Thanks all,
I will throw another ball,
If the Advanced class is no longer available, I wonder at what point, Advanced and Extra will merge as those who hold the old Advanced class diminish in numbers.
I saw one site, and I thought it said there was only 1 Tech + class license being held..... not sure if that is true or not but might be possible.
-Stephen N.
On Sun, Jan 10, 2016 at 5:12 PM, Jay Hennigan jay@west.net wrote:
On 1/10/16 12:36 PM, Stephen Nelson wrote:
All,
I have a question about the "current" frequency privileges for each license class. I can see that Novice merged with Tech class,
Kinda-sorta. Several interesting things happened during some transition periods. There was a period of time when Morse Code was being phased out but not completely gone. This led to a few interesting wrinkles and loopholes.
At one point the CW requirements went away for Tech, but (I believe due to international agreements) CW was required for the HF bands. This led to the "Technician Plus" license. Tech Plus was a Tech who had passed the 5 WPM Morse Code test. They could operate with Tech privileges plus the old Novice CW bands on HF. Techs who didn't take and pass the code test could only operate 6M and up plus maybe a smidgen of 10M.
Before CW was phased out completely, it was reduced to 5 WPM for all classes. Prior it had been 5 WPM for Novice and Tech, 13 for General and Advanced, and 20 for Extra.
Prior to March 1987, the Tech written test was identical to the General, the only difference being the Morse code speed, 5 vs. 13 WPM. This meant that some people who had older Tech (plus) licenses had passed the current requirements for General, having the 5WPM code and the same difficulty of written test. So, anyone with a Tech issued before March 1987 has met the General class requirements and can upgrade without re-testing. It isn't automatic, though. You have to go to a VE session, pay the VE testing fee (even though they don't give you a test) and show proof of holding a Tech license prior to March 1987, either the actual license or a Callbook listing will do.
but what
happened to the Advanced class privileges?
There are still Advanced sub-bands in some HF bands. Advanced and I think even Novice licenses can be renewed but no new ones are issued.
-- Jay Hennigan - CCIE #7880 - Network Engineering - jay@impulse.net Impulse Internet Service - http://www.impulse.net/ Your local telephone and internet company - 805 884-6323 - WB6RDV
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