From: Brad Bradfield QLF
Subj: FCC CW SENDING TESTS
> The examiner wasn't impressed and sneaked up behind me during the
> sending test and removed the power plug from the outlet.
> Vic K2VCO
I took my General and Advanced on the same day at the FCC office in downtown
LA in January 1971. I took my own keyer (Digi-key; three RTL ICs, anyone
remember that one?) with built in homebrewed paddles. Sent for about 15 or 20
seconds tops from his list and he said that was plenty, and I'd passed. The
straight key that they had screwed to the table top was a run of the mill
straight key, probably an E.F. Johnson or Bunnell. Everything I always heard
and read at the time said not to start the sending test till you had the key
(if you used their key) adjusted just the way you wanted it.
As a sidelite to the day I took these tests, the General test had a schematic
of a typical tube type oscillator/buffer/PA CW transmitter with half a dozen
questions relating to the circuit. When I took the Advanced test 20 minutes
later, lo and behold, the test had *exactly* the same oscillator/buffer/PA
transmitter with *exactly* the same questions, but this time the schematic had
transistors instead of tubes. I immediately started chuckling to which
everyone else in the room probably wondered what was so funny about an FCC
exam.
Oh, well.
72's es 73's,
Brad, WB0CGH
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