HAM CCMP'ers

From: John Wilson <wilson_at_dbit.dbit.com>
Date: Tue Feb 15 16:48:21 2000

On Tue, Feb 15, 2000 at 04:56:17PM -0500, allisonp_at_world.std.com wrote:
> Not Ham. Commercial Radiotelephone, used to do the two way radio racket.

So what did you do? Analog *and* digital, I'm impressed!

I got the "general" radiotelephone ticket (used to be called "2nd class") on
the first testing day after they eliminated 1st class and changed the rules
(hmm, this would be early 1980s), but never got a radio job or otherwise
had any practical use for it. I was really proud of getting a low serial #
as a result of the rule change, but then I was late renewing it and lost
the low #, went from PG-1-7 to PG-1-18665, I felt like such an idiot!!!
Of course now they last for life anyway. The exam took me several tries to
pass, it was *much* harder than the ham exams. But I got lucky, even after
the rules change the Boston FCC office was still using old tests (the one I
finally passed was dated 1968) which covered tubes but not transistors, good
thing because my books were old too and didn't cover transistors well at all.

Does anyone know if the commercial radiotelegraph licenses still exist?
I used to want to get one but there were age restrictions on at least some
of them (maybe just 1st class?) and you needed a passport photo and I think
an appointment, and generally it sounded like more of a pain than the 'phone
stuff (where you just showed up off the street at the Customs House and gave
the test a whirl). I'm sure I'd need a *lot* of tries to pass the commercial
code test though, some of the ham ones took a few tries. I still have that
plodding recorded FCC voice etched in my memory "write your naammmmmme,
the date, and the speeeeeed of this test" from all those ^*!(#^_at_%^ tests...

John Wilson
D Bit
Received on Tue Feb 15 2000 - 16:48:21 GMT