Channel Chatter - Dale VE3AAM

[Ed-VA3ES]

...THE TRUTH IS OUT, IT IS SAD, WE THOUGHT WE KNEW HIM....sk...

Sorry, Tim.  Mr. Mike is quite right.   I'm a well known rabid right-winger and have been one since 1979.  (Before that, I was a libertarian.)  There's not a liberal bone in my body. 

Are you having a stroke? 

[ve6pg]

...HELLO ED...I WAS WONDERING WHEN U WUD REPLY...WERE HV U BEEN?..NOT HRD U ON IN SOME TIME..
...BTW, I DONT BELIEVE THERE ARE ANY GRITS AMONGST OUR GROUP ON 3725...WE'VE HAD SOME GUD QSOs OF LATE...SEE YA....sk...

[W1RC]

When I lived in Canada the station licence (call sign) and certificate were separate documents.  There were two (later three) Certificates of Proficiency in Radio issued by the Department of Transport - Amateur and Amateur Advanced.  The third was the Digital certificate introduced in 1979.  It did not have a CW requirement and when introduced this "no code" certificate created a loud uproar within the amateur community but the written exam was very difficult and very few could pass it. 

The DoT later became the Department of Communications (DoC) and much later Industry Canada. 

The Station Licence was a separate document.  You needed to have a Certificate of Proficiency in order to obtain one.  The operating privileges attached to the station licence were determined by the certificate held by the operator.

In those days you had to pass a fairly difficult series of exams in order to obtain your Amateur Certificate.  The CW test was 10 WPM send and receive with 100% being the passing grade.  The regs questions were multiple guess but the technical questions required narrative answers.  There were also 8 schematic diagrams of various vacuum tube equipment required (not block diagrams).  Finally there was the oral grilling administered by a real DoT Radio Inspector who had forgotten more that most of us ever would ever pretend to know about radios. That was the toughest hurdle because you couldn't hope to BS your way through this part of the test and if you tried you would surely fail.

Once you had your certificate you had to operate your HF station for one year on CW before even being allowed to sit for the Advanced exam.  You had to bring your logbook to prove you had complied with this requirement and if you didn't have a satisfactory number of CW contacts you were sent home to get some.  After six months of operation you could apply for an endorsement for A3 on 10 and 160 meters without any tests but again you had to produce your logbook.

The Advanced exam required 15WPM but this and the technical tests were not as difficult as the first one mainly because you had (presumably) been operating for a year and learned a lot about radio by doing so it came easier.

There were some guys who never bothered to sit for the Advanced Certificate but operated HF fone nonetheless.  Some even had two-letter calls.  We all knew who they were and it was definitely not to their credit that they operated their station using privileges they did not earn.  That is putting it politely.

Things are most assuredly not the same today.

73,

MrMike, W1RC
aka VE2XZ

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

MrMike, W1RC
aka VE2XZ

Don't forget VE2FW..... 

[k4kyv]

When I lived in Canada the station licence (call sign) and certificate were separate documents.  There were two (later three) Certificates of Proficiency in Radio issued by the Department of Transport - Amateur and Amateur Advanced.  The third was the Digital certificate introduced in 1979.  It did not have a CW requirement and when introduced this "no code" certificate created a loud uproar within the amateur community but the written exam was very difficult and very few could pass it. 

I remember when the Canadian exam was on par with the (original) US Extra class exam, including the tenure requirement.  But we never had the oral exam.  I suspect there were too many amateur tests given in the US for the FCC to spend the resources to examine each applicant orally.

Wouldn't the cry-babies be pissing and moaning if the US had such a licence requirement to-day!

In the 1960's the power limit for Canada was 500 watts (average, or carrier) output.  That was also interpreted as 750 watts DC input.