The AM Forum

This month in ER there is featured on the cover a very young YL and her Elmer story how she became a Ham OP. I admire her for the energy to go "all the way" to EXTRA. Maybe I can get Extra Class also, if it's just a memory thing with the question pool. I remember the Extra Class ticket as very invlolved with calculating antenna fields and questions that would be in a FCC 1st class radio license.
Has it really gotten that easy that an 11yr old can do it? Or does she really know the technical world that well?
Maybe I better check out the question pool!!!

Fred

Fred, by using rote learning (memorizing) it is easy.  Sort of a giveaway.  But the new extra operator will depend on dad to know how to cut a dipole.  Wonder if she can recognize that ceramic is an insulator and know that you need that or plastic insulators at the end of the wire?

Anyone who can memorize the answers to some of the questions can pass the Extra.  Shamefully, on some of the hard stuff, this is how I had to pass my Extra after the 3rd attempt.  Math and I have never gotten along well at all. 
 
However, I'm admitting my guilt as I take a break from the 1946 Radio Handbook currently opened to page 191 on the "Systems of Amplitude Modulation".

- JT

Quite Frankly it's a...I don't know what it is..But it's what is wanted and that need out ways the purpose...Don Has the right idea he has discussed with us before, and I support that.. but...the powers that be require something else.

I was very happy when i made General a long time ago, problem i have with taking any test even from childhood..But Now it's more of a formality a General is not what it used to mean...Oh well, Today is what it is...30 years from now who knows....

Well, SHOOT, I'll give it a try too.
Math and me NEVER got along and I have paid the price for that. MANY job opportunities gone and costly mistakes buying things that I mis-calculated measurements or electronic terms/specs.
My background in electronics is strictly from life's experiences, not from books or a college education, sorry to say. My hat's off to the folks on this board who have some sheep skin tacked up on the wall.
Phred

I'm glad there is someone that age interested in the hobby

Try here:
http://www.qrz.com/p/testing.pl

Whoa guys, let's be fair here, we don't know how she got her ticket.
She might very well understand the theory as good as, or better, than you or I.
And as an Extra, you know that she had to get her CW down, something that adults twice her age struggle with.
In any case, memorized or not, I certainly commend her for her efforts at that tender age!

If you're that interested in radio at that young of an age, chances are good that you'll make it a lifelong interest.
Young folks like that are the future of radio, and its up to us to teach them the magic behind the theory.
If we can succeed in that, then the amateur service has a good chance of staying active, and relevant, long after we've gone on to our reward.

There is nothing I get a bigger kick out of than seeing a vintage photo of young JNs back in the day.  :D

Bruce, I don't think any of us were attacking her directly.  Memorization of the question pool is a very common problem these days, I know I am guilty of it to an extent.  I think Jim and I were generalizing more than anything.  I'm glad she's interested in radio, I'll have someone to talk to on the air, and sell my rigs to, when I'm an old buzzard!  ;D

-JT

well shes got me beat by 4 years.. extra at 15... except  IM A REAL EXTRA.. CODE AND ALL

lol

Let's give credit where it's due.
IF the test was passed by memorization, or by rote, there would be a lot more 11 year old extras than this ONE exceptional case. Dozens of them.

The girl is owed an apology.

Sorry no apology from me, the odds are she can't do the math but maybe has a picture memory.  Those are the odds, now will she stay with radio or forget it like so many of my friends who took their initial test in 1955 and didn't renew at the end of the license period?  I do hope she stays with it, but again the odds are against her.

If she stays, how active will she be?  I don't hear that many ladies on the air, and never have.  Does this mean I am trying to diminish her accomplishment?  No!  She earned the ticket and I do hope she becomes and evangelist for ham radio.  I believe many of us don't know how to carry on a radio conversation with a lady and the predominance of bad language and crude behavior may drive her away.

Math was one of my weaker subjects and I considered it boring.  I had to relearn all I knew in high school and college much later in life.  I am glad I learned the code early and fast too.  It made passing all the tests I took that much easier. 

I do hope the license will open doors and give her great satisfaction as it did me throughout my working life.

I took the general and advanced exams in the presence of an FCC official in 1968.  I did not take the time or effort to upgrade to extra until 2006.  I bought the ARRL study guides.  I passed the test on the first go, but IMHO I do not consider the tests "dumbed down", and I do not believe I could have passed via sheer memorization.  I dread the memory questions, for example, specific band limits for a given license class.   I prefer not to memorize these, because they change over time, and they are easily looked up when needed.  Most of the questions selected by the VEs for the test I took required UNDERSTANDING, not memorization.

Questions regarding filter design, reactance and resonance at given frequencies must be solved, not memorized.  While studying for the exam, I was forced to delve into newer technologies, for example, DSP.  I found the study guide to be a reference for future use, not a book to promote memorization.  Code or no-code, I have a high respect for any ham that earns EXTRA.  

This young lady should be congratulated!

There is nothing to solve when a test is comprised of four multiple choice questions.  The CORRECT answer is always staring you right in the face. :)
 
- JT

Jim, do NOT bet she cannot do the math.  I had an "awakening" when visiting my daughter in Florida, who teaches first grade.  The math they teach is nothing like what we learned years ago.  Although they may not use the specific words, the students in first grade are learning decimal and binary math, algebra, set theory, logic diagrams, etc.  My grandson, at the same school , can apply a good bit of trig, and understands sine, cosine, etc.  You would be surprised to know what they must master to comply with "no child left behind"!

I had the equivalent of a mathematics major at university, yet I never studied "set theory" a day in my life in any of my courses, from grammar school arithmetic through differential equations and analytic geometry.  To this day I'm not exactly sure what it is, and I have never encountered it anywhere in any technical material I have read or studied.

I was always good at mathematics, but found it tedious and for the most part, not too uninteresting. However, I'm glad I studied it, and still use it quite often. I was fortunate to have an excellent university calculus instructor, who kept my attention and I grasped the concepts right away.  He was not even a Phd, but a much better instructor than the Phd dept head who attempted to teach our college algebra and trig course, which I found so boring that I had a hard time staying awake in the class.

One of my more interesting courses was analytic geometry.  I remember aceing the course, while many of the other kids in the class who were probably a lot smarter than I, were having to struggle to eke out a "C".

As for the YL, things have changed a lot since I was first licensed at age 17.  Back then she would have been able to meet and make friends with intelligent ind interesting young people over the radio.  If she listens much to hams working HF slopbucket and 2m CB to-day, I'm sure she is less than impressed with what she hears.  When I first started out, I always wondered why more girls didn't get interested in ham radio.  With the present day crowd, I'm surprised there are the extremely few who are.

How much this YL learns and contributes; how far she advances is also up to us OTs.
We can either encourage her by sharing as much as she is willing to learn, or we can be jerks and treat her like a second class ham.

I still remember the latter when I was WN9OZC. Gave me a bad attitude towards 1X2 calls. LOL

That's really it, isn't it?

Its now largely up to us to welcome this YL, and other young folks on the air. If she is exposed to, as Don so aptly puts it, "HF slopbucket and 2m CB", I'm quite certain she'd wonder what she worked so hard for. If on the other hand, she is both welcomed and appreciated on the air, and dare I use the word "Elmered", right off, then she may very well grow to love the amateur service.

Tuning across 75 meter slopbucket, (and I use the term "slopbucket" to refer to the antics which seem to be most prevalent there, for I operate SSB as well.) on a typical evening is often a source of embarrassment for me when I have non-ham guests in the shack. They wonder why folks would bother to spend the time on the air swearing, discussing various body noises, or just attacking other ops. Tuning on 17 meters with the foreign DX calling is quite another matter.

Tuning in a full quieting AM QSO, or bringing in some European DX really does seem to have a draw to younger non-hams. Perhaps it is the same thing that fascinated you and I, the ability to speak with someone in a far off country or culture via nothing more than a wire in the air. People seem to get that, its unique, and somehow magical. CW is another mode which seems to draw folks in, they hear the "dah dit" and snap to attention. But most of all, I find what really draws folks in, is old radio gear. The plastic gear from Japan looks like a glorified cell phone, but show a non-ham a tube transmitter, especially when he/she can see the tubes glowing, and you've won half the battle.  :D

Its easy to think her father helped her, or show disdain for what the amateur testing is like now. Mea culpa, I've been guilty of exactly that in the past, turning up my nose at newly minted no-code HF ops, but now realize that attitude only hurts the amateur service. There are here, and it is my job to elmer and encourage them, if nothing else than to see our amateur privileges continue into the next century.
We can chose to discount this YL's efforts, or welcome her into the fold, I'd opt for welcoming.

Perhaps we can this to a different tack, how we can welcome younger folks into the hobby, and once here, allow them to feel welcome and a part of something great?

""  If she listens much to hams working HF slopbucket and 2m CB to-day, I'm sure she is less than impressed with what she hears.  When I first started out, I always wondered why more girls didn't get interested in ham radio.""


Well, that's likely ALL she's listened to so far!
So, something in there somewhere must have interested her enough to go take the tests.

Maybe not.... could just be she wanted to do what Dad was doing...

At 11, she should be able to do most any of the math...at least with a calculator....


Oh well, hope the interest is there, and by next year she has a bunch of 12 year old ham friends.

Somehow I'm thankful more YL's and XYL's aren't hams. Hell, I have to put in a reservation to use the phone at my house. Imagine the trouble getting on a boatanchor!! My wife proposed about getting her ticket when we moved and her best friend lived in VA. I told her it wouldn't be good for her friend to have a rig in an apartment. All things said, it was cheaper for me to move her best friend here than to pay the longdistance phone bills, (or by another rig and antenna for that matter) ;)

I agree with what Bruce said,

No matter how she got her license, if she is given support, and decent mentoring, the chances are much better she will not only stay in Amatuer radio, but will grow as an amateur, and hopefully become an asset to Amateur Radio.  Without any support, more than likely she'll probably do what I almost did back at age 16 in 1980 (when I was still not on the air [due to a lack of money for gear, and support from other hams or my parents], in spite of being licensed for 2 years), when it was time to renew my Novice license - quitting Amateur Radio altogether.   Admit it people, we don't want a bunch of losers getting into amateur radio, but the average age of today's hams is well into the 50s.  I never thought I'd see the day, where at age 44, I'd be considered one of the younger (albeit OT) hams.  Amateur radio needs younger people.  BUT, they need support and proper guidance.  I was a rarity back when I was a teenager.  In spite of a lack of help, I still hung onto my license.  But if it had happened nowadays (with so many more things being available for younger people to do), I would have probably called it quits.  We don't need that.  We also don't need to be dissing her if she's a no-code Extra, because she's "not as real a ham" as one who had to pass the code to get the license, or had to draw out schematics on the written.  I got my Extra back in 1994 doing 20 WPM.  I remember having to analyze schematics for my Novice, General, and possibly even my Advanced.  Do those things make me any more of a ham than the 5 WPM, or the no-code Extras?  No.  It's what you do with the license, that determines if you're a decent Radio Amateur.  

73 & just my 2 cents worth,
Ellen - AF9J

Shame on you Mike!

Ellen - AF9J

...       and WHY do I always have ticket #6 to get into the bathroom when it's still in use by YL #2?

HUH? HUH?

I'm NOT going there!

Ellen - AF9J

Perhaps many OTs that got their licenses under the "old" way of doing things are a little resentful of the "cheapening" of the effort by making the tests much easier.  The fact is that no one should be criticizing a great effort by this youngster to get her license.  I commend her effort and I commend her tribute to her Dad.

Don't misplace your anger at the system by directing it toward new young licensees!!

73,  Jack, W9GT

40 years later, I still remember W2OYs words of encouragement on 75 meters.

Right On Ellen,
Dissing an eleven year old girl on how she came about her license
is beneath contempt.  After all, the question pool and the league
made up of aging boomers made the ? pool.  Not her concern. I wish her well
but some of us just want to have HF all for our aging, bloated, hemorrhoid,
enlarged prostrate, heart condition, cataracts, etc. selves.  Which is likely much of what your going to hear about on the air in 10 years if some kids don't join our ranks.

--45 yrs. young at heart HR toddler.

I regularly work new "Extra Lite" and no-code hams, particularly "down below".  Many tell me this is the first time they have tried their transceivers on AM.  Over 90% of the time, I get the impression that they found the experience positive, and it is to be hoped that a few of them will try AM again.

I know a couple of the no-code General regulars who work AM in the Ghetto (won't name names or calls) who seem as genuinely interested in AM, learning about radio, and as enthusiastic about the mode as I or anyone else ever was, in my recollection.  I think those guys are real assets to the AM community.

So we shouldn't look down our noses at the "newbies" and "codeless wonders".  Many of them were genuinely captured by the magic of radio, but had a problem, or at least a perceived problem with the code, and jumped at the chance when it was eliminated.  In any case, they had no control over the changes to the entry requirements, and could not enter ham radio the "old way" no matter if they really wanted to.  If a new ham wants to operate cw, there is nothing to keep him or her from  learning the code and doing so.  Apparently a few of the "codeless wonders" are doing just that. 

Just as in the case of  ham radio in general, the AM community will not survive if there is no new blood injected into the hobby.  We should do all we can to get the newcomers on the right track.  I do not recommend lecturing, bullying or coercing them into the "proper" procedures, but to teach by setting the example, and maybe giving a little friendly advice when needed.  If the "right way" appears compelling to newcomers, they will follow with enthusiasm.  Those who don't "get it" will quickly drop out and find other pursuits that better fit their personalities and interests.

On a related topic, one hears a lot about the "dumbing down" of ham radio these days.  I found this series of articles, that appeared in the Washington Post this past Sunday, to be of interest.  It is an indictment of attitudes in society in general, not particularly ham radio.

The Dumbing of America (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502901.html)

Taking Pride in our Igrorance (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/02/15/DI2008021502904.html)

,

huh-HA ! Does anyone really do that to newcomers?
WHAT proper procedures ?

I remember busting N3JUH for using Citizen's Band lingo, consciously and deliberately, but that's not the same as someone who by habit and origin slips in a "And the personal here is Frank, that's sierra alpha mike, Frank."

One of the most dis-hearting things done in many schools today is the teaching of "Self Esteem".  What purpose does this serve?  With many schools this is right up there with math.  Witness the awarding of trophies to every little kid in the baseball/football game.  They spend so much time on non-related subjects the basics do not have enough emphasis, and by the time a student is near 14 they are so bored with standing in line, holding hands and tolerating inexcusable behavior, poor teaching and a non academic atmosphere and standards, that their attention turns elsewhere for they sense they don't have to put out much effort.

I taught at a technical college that had an agreement with a secondary school board to teach technical subjects to students during their senior year.  Being a college level course and taught like one, many of the students learned right away we weren't going to harass them about attendance.  We just marked them absent and it was included in their final grade.

At the end of the semester several of the students had very low grades because of attendance and lack of ability to do the math.  We reported the violations of the attendance policy to the school principal so thought things were being addressed.  When the final grades were submitted the school raised all grades below 50 to that mark as to not impact their state funding.  We protested to no avail and that incident caused us to discontinue the program.  These students, according to their grade point, were not dumb.  All had to have a B average or above to take the class.

For Amateur radio is really doesn't matter what the age of the newcomer is, be they 50 or 15.  We should be inclusive to all who pass the test.  If by chance you think the Extra is easier, then find an old ARRL License Manual and look at the Extra test.  You will find the Advanced is much harder than the Extra.  The code is now incidental to our operation but can be a source of fascination to younger people.

We operate based on with who we choose to associate, and to me someone who is crude or rude is not operating in the best interest of Amateur radio.  I do not talk to them for very long if they join in a conversation I am participating in, I just sign off and go elsewhere.  There are many nice people on the radio, I don't have to associate or be bothered by those who use poor etiquette.

I do hope the young lady is treated with respect and dignity, for I will should I find her on the bands.  After all she is one of us and I most welcome her.

This is a perfect opportunity for the AM community to make a shining star and steer this young new Amateur Extra in a way that she'll always be interested in radio.  Hopefully, she'll cross 75m AM and other AM areas and be turned off by 2mCB and HF slopbucket. But she may not come across the AM community.  She needs to be recruited into the AM ranks and we should step up to the plate instead of just discussing it. This will obviously depend on her interest.  Just a thought...

  I hope this girl never hears anything like that. There are way too many out there who had to walk to school 10 miles in the snow, barefoot uphill both ways and make sure everyone hears about it. :P

Ya know, I was a 15 yr old General class op at that time and I heard that famous CQ routine of W2OY's:  "CQ CQ..... No kids, no lids, no K- calls, no space cadets" and I was offended and hurt in a way by such crude remarks toward every group that I was a member of (except space cadets) hi hi.  I didn't take it personally, but I certainly thought it was in poor taste!!  There are some, however, that say that he was doing it all in fun and that he was really a great guy.  OH well...it didn't discourage me, I just filed it appropriately and moved on.  I hope, however, that I never sound that way to new youngsters starting out on the air.  And....in spite of the CB lingo thing...which gives me a headache, I am capable of showing respect and enthusiasm toward newbies.  Perhaps, we all should think about the negative example set by OY's tirades and try to put ourselves in the place of those young kids starting out.

73,  Jack, W9GT

Good, then I won't feel guilty anymore for memorizing a couple of the answers I had to to pass my Extra.  :)
 
- JT

It's a Great thought Bob, boy wouldn't it be fun to get a coupla kidz going on Yaam..LOL..Man think of the questions and the looks on their faces..LOL..

it'd be fun..

You forgot, they have to make their own vacuum tubes (http://paillard.claude.free.fr/).