’m only an Advanced.” But even so, it’s kind of bizarre that they should have more operating priviledges than I do.
- 40m DX.Lately, there have been some band openings in the evenings on 40m. While I’ve worked a few Euros above 7.025 MHz, there are more of them down at the bottom of the band.
- I’m going to get it whether I like it or not. It looks like the FCC is going to do away with the Advanced class and issue us all Extra class licenses anyway. That being the case, I might as well take the test, so that I can say that I passed it. Not only that, who knows when the FCC will take this action? I might as well go for it now so that I can operate in the Extra Class subbands sooner rather than later.
I guess I’ll start reading the license manual.
Hey, I want to be the last advanced living too. Maybe we can compete. But your reasons for going for the extra are good too.
73,
Jim
Hey, Jim–
You’re the front runner for this honor now. I upgraded about six months ago. What finally pushed me to do it was the request by several people to run an Extra Class license course. I figured that if I was going to do that, I really should have the Extra. I haven’t gotten around to setting up the class yet, but it’s on my list of things to do.
73, Dan
Hi Dan,
At least we can keep our call signs…last week i ordered a Extra Class license manual from ARRL.
Have you started your class yet??
Jim / KJ6VX
No, I never did get around to offering the Extra Class license course. There’s just so much material to cover.
One idea I had was to organize a class via EchoLink, and instead of covering everything, just cover topics that the students need help with. You can see my thoughts on this at https://www.kb6nu.com/an-extra-class-coursenet/. I still think this might be interesting to do.