CHANGE SEBVICE REOUESI ED ASHLAND, MA PEBMIT NO.7

type certification is not required. Experimentation, rather,
is expected and encouraged.
Do not blur the distinction between CB and amateur.
Stand against the trivralization of our radio service. Enable
our VEs to fulfill their duties so as to allow our amateur
service community to uphold its reputation of high standards
of legitimacy in being beneficial to the American
pu blic.
Adopt a set of VEC instructions to your Question
Pool Committee. You have created your question pool
committee to carry out your obligation. Very few VECS,
however, have ever participated on your committee.
Become involved! Cooperate, at least, by joining with the
other VECs in developrng a set of instructions for your
committee to follow. Because your QPC members are
sublect to change every year, a set of agreed-to instructions
can help assure continuity and demonstrate permanence
in that your considered policy is directing your question
pool-maintaining process.
A noteworthy commerce has evolved for providing
examination preparation services. lts practitioners, their
employees and associates depend upon your question
pools. lt is their lifeblood. Your obligation, nevertheless,
is to maintain your question pools for the VEs. Frequent
revisions obviously benefit exam preparation services commerce.
but the constant churning of the questions disadvantages
the examinees, the VEs and our instructors. lt
obsoletes and disrupts unreasonably their administration
and training materials and curricula.
Do not tolerate your pools being revised unnecessarily.
Only revamp a pool when it needs updating because of
rule amendments or evolving good amateur and engineering
practices.
You are exceptionally fortunate to have (QCWA
Member) Rol Anders as your Question Pool Committee
chair. ln the Baltimore area, he is our most respected
amateur radio instructor and expert. He loves to teach.
He is unencumbered by any examination preparation services
commerce. Do not let him get away.
Comply fully with the FCC element standards. First
and foremost, a working knowledge of the pertinent FCC
rules is fundamental to operating an amateur station properly.
Also required is an understanding of our good amateur
and good engineering practices, along with a grasp
of the related technical rudiments sufficient to make those
rules and practices meaningful. Keep on track! You have
no rightful excuse to shape the pools to manipulate licensing
trends or to faciliiate commerce.
On my website is a list of the technical terms taken
from the FCC rules that need to be understood in order
for the rules and practices to make sense.
Do not compromise any question just to satisfy the
constraints of the multiple-choice format. Enable our
VEs to prepare, administer and grade in the format of
their choice. Although it is probably the most widely
administered type, that lowly-regarded multiple-choice
answer format is not an FCC rule requirement. Unless you
condition your VE accreditation upon the volunteer's consent
to admrnister only multiple-choice examinations, it is
not obligatory.
Heretofore, the FCC staff examiners also employed a noknowledge-to-grade
multiple-choice format. Holding an
amateur operator Iicense grant, however, was not in their
position descriptions. The questions and answers, moreover,
were not disclosed beforehand.
Our VE system cannot lay claim to any similar justification.
Every VE must have passed not only the examination
element that he or she is preparing or administering but
also the next higher element, where there is one. Your
multiple-choice format, with the exact questions and
answers publicized beforehand encourages quickie memorization
rather than benef icial learning.
For example, the very first statement codified in Part 97
is the basis and purpose for the rules in locations where
the FCC regulates the amateur radio service. Any person
seeking a license should be aware of the FCC's expectations
on how he or she is to make use of the privileges
conferred thereby. Hence, those fundamental principles
should be addressed in the very first examination for a
license. Your multiple-choice format question and answer
character constraints, however, will not accommodate it
satisfactorily. The question-preparing VE, therefore, must
dumb-down the question to fit your 210-character constraint.
One shortcut is to state briefly the knowledge
amateur operator needs to know and then simply ask the
examinee to identify its source; maybe something like this:
T1A01 (97.1Xa) Voluntary noncommercial communications,
technology, skills, operators, technicians, electronics
experts, international goodwill are the objectives
for the amateur service of which authority?
A. FCC
B. ITU
C. FEMA
D. OSTP
It looks like it addresses the basis and purpose of the rules.
But it is not the fundamental expertrse a truly qualified
FCC-licensed amateur operator must possess. That knowledge
has been subjugated to satisfy the constraints of
your limiting format.
Don't take our spectrum for granted. We are all concerned
about disturbing news reports of spectrum
demands for Internet services. The BPL may be only the
opening shot. Congress now knows of the billions that
can be raised through auctions. Let's try our very best to
retain our spectrum for those genuine uniquely-qualified
amateur operators. lf your question pools are not correct,
our VEs' efforts are meaningless. Get your pools right.
The world will little note nor long remember what we
say here, but it can never forget what we do here. lt is for
us to be dedicated to the great task remaining before us:
that every person in America for whom our spectrum is
12 QCWAJournai . Winter 2Oag. www,qcwaorg