Gareth,
I'm rather the reverse Gareth. I spend most of my spare time helping others be safe and helping children learn new things as a volunteer.
You stated that you would like to see the beginners licences removed to "preserve the eliteness" but by your other comments it almost sounds as if would prefer it just to keep out the riff-raff and youngsters. Is that right?
That's precisely the reason I'd avoided RA for such a long time.
As for 14 year olds being on "the threshold of maturity", I've met plenty of immature 30 yr olds and young carers below the age of 12 who are far more mature than them.
As someone who as a primary school pupil was reading 'A' level Physics text books I'd challenge your dismissiveness of the young. Granted 5 may be a little too young but by 9 I was helping solder together my first computer (a ZX80).
I fully intend to work through my intermediate and full as soon as I can. Let's hope we still have some people on the air and we've not lost more swathes of spectrum due to underused.?
Regards
John
John Summers