On 21 Oct 2025, Rug Rat said the following...
I also always thought it was funny. The General had theory in it that would have been great to learn and viable for the Tech, the same with
the Extra, such as satelite operation. It even has one large chapter dealing with VHF/UHF theory and operation. I am not upgrading to Extra
so I can know more about VHF/UHF...
Digging up some slightly older posts... Sorry about that.
Anyway, I absolutely agree. Some of what was in the Extra test pool would have been fantastic to know when I was just getting started. (Yes, I know -- there's nothing stopping me from "reading ahead" as it were, but it's really hard to know what you need to know without being able to practically apply much of anything first.)
I always thought it was curious that we test and license the way we do. I'd suggest that radio is slightly less dangerous for the public at large than driving a car, yet we have thousands of inexperienced drivers on the road before they get their licenses.
I understand the idea of keeping a ham-in-training to bands and modes that cause the least amount of interference to the fewest number of people, but there really should be some allocation to allow a tech somewhere on a reliable HF band beyond CW. Open up a 25kHz stretch of 20m for phone, or at least allow some of the data allocation so they can play FT8 and get their feet wet with other digital modes.
I'm sure there are downsides to that, but given the gradual decline of radio as a hobby, it feels like it's more good than harm.
73,
WZ8Q
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