Originally Posted By travlin'easy
Randy, I got my general class license in 1952, which was about a decade prior to the A designation in the license. Back then the FCC had a novice class, which I got in 1951, which made my call license WN3JQL. When I took the General class you had to be able to draw schematic diagrams from your head, which I understand you no longer have to do. I can clearly recall a question on the test that said "Draw a simple schematic diagram of a full-wave rectifier." Don't think I could do that today, though. smile

Also had to be able to send and receive Morse Code at 25 words per minute. Back than I could do 50 and when I was in the Navy I could easily do 60 WPM with ease. However, in order to send that fast I had to use a keying device known as a Bug.

Gary cool


Gary - Yes, the good old days. I got licensed in '70 and we had a 1 year Novice license (5 WPM) to get the ticket and within a year you had to upgrade to 13 WPM for General Class. That's all changed now - no longer a Morse Code requirement although there are still plenty of "brass pounders" on the airwaves (Including me). When I had my General Class test in Baltimore, we had to identify circuits from the diagrams they provided and in some cases "Identify what is missing from this circuit". It's no longer like that - now the FCC posts the actual question banks on the internet and you can practice them (same questions you will encounter on the tests). So for the Extra Class license, you have to get 75 out of 100 questions right and the question (practice) bank has about 800 potential questions to study from. Changed a lot since the early days but still a lot of fun!



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Randy

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