Or not.

I find a lot of editorializing about amateur radio to be, well, curiously off the mark. For instance try checking out Dan, KB6NU’s well meaning article about why you should upgrade to a General. I mean, that’s what the title is: Why you should upgrade to a General. The reason I find this article so astounding is that despite the title, Dan doesn’t actually provide any reasons why you should upgrade to a General. The entire article presumes that whatever reasons you think you have for not upgrading, they aren’t valid. I find that a tiny bit presumptuous. But what’s really odd to me, is that there certainly are reasons to upgrade, he just didn’t bother to tell you any.

The most important difference (which underlies most of the others) is that you have access to spectrum which is unavailable to Technician class licensees. While Technician class licensees have all you can eat privileges above 50Mhz, they are pretty lean on the HF bands. With a General, you get full access to big hunks (but not all) of the spectrum below 6m, and this opens up a bunch of possibilities for communication. From SSB to RTTY to digital modes, you can participate more fully in the broad range of HF activity. The General exam is not a particularly difficult test, and you get a big bang for the buck. I’ve enjoyed WSPR, JT65 and beacon activity. And of course building and QRP operation. And just a lot of shortwave listening too (hey, no license required!)

But perhaps you don’t want to do any of that. Perhaps EMCOMM on VHF+ is your thing. Or maybe you like mountain-topping with 2m SSB. Or microwaves. Or APRS. Or D-Star. Or satellites. Or ATV. Or meteor scatter. Or EME. Or just hiking with an HT, or keeping in touch while on the road. I’m frankly okay with that, and I wish more hams were less concerned about what other people were doing, and simply got on with doing more of what they like in ham radio. Then, we wouldn’t have to scold and cajole people into upgrading: they would either be interested, or not. With the wide variety of interesting activity accessible to hams with Technician class licenses, it does not strain my credulity to think that it might be enough for someone.

When someone asks you why you don’t have your General or Extra class license, ask them how many moonbounce contacts they’ve made. If it is zero, urge them to upgrade their skills.