RAE Exam Papers, AMRAD licences back to 1907 etc

[David G4EBT]

Some radio amateurs on the forum might be familiar with the name of David Pratt, G4DMP. For many years up to when the City & Guilds of London Institute withdrew from being the examining body, David was the C&G Chief Examiner. David was also an author and co-author of many useful and interesting items of equipment from the 60s and 70s, most notable for me being ‘A digital frequency counter and timer - direct read-out at 150MHz’, which featured in RadCom in March 1976.

Back then, buying a commercially made frequency counter was beyond the reach of most amateurs. David Pratt’s RadCom design could be built for £35.00 – still a tidy sum amounting to £250 when inflation is taken into account, but nevertheless, affordable. The design used a range of construction techniques -Veroboard, tagboards and point-to-point wiring, and the display used small nixie tubes. I built the counter and to my relief it worked right away, easily went up to 200 MHz and what’s more, it still works today, 38 years on! I recently passed it on to forum member Joe, ‘The Pillenwerfer’.

I’ve just had a meander around G4DMP’s excellent website and thought other amateurs and constructors might find it of interest. To highlight a few facets of the site, it has all the written style RAE papers from 1946 – 1978. (I’ve just re-visited the one that I passed in May 1977 to see if I could still scrape through!). The Past written papers of the Radio Amateurs’ Examination are here:

http://www.g4dmp.co.uk/rae/index.htm

Multiple-choice Radio Amateurs’ Examination & Novice Radio Amateurs’ Examination Past Papers and Chief Examiner’s Reports from 1997 – 2003 are here:

http://www.g4dmp.co.uk/reports/index.htm

Constructional articles from the 1950s – 1970s are here:

http://www.g4dmp.co.uk/articles/index.htm

Lots of other interesting publications can be found here:

http://www.g4dmp.co.uk/

Some examples are:

Denco "Maxi-Q" Transistor & Miniature Dual Purpose Coils - Technical Bulletin DTB.4
Electroniques GC166 & QP166 'Qoilpax' datasheets with circuits
G2DAF Linear Amplifier circuit and construction details
Copy of the 1907 UK Amateur Radio Licence
UK Amateur Radio Licence issued between 1946 and 1954.

I hope that others find lots of interest on David's excellent site, as I did.

[HamishBoxer]

Heck, I wonder whether I could pass again my 1973/4 exam?

[timewave]

Thanks David

Just done my 1972 paper. It seemed easier as a 60 year old than as an 18 year old so I suppose experience does count. I still regret not taking out a licence until 1979.

John G4IJD (G8RPF)

[Aub]

Thanks very much for posting this goldmine. I found the May 1974 paper I took.

73

Aub G4KQL

[Station X]

I found the paper I sat in May 1970, but I have no recollection of any of the questions. My strategy in deciding which questions to answer was to go straight to any questions involving mathematics as I always found them easy to answer.

The most annoying thing about doing my RAE in '85 was that I couldn't leave when I had finished. A two hour exam which I did in 20 minutes leaving a very boring wait, BTW passed both parts. If it was that simple I think I prefer the new way of staged theoretical and practical development.

[raditechman]

Thanks for posting this site. I have just re-read the RAE paper I passed in May 1971, never thought I would see it again!.
Looking at the construction articles plenty of Top Band items back then. Happy days.
John

[David G4EBT]

I think that the old 'essay style' exam was easier for those who were literate and could thus, express themselves well in the allotted time. When I took the RAE in May 1974 (not, as I said earlier, 1977) I'd just completed a 3-year Business Studies course encompassing eleven subjects from economics and statistics, to commercial law and accounting, culminating in a case study, so putting pen to paper didn't pose a challenge. Others among my friends and acquaintances with far more knowledge and ability than I had, struggled.

Looking at the May 1974 paper, Part 1 Q1 A & B were easy and quick.

Q2 Involved drawing sketches, supported by written explanations, so was quite time consuming, bearing in mid you had 15 mins on average per question.

Part two:

Q3 would be quick and easy, but most of the others required sketches and narrative, and some calculations.

No calculators were allowed of course, (not that many could have afforded them) but you did have the benefit of a set of Castles Log tables!

In May 1974, of 1,719 took that exam, 1,031 passed, so the pass rate was 62.9%. Hence, almost four in ten candidates failed.

http://www.g4dmp.co.uk/rae/rae1974m.pdf

Interesting to note the high pass rate in the immediate post-war years, which probably indicates that many candidates were ex Armed Services personnel such as radio/radar mechanics and operators.

Odd though, that in May 1947, the lowest ever pass rate of 36.8% was recorded, which suggests an aberration in the setting of the paper.

The effects of the influx into amateur radio from the CB ‘bubble’ can be seen, in that in May 1982 there were 8,585 candidates.

http://www.g4dmp.co.uk/rae/raestats.pdf

[KeithsTV]

Interesting to note that there are no papers or stats for 1979. I took and passed the first of the multiple choice papers in May 79 but I can't remember any of the questions.

Keith

[Station X]

I think the papers set in the 1970's and earlier were set with the anticipation that the candidate would homebrew his station. When I became interested in the late 1950's/early 1960's most amateurs seemed to use commercial receivers such as the AR88 along with a homebrew valved transmitter. From the mid 1960's SSB took over which made it more difficult to homebrew a transmitter and commercial gear initially British and American, but later Japanese gear took over. It then became a case of plug and play, but most amateurs were still able to repair the gear they used.

I think it was the late Pat Hawker who said that he would happily give a licence to anyone who could build a transmitter free of spurious emissions and demonstrate its use on the air.

It was a disappointment to me that by the time I entered the hobby AM had died and homebrewing was dying. I had to be content with modifying "blue boxes" or PMR rigs. A valuable experience which is not available to today's novice licence holders.

[G6Tanuki]

Originally Posted by Station X

I think it was the late Pat Hawker who said that he would happily give a licence to anyone who could build a transmitter free of spurious emissions and demonstrate its use on the air.

It was a disappointment to me that by the time I entered the hobby AM had died and homebrewing was dying. I had to be content with modifying "blue boxes" or PMR rigs. A valuable experience which is not available to today's novice licence holders.

Modifying PMR-stuff can be just as technically-challenging as homebrewing (moreso if anything - I'd say that VHF gear's harder to tame, specially when you've moved it 30% away from its original design-frequency and added a direct-to-the-synth FSK input so you could use it on packet-radio).

Homebrewing a low-HF-band CW Tx is, in comparison, rather easy - though not something that ever really attracted me.