There are those (not including me) who refer to the 1950s and 1960s as the golden
years of amateur radio.
The number of licensees today far exceeds those that existed in those years.
Therefore there is no need today, nor has there ever been, a need for beginners' licences
because otherwise-unqualified self-taught 14-year-olds with a genuine and passionate
interest in the technical pursuit that is amateur or ham radio tackled and passed both
the written RAE and the 12WPM Morse Test with ease.
Amateur radio is a technical pursuit and not a bums-on-seats numbers game.
Those that are not motivated by a desire to know how things work are not suitable
candidates for an amateur radio licence, and we dilute the entry requirements to
something a little removed from a CB licence at our peril.
AIUI, there are some jurisdictions (I don't know which) that limit equipment to
off-the-shelf commercial productions and if we give the powers-that-be the
idea that we are all black box operators without the capability of maintaining
our rigs then we risk such off-the-shelf limitations being imposed here.
This is especially true with the trend in silicon chips moving towards
very high density of integration where details of the internals are
not available to the general public being jealously guarded by their
inventors.
I am in favour of all beginners' exams being removed and for there to
be a single entry qualification for a full licence in order to preserve
eliteness, and it is such eliteness that IMHO that will make us
desirable to newcomers.
My ha'p'p'orth, for what it's worth.
(I passed the written RAE in 1970 and the 12WPM Morse test in 1983)
73 (genuinely) de Gareth G4SDW
