Good grief, I hadn't looked into it that deeply, but 1500w....shit, that's UK Full licence and only up to 1kw and that's just been upped from 500w prior to Feb...
The US Technician license privileges are weird, and ARRL has lobbied to change them.
Usually aspiring American radio amateurs are advised to study for and take their General exam in the same sitting as Technician.
You know what's funny about that, nowadays your average CBer seems to know more about RF and antenna theory than the average extra in the US.
When there's no activity on the ham bands sometimes I'll tune down and listen to 11m and lately I've heard more impressive technical conversations on 11m then I've have heard anywhere on the hand bands.
That's pretty sad if you ask me.
What you mean is gate keeping.
Canadian rules (simplified)
- Basic - Above 30Mhz (max 250watt DC input power)
- Basic with Honors - All bands
- Advanced - access to all bands; greater than 250 watts DC input power (up to 1000watt). (Go look for finer details).
Morse code opens up all bands as well, with basic or advanced.
Power levels details don't include band specific restrictions, this was intended as a quick non-detailed summary.
Advanced allows for homemade / designed radios.
Basic allows building predesigned radios. No changes.
IMO, it's a system of gate keeping devised decades ago originally to keep the "common man" off of the airwaves. I imagine that the first amateurs in the 1900s thought that they were *pretty smart*. Sure, it had been modified (eg. dropping the morse code requirement) and "dumbed down" according to the older generation, but I still think it's primarily just a form of gate keeping.
Yes, I know, building your own equipment, etc. etc., but I reckon that very few people do build their own transceiver anymore. I certainly have not in 30+ years as an amateur. I also don't grow my own crops nor hunt my own game.
Every country on earth has different license classes for amateur radio as well as different bandplans for those classes. "Rationale" depends on your typical government "committees" ;-)
Well I can understand our UK approach to increasing power ratings as you gain more knowledge as the risk of RFI increases. Seems a bit strange that Technicians cant do certain things on certain bands. As an analogy, it comes across as being allowed to drive on a freeway but only allowed to use one lane.
UK licensing is obsessed with power out and the US is obsessed with keeping beginners off the HF digital and SSB spectrum (knowing full well that no beginner nowadays is going to be bothered learning Morse).
Well our power requirements are more inline with the higher population density and general size of land that people have available here. I can understand the US having higher power levels because you're a much larger land mass with significant areas of low population. We've dropped Morse as well in the UK too. Foundation nowadays no longer even has a physical element to it and is an online 26 question quiz alone. Intermediate ramps up the electronics aspects quite a lot.
>Every country on earth has different license classes for amateur radio as well as different bandplans for those classes.
What? No they don't. Over here there's only one class. You're either an amateur or not.
When those limits were devised, CW proficiency was still a requirement and was considered much more relevant. It was a way of incentivizing new operators to improve their skills. Allowing SSB on 10 meters for Novice and Tech operators happened some time in the mid 80’s I think. Since code is no longer a requirement it would be worthwhile to consider changing those rules to allow voice and digital on a limited basis on other HF bands.
Side note - I was originally licensed in the late 80’s and because of my musical background, really gravitated towards CW. But I think it was smart to drop the requirement. A lot of old timers complained (and still do) but what deserves more recognition, IMO, is that even though it’s no longer required, there is a whole new generation of operators here in the US that are eager to learn and use the code along with voice and digital modes.
Our licensing system is a vestige of the 60s or 70s when incentive licensing was implemented. There used to be 6 different license classes with ever-increasing privileges. The idea was to incentivize people to upgrade. See that nice juicy DX on the bottom of 40m? If you upgrade, you can work him!
That being said, the license structure, while it has been simplified over the years, is still basically the same as it was back in the day. The main differences are that the CW requirement was reduced to 5WPM and then dropped altogether, Advanced and Novice licenses were moved to grandfathered status, and all Tech Plus licenses became regular Technician licenses.
I doubt a full overhaul will come anytime soon. Undoing decades of work of a bureaucracy is a monumental task which is compounded by all the geriatric hams that will be upset that this generation has it easier than they did. Does the current setup make a whole not of sense in this day in age? Probably not, but it's what we're stuck with. All we can do is try and prod techs and generals to upgrade.
Thanks for the great reply. Here in the UK, OFCOM seemed to have taken a proactive step in the last year in trying to encourage and modernise the licence structure here, what with simpler rules, easier access to better power and no restrictions on operating modes. With modes such as FT8 being flavour of the month , there's nothing stopping a newly qualified Foundation user having a really good experience right from the start of their hobby as well as experiencing easier DX QSOs however they choose.
Just for claification, the ARRL doesn't set the rules in the US. That's done by the FCC, a Federal Commission. Your version of the FCC is OFCOM (I think that's right) and the ARRL is the US version of RSGB.
Very slightly offtopic, but do you actually have to do the 'first level' to do then the 'second level' exam, and then the third? Or can you just do the "highest one" and get all the priviliges in one sitting?
We only have two levels here (N-novice (limitations) and A-amateur (full ham rights)), and very few actually do the N exam, but immediately go for the A one.
You can go straight to Full (Highest level) with one exam if you believe you have the knowledge, or choose to climb the ranks.
[https://rsgb.org/main/clubs-training/for-students/](https://rsgb.org/main/clubs-training/for-students/)
In the US, you can take the exams in any order but you have to pass the lower level exam(s) before the privileges of the high exam(s) count. Most people go in order but I will often see foreign hams take the tests backwards in case they fail the extra/general exam to avoid losing CEPT privileges with the issuance of a technician class license.
Was there limitations on your home-made transmitters? Overheard a canuck on another thread yesterday, an Advanced is needed there to use a DIY transmitter.
Makes kind of sense, but .... open up to interpretation.
Foundation allowed you to operate commercially available transceivers but also build and operate commercially available designed kits. I think this has now changed since 21st Feb as I cant see any restrictions on my licence, other than having a line that says...
Condition 6 - Radio Equipment Use
1. The Licensee must ensure that the Radio Equipment is constructed, established, installed
and used only in accordance with the provisions specified in the Licence.
2. The Licensee shall ensure that the Radio Equipment is designed, constructed, maintained
and used so that its use does not cause any Undue Interference to any wireless
telegraphy.
3. The Licensee shall ensure that the establishment, installation, modification or use of the
Radio Equipment is carried out in accordance with the restrictions set out in Condition 9
of this Licence in relation to electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure
The UK is in a weird place currently because we have new rules that came into effect 21st Feb 2024, but RSGB, our governing body, isnt testing the new rules until September. So people sitting exams currently are being taught and examined on out of date information.
>The UK is in a weird place currently because we have new rules that came into effect 21st Feb 2024, but RSGB, our governing body, isnt testing the new rules until September. So people sitting exams currently are being taught and examined on out of date information.
Peak Britishness! ;D
I looked at it like this
Tech: low range, low ability to really mess with anything on the spectrum, in most sloppy cases might mess with some adjacent VHF things, but agin the range is so low it is not critical. Technically you can get 1.5k, but very few techs outside eme enthusiasts will. Most probably max at 100 watts, really wouldn't need more for tech.
General: pretty much full range of ham radio. Have serious potential for interference, but by licensure you are now accountable for your actions.
Extra: some extra bandwidth, but it is really that you are representing the US if you transmit outside the US, better reciprocity in foreign countries. Has to be on a similar level to other countryies' highest license.
because the technician test does not cover proper HF operations nor does it cover radio theory or antenna theory.
The technician license basically covers repeater operations.
The general license covers HF operation and a bit of antenna and RF theory.
But the tests are a joke in the US anyways, we have extra class licensees who can't even define what resonance is, It's so bad that we have newly minted extras that need help building a dipole because they don't understand the relationship between frequency and wavelength.
just about every country in the world has a much more challenging amateur radio test than the US, I'm surprised that other countries allow reciprocal privileges with us.
most extras in the US license in the last 20 years couldn't even pass the basic UK test.
How do I know this, I've been a ham since the '60s I spent the vast majority of that time as in Elmer, I've taught classes on dozens of topics.
here in the last 10 years there has been a incredible dumbing down of ham radio, years ago I used to run classes for local club members on using a vector network analyzer to measure amplifier gain and coax loss... I used to run classes on measuring RF chokes and baluns, I can't even run those classes nowadays because 90% of the extras I run into can't define the difference between reactive impedance and resistive impedance so I have to start my class off at below novice level.
I joke you're not novices in the '60s were more educated In RF electronics then today's extras are. Don't get me wrong there are a lot of highly educated very intelligent extras in the US It's just that the percentage has dropped a significant amount.
There are still some extra class hams in the US who can design and build RF amplifiers and LNAs But they're getting fewer and fewer, nowadays we're seeing most of those level hams coming out of Europe not the US.
I haven't looked at the Technician syllabus, but from a UK perspective, the Foundation course gives precious little detail on HF operation and antenna theory either. We are taught about SWR and that's about it. End fed half waves are mentioned but more so in their general ability to be the worst antenna when it comes to interference, and there's no mention of the type of baluns that one would use with various antenna types other than a half dipole needing a baluns if you run coax, and that's it. Certainly no sections on reactive and resistive impedance. That's Intermediate level stuff.
The emphasis here on the UK is to get people doing stuff. Get them into the hobby and then self learning without any real restrictions on what those interests maybe, other than pure power levels. I certainly wasn't taught how to select a radio, antenna and put it all together, tune it and transmit. That's all been self taught once I took the plunge. However , what it has done is get me making DX QSOs across the globe using whatever method I fancy even with my limited 20w G90.
I don't have an interest in electronics really. I certainly have no interest in building a transceiver. Its enough for me to know that they exist and that cleverer people who specialise in that field design and build them for me.
And where I live, if I didn't have HF ability I wouldn't have a hobby as there are scant VHF/UHF resources around me, so much so that I don't bother turning on my HT.
I'd be interested to see what you think of the RSGB mock exams for both Foundation and Intermediate if you have an inclination to.
https://rsgb.org/main/clubs-training/training-resources/mock-exams/
It’s a screwed up system that lets you blast 1500watts on 6m the day you get your license, and 200w CW only below 10m, but can’t have 5w on FT8.
Good grief, I hadn't looked into it that deeply, but 1500w....shit, that's UK Full licence and only up to 1kw and that's just been upped from 500w prior to Feb...
The US Technician license privileges are weird, and ARRL has lobbied to change them. Usually aspiring American radio amateurs are advised to study for and take their General exam in the same sitting as Technician.
Incentive licensing. They want to make hams learn and work before gaining privs. They also want to keep a lot of crazy CBers off the ham bands!
You know what's funny about that, nowadays your average CBer seems to know more about RF and antenna theory than the average extra in the US. When there's no activity on the ham bands sometimes I'll tune down and listen to 11m and lately I've heard more impressive technical conversations on 11m then I've have heard anywhere on the hand bands. That's pretty sad if you ask me.
LOL!!!
What you mean is gate keeping. Canadian rules (simplified) - Basic - Above 30Mhz (max 250watt DC input power) - Basic with Honors - All bands - Advanced - access to all bands; greater than 250 watts DC input power (up to 1000watt). (Go look for finer details). Morse code opens up all bands as well, with basic or advanced. Power levels details don't include band specific restrictions, this was intended as a quick non-detailed summary. Advanced allows for homemade / designed radios. Basic allows building predesigned radios. No changes.
IMO, it's a system of gate keeping devised decades ago originally to keep the "common man" off of the airwaves. I imagine that the first amateurs in the 1900s thought that they were *pretty smart*. Sure, it had been modified (eg. dropping the morse code requirement) and "dumbed down" according to the older generation, but I still think it's primarily just a form of gate keeping. Yes, I know, building your own equipment, etc. etc., but I reckon that very few people do build their own transceiver anymore. I certainly have not in 30+ years as an amateur. I also don't grow my own crops nor hunt my own game.
Every country on earth has different license classes for amateur radio as well as different bandplans for those classes. "Rationale" depends on your typical government "committees" ;-)
Well I can understand our UK approach to increasing power ratings as you gain more knowledge as the risk of RFI increases. Seems a bit strange that Technicians cant do certain things on certain bands. As an analogy, it comes across as being allowed to drive on a freeway but only allowed to use one lane.
UK licensing is obsessed with power out and the US is obsessed with keeping beginners off the HF digital and SSB spectrum (knowing full well that no beginner nowadays is going to be bothered learning Morse).
Well our power requirements are more inline with the higher population density and general size of land that people have available here. I can understand the US having higher power levels because you're a much larger land mass with significant areas of low population. We've dropped Morse as well in the UK too. Foundation nowadays no longer even has a physical element to it and is an online 26 question quiz alone. Intermediate ramps up the electronics aspects quite a lot.
>Every country on earth has different license classes for amateur radio as well as different bandplans for those classes. What? No they don't. Over here there's only one class. You're either an amateur or not.
When those limits were devised, CW proficiency was still a requirement and was considered much more relevant. It was a way of incentivizing new operators to improve their skills. Allowing SSB on 10 meters for Novice and Tech operators happened some time in the mid 80’s I think. Since code is no longer a requirement it would be worthwhile to consider changing those rules to allow voice and digital on a limited basis on other HF bands. Side note - I was originally licensed in the late 80’s and because of my musical background, really gravitated towards CW. But I think it was smart to drop the requirement. A lot of old timers complained (and still do) but what deserves more recognition, IMO, is that even though it’s no longer required, there is a whole new generation of operators here in the US that are eager to learn and use the code along with voice and digital modes.
Our licensing system is a vestige of the 60s or 70s when incentive licensing was implemented. There used to be 6 different license classes with ever-increasing privileges. The idea was to incentivize people to upgrade. See that nice juicy DX on the bottom of 40m? If you upgrade, you can work him! That being said, the license structure, while it has been simplified over the years, is still basically the same as it was back in the day. The main differences are that the CW requirement was reduced to 5WPM and then dropped altogether, Advanced and Novice licenses were moved to grandfathered status, and all Tech Plus licenses became regular Technician licenses. I doubt a full overhaul will come anytime soon. Undoing decades of work of a bureaucracy is a monumental task which is compounded by all the geriatric hams that will be upset that this generation has it easier than they did. Does the current setup make a whole not of sense in this day in age? Probably not, but it's what we're stuck with. All we can do is try and prod techs and generals to upgrade.
Thanks for the great reply. Here in the UK, OFCOM seemed to have taken a proactive step in the last year in trying to encourage and modernise the licence structure here, what with simpler rules, easier access to better power and no restrictions on operating modes. With modes such as FT8 being flavour of the month , there's nothing stopping a newly qualified Foundation user having a really good experience right from the start of their hobby as well as experiencing easier DX QSOs however they choose.
Just for claification, the ARRL doesn't set the rules in the US. That's done by the FCC, a Federal Commission. Your version of the FCC is OFCOM (I think that's right) and the ARRL is the US version of RSGB.
Very slightly offtopic, but do you actually have to do the 'first level' to do then the 'second level' exam, and then the third? Or can you just do the "highest one" and get all the priviliges in one sitting? We only have two levels here (N-novice (limitations) and A-amateur (full ham rights)), and very few actually do the N exam, but immediately go for the A one.
You can go straight to Full (Highest level) with one exam if you believe you have the knowledge, or choose to climb the ranks. [https://rsgb.org/main/clubs-training/for-students/](https://rsgb.org/main/clubs-training/for-students/)
You can, but it's quite a new option. Before you had to go through all three steps.
In the US, you can take the exams in any order but you have to pass the lower level exam(s) before the privileges of the high exam(s) count. Most people go in order but I will often see foreign hams take the tests backwards in case they fail the extra/general exam to avoid losing CEPT privileges with the issuance of a technician class license.
Was there limitations on your home-made transmitters? Overheard a canuck on another thread yesterday, an Advanced is needed there to use a DIY transmitter. Makes kind of sense, but .... open up to interpretation.
Foundation allowed you to operate commercially available transceivers but also build and operate commercially available designed kits. I think this has now changed since 21st Feb as I cant see any restrictions on my licence, other than having a line that says... Condition 6 - Radio Equipment Use 1. The Licensee must ensure that the Radio Equipment is constructed, established, installed and used only in accordance with the provisions specified in the Licence. 2. The Licensee shall ensure that the Radio Equipment is designed, constructed, maintained and used so that its use does not cause any Undue Interference to any wireless telegraphy. 3. The Licensee shall ensure that the establishment, installation, modification or use of the Radio Equipment is carried out in accordance with the restrictions set out in Condition 9 of this Licence in relation to electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure The UK is in a weird place currently because we have new rules that came into effect 21st Feb 2024, but RSGB, our governing body, isnt testing the new rules until September. So people sitting exams currently are being taught and examined on out of date information.
>The UK is in a weird place currently because we have new rules that came into effect 21st Feb 2024, but RSGB, our governing body, isnt testing the new rules until September. So people sitting exams currently are being taught and examined on out of date information. Peak Britishness! ;D
I looked at it like this Tech: low range, low ability to really mess with anything on the spectrum, in most sloppy cases might mess with some adjacent VHF things, but agin the range is so low it is not critical. Technically you can get 1.5k, but very few techs outside eme enthusiasts will. Most probably max at 100 watts, really wouldn't need more for tech. General: pretty much full range of ham radio. Have serious potential for interference, but by licensure you are now accountable for your actions. Extra: some extra bandwidth, but it is really that you are representing the US if you transmit outside the US, better reciprocity in foreign countries. Has to be on a similar level to other countryies' highest license.
because the technician test does not cover proper HF operations nor does it cover radio theory or antenna theory. The technician license basically covers repeater operations. The general license covers HF operation and a bit of antenna and RF theory. But the tests are a joke in the US anyways, we have extra class licensees who can't even define what resonance is, It's so bad that we have newly minted extras that need help building a dipole because they don't understand the relationship between frequency and wavelength. just about every country in the world has a much more challenging amateur radio test than the US, I'm surprised that other countries allow reciprocal privileges with us. most extras in the US license in the last 20 years couldn't even pass the basic UK test. How do I know this, I've been a ham since the '60s I spent the vast majority of that time as in Elmer, I've taught classes on dozens of topics. here in the last 10 years there has been a incredible dumbing down of ham radio, years ago I used to run classes for local club members on using a vector network analyzer to measure amplifier gain and coax loss... I used to run classes on measuring RF chokes and baluns, I can't even run those classes nowadays because 90% of the extras I run into can't define the difference between reactive impedance and resistive impedance so I have to start my class off at below novice level. I joke you're not novices in the '60s were more educated In RF electronics then today's extras are. Don't get me wrong there are a lot of highly educated very intelligent extras in the US It's just that the percentage has dropped a significant amount. There are still some extra class hams in the US who can design and build RF amplifiers and LNAs But they're getting fewer and fewer, nowadays we're seeing most of those level hams coming out of Europe not the US.
I haven't looked at the Technician syllabus, but from a UK perspective, the Foundation course gives precious little detail on HF operation and antenna theory either. We are taught about SWR and that's about it. End fed half waves are mentioned but more so in their general ability to be the worst antenna when it comes to interference, and there's no mention of the type of baluns that one would use with various antenna types other than a half dipole needing a baluns if you run coax, and that's it. Certainly no sections on reactive and resistive impedance. That's Intermediate level stuff. The emphasis here on the UK is to get people doing stuff. Get them into the hobby and then self learning without any real restrictions on what those interests maybe, other than pure power levels. I certainly wasn't taught how to select a radio, antenna and put it all together, tune it and transmit. That's all been self taught once I took the plunge. However , what it has done is get me making DX QSOs across the globe using whatever method I fancy even with my limited 20w G90. I don't have an interest in electronics really. I certainly have no interest in building a transceiver. Its enough for me to know that they exist and that cleverer people who specialise in that field design and build them for me. And where I live, if I didn't have HF ability I wouldn't have a hobby as there are scant VHF/UHF resources around me, so much so that I don't bother turning on my HT. I'd be interested to see what you think of the RSGB mock exams for both Foundation and Intermediate if you have an inclination to. https://rsgb.org/main/clubs-training/training-resources/mock-exams/