I received a forwarded email this evening. The original was from the Emergency Coordinator (EC) of a county in California. The subject matter was about how to grow your local ARES membership. Generally, it was a collection of good ideas. However, I took exception to one of the points the author made. Below is the paragraph (in bold type) of the forwarded post to which I took exception and following is my response to it.
Just for the record — my response is my opinion and there’s not a damn thing you can say to change my mind, so any dissenting responses are simply wasted. If you disagree, don’t even bother responding. No offense, it’s just that you don’t stand a chance of changing my mind.
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*HamCrams* – Creating new, emergency-minded hams may be the best way to
grow your group and goes hand-in-hand with the next item. One-day
licensing classes don’t teach someone how to be a ham, but the license
makes someone trainable and worth investing in.
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Those are some interesting ideas, and many of them are workable and, in fact, laudable. However, I take extreme exception to the author’s recommendation of “HamCrams”.
In my opinion, HamCrams or “Teaching for the Test” are one of the most damaging incursions into the heart of amateur radio in many years. Many of us grumble about the license tests being “dumbed down”; yet some of our ham community persist in recommending that we swell our numbers by creating “one day wonders”, and then foolishly expect them to contribute positively when confronted with an emergency.
I had the privilege and pleasure a couple years ago, of being one of the instructors of a 6-day (six Sunday afternoons) Technician licensing class. Of the eleven students who took the class, ten of them passed the Tech test on the first try and are now active hams. The eleventh student was a ten year old boy whose dad forced him to take the class. He didn’t want to be there and I felt sorry for him having to attend.
Several of the students from that class have tested for and passed their General class exams and one will be testing for Amateur Extra next month. I consider this to be the kind of results we should be seeking in our licensing classes.
In the class I helped to teach, we took special care to ensure that our students learned how to be competent amateur radio operators before they learned how to pass the test. In other words. they passed the test from their broad knowledge of the total subject matter, not because of being force-fed with the answers to the questions on the test.
I participated recently in the grading process of a “HamCram” session. I did not know when I agreed to participate in the event that it was a “HamCram” session. Had I known, I would have declined. The majority of the tests that I graded which passed had barely passing scores. This does not bode well for the future of these licensees, or of their participation in the amateur radio community.
I met one of the licensees from that session the other day when he attended a TAARC meeting. To his credit, he admitted that he’d learned essentially nothing at his licensing session and expressed his desire to learn “how to be a ham”.
Unfortunately, this type of person is in the minority. The majority of those who are licensed as a result of “HamCram” sessions will never even touch a radio until there is a real emergency. Then they will jump on the air — doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons.
In spite of their good intentions, they will be entirely worthless to the emergency effort and will actually be a hindrance because of their complete lack of experience.
There is no substitute for on-the-air experience and we do no favors to either the new licensee or to the amateur radio community by providing these much vaunted “HamCram” sessions to make new hams.
Those of us in the amateur radio community who have made the commitment to emergency communications have spent many hours in bicycle races, emergency drills, simulated emergency tests and other forms of practice for the events we hope will never come. But those events do come — witness Cross Plains 2005 — and remember the ham response at that time. It was immediate and it was effective.
I was one of the hams who responded to that event and I say from experience that the main reason our ham response was so effective is that our responders had practiced. We had a team of experienced communicators at all the stations on the circuit twenty-four hours a day. Without that experience, there would have been total chaos instead of the precision communications that we provided.
I totally support all legitimate efforts to garner new licensees, but I do not — can not — condone the utilization of “HamCram” sessions to make new hams. Unless our new licensees are trained to be competent amateur radio operators as a part of their license training, they will not get on the air voluntarily for either recreational or training purposes.
Only when there is a declared emergency will they key up, and then, because of their total lack of experience, they will be a detriment, rather than a benefit, to the emergency effort. And it will not be their fault.
It will be the fault of those who have conducted the “HamCram” sessions, administered the tests, and created this new class of amateur radio licensees — the class of those with a license and no practical on-air experience. These well-meaning and sincere folks will not understand when their efforts to communicate are either rejected or ignored because they do not know how to conform to the accepted communications format — and they disrupt the ongoing emergency comms. And their so-called instructor will be to blame.
We must remember that to “remain calm under fire” takes practice. That practice is gained by participation in the weekly nets of our local ham clubs, by working bicycle races, being a part of SETs and participating in every drill that’s offered. Without having the initial confidence to get on the air imparted to them in the license class, most new licensees will not even get on the air until there is a declared emergency. Without having had the practical experience beforehand, they will not be able to make a positive contribution to the effort.
I urge you — I beg you — my fellow VEs, do not succumb to the pressure to hold a “HamCram” session. Instead, provide a series of classes for potential Technician class licensees that will prepare them to be competent amateur radio operators. Ensure that part of the class includes on-air experience and know that when they pass the test they know more than they need to know to be Technician class licensees. For that is the only way that they will desire to progress in their ham radio career.
It is only by imbuing our students with the knowledge and history of our avocation and also with the excitement that accompanies it, that we can hope to retain them as amateur radio operators. We are members of the greatest hobby in the world — let us make sure that we pass the excitement and the commitment to community service on to all those whom we teach and test.
73,
ldb
K5WLF