Thursday, February 9, 2017

Novice License Coming Back?

ARRL Seeks Opinions Concerning Possible New Entry Level License:

"An Entry Level License Committee was established by the ARRL Board of Directors and appointed in September 2016. As part of its ongoing work, the committee is gathering member input and will make recommendations to the Board for possible rules changes to submit to the FCC. 
The result could mean changes to the Technician license, but it could also be an additional, but simpler, license with privileges that would give a newcomer a taste of most facets of ham radio from HF to VHF and UHF. 
The committee has created an online member survey. Please complete and submit the survey no later than April 7, 2017. Survey results will be published."

Via W2LJ

2 comments:

  1. My comments:

    Extend the current Technician Class to include privileges on 10 and 15 meter bands. These bands are often dead and need more use. Maybe 80 meters also. Only old novice band I would have doubts about would be 40, which often seems congested!

    If we create a new truly entry-level class, it should be limited to 10 watts on a limited subset of VHF/UHF. I would propose 10 watt limit, digital+voice, on 70 cm, 33 cm (900 MHz), 13 cm (2.4 GHz) and 5 cm (5.8 GHz). This would let people who just want to use ham stuff do basic ragchewing (CB) or drone or digital experimentation on relatively open bands. But do not give entry-level access to 2 meters or below!!!

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    Replies
    1. The bar is so low to get a tech, I don't think there needs to be anything below it.

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