I am sure it will be similar to the pent up demand we had when the Technician license became code free and many new entrants took the test.
Because VHF and up is less compelling than daily occurence of longer distance communications with HF, it may be that we will see continuing interest. A nearby city where I used to live and give the classes for Technician and held VE sessions quite regularly, now has the "Ham in a day" program. Basically, they will take anyone and go over the test questions in the morning and early afternoon and then test later in the day. They have a very high pass rate. Apparently, some students have had minimal exposure to radio are able to pass. I would not personally we willing to run such a test session, because anyone who is not willing to meet for a couple of hours for six weeks and study the material, will likely never stay with amateur radio anyway. There are many competing interests out there and everyone picks the things that interest them the most. We include a lot of "show and tell", demonstrations of equipment and simple antennas, and hands on components. One thing that I don't fully understand is why people are taking element 3 or higher now. They will have to pay the fee all over again at another VE test to have the paperwork submitted for the new no code General or Extra Class license. My wife, who is studying for her General, although she has very little interest in HF, thought that the reason might be that they were ready for the test and did not want to take the chance of getting stale by the time of the next VE test session. Like most things, she is probably right about that:) 73, Rick, KV9U James M Punderson IV wrote: >Hi Rick, > >I work as a VE for some clubs here in NJ. We just had a session last >Thursday at which instead of the usual 2 or 3 test takers, we had >eleven of which seven were Technicians taking the General written exam. > >So if that's any indication, there is a lot of interest in HF out >there. I think from talking to those folks at the session that this >will enhance the chances of them sticking with ham radio. > >Jamie Punderson, W2QO > > > > > >
