Radio and Electronics (Part 10 of 12)

In the spring of 1977 the time came to take the General Class license test. Dad had not been a licensed amateur radio operator for almost ten years and he decided it was time to renew his license, so he went with me. It was at the National Guard Armory near the University of Utah. When we arrived there were many other amateurs waiting outside the Armory. Finally the official from the FCC arrived. He was a small, balding man in his fifties. He wore round wire rimmed glasses. He had on a white shirt and tie and looked very stern. I was terrified! He had two black, foot lockers with him. He said not a word but entered the examination room, and the rest of us followed him. We took our seats. Some of the people, who were all grown men, except me, had calculators for use on the test for figuring out electronics formulas. Dad and I had no calculator but we would use scratch paper instead. The FCC official un packed everything from the foot lockers. The test papers he stacked neatly on the front table which he would use as his desk. He took out an audio oscillator and a loud speaker. He connected his telegraph key. He took out lots of number two pencils and placed them neatly on the desk as well. Only when he was all ready did he speak. “Welcome to the FCC licence examination for the Salt Lake City area. We will do the International Morse Code element of the test first.” He passed out blank paper and pencils to each of us. Then using the telegraph key he tapped out our test. I tried my best but I knew I hadn’t passed at 13 words per minute. The examiner collected each paper and then proceeded to score each one. There were fifty people in the room and we all sat quietly as he looked at each paper. He had a big red pen. He held this as he counted each letter on each test. We all sat quietly as his hand bounced along. When he came to an error, he stopped momentarily and marked it with red. Each of us held our breath. And then we would relax momentarily as he went on. At the next mistake you could feel the tension in the room increase once again. Pretty soon, all we could do was chuckle each time he stopped to mark a mistake, but there was really nothing funny about it. We knew each mistake was bringing someone (or us!) closer to having their hopes axed. It seemed like hours that we all sat in silence waiting for the examiner to finish. When he finally did, he called each of us by name to come to the front and send a message in code.