Welcome to Handiham World.
What do you do when no one shows up for your class?
That's the situation I found myself in last week. I'd prepared to teach my
assigned part of the General Class course and no one showed up. It was the
second scheduled class, and the first instructor had reported the same thing the
previous week, so I wasn't really that surprised. It isn't the end of the
world. When I studied for my Novice license as a teen, it was all strictly
do-it-yourself. Once I passed Novice, I had to pump up my Morse code speed
to 13 words per minute and also learn enough from my ARRL license manual to pass
the exam given at the FCC office in St. Paul, MN, which was almost two hours
drive from my home town. And that was the days before the internet and on
line question pools! Most of us back then studied alone, working our way
through the material and practicing code as best we could. Having a class
to go to would have been helpful, but it wasn't absolutely necessary. I
practiced my code on the air with my buddy Karl, WA0TFC, who is now a silent
key. Karl and I were both in the same radio club, and as you can tell from
our pretty close callsign assignments, (TDA & TFC), we were licensed as Novices
about the same time. Back then, on the air practice was expected - it was the
purpose of having the Novice license, which was only good for a single year.
During that year, one was expected to study and pass the General or go off the
air.
