Every argument the amateur service has ever had about who should be allowed on which frequencies is written into the history of the license classes.
1912: licensing begins
Before 1912 nobody needed permission to transmit. The Radio Act of 1912, passed after the Titanic disaster exposed how chaotic the spectrum was, created federal licensing of stations and operators and pushed private stations to wavelengths of 200 meters and shorter — then considered useless. Amateurs promptly discovered those wavelengths propagate worldwide.
Operator requirements tightened quickly. By 1917 the code speed required of an amateur had risen to 10 wpm, and there were roughly 6,000 licensed amateurs in the United States when Congress ordered them off the air that April.
1927–1934: the regulators we know
The Radio Act of 1927 created the Federal Radio Commission; the Communications Act of 1934 replaced it with the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the amateur service today under Part 97.
Under the new Commission the licenses were reorganized into Class A, B and C — A carrying the exclusive phone privileges, B the full written and code exam, C the same exam taken by mail where traveling to an FCC office was impractical. By 1936 there were about 46,000 licensed amateurs. Those three classes are the direct ancestors of the 1951 ladder below: A became Advanced, B became General, C became Conditional.
1951: the classes take their familiar shape
The FCC's postwar restructuring produced the class ladder most operators would recognize for the rest of the century:
- Novice — a one-year, non-renewable beginner license with a 5 wpm code test and limited,
- Technician — created for VHF and above, and for the experimenters working on those frequencies.
- General — the main operating license.
- Conditional — a General earned by mail where a trip to an FCC office was impractical.
- Advanced and Amateur Extra — higher classes with additional exams.
crystal-controlled, low-power privileges. It was designed to be outgrown.
1968–69: incentive licensing
The FCC reserved slices of the most desirable HF phone and CW bands for Advanced and Extra holders, explicitly to push operators to keep studying. It remains one of the most divisive decisions in American amateur radio history: supporters credit it with raising technical standards, opponents blame it for years of resentment and for shrinking the General-class portions of the bands.
1984: ten-year licenses, and volunteer examiners
Two changes arrived together in the mid-1980s. The license term went from five years to ten, where it remains. And the FCC began handing examining over to the amateur community rather than running sessions itself — a phase-out with a period of overlap, not a single switch.
Legislation early in the decade allowed the delegation, and the Volunteer Examiner system — accredited Volunteer Examiner Coordinators, three-VE sessions, and question pools published in advance — has run US amateur testing ever since. It is why you can test at a club meeting on a Saturday morning instead of traveling to a federal office. See volunteer examiners and exam day.
The long retreat of the code test
- Morse proficiency was long an international requirement for HF operation, at speeds up to 20 wpm
- 1991 — the FCC created a no-code Technician, opening VHF/UHF to newcomers without a code
- 2000 restructuring — the FCC stopped issuing new Novice and Advanced licenses, leaving
- 2003 — the World Radiocommunication Conference removed the international treaty requirement for
- 23 February 2007 — the FCC eliminated the Morse code examination entirely. Nothing about the
for the highest US class.
test. Technician licensees who also passed the 5 wpm exam became "Technician Plus" and could work parts of HF.
three classes for new applicants (Technician, General, Extra) and reducing every remaining code requirement to 5 wpm. Existing Novice and Advanced licensees kept their licenses and privileges.
Morse testing, leaving it to each country.
mode changed; only the test went away. Morse is now used purely by choice, and it is thriving — see CW and Morse code.
Where that leaves us
Three classes today: Technician, General and Amateur Extra, each a written multiple-choice exam from a published question pool, administered by volunteers. Licenses run ten years and are renewable, with a two-year grace period to renew after expiration during which you may not transmit.
Grandfathered Novice and Advanced licensees still exist and may renew, which is why you will occasionally hear a class the FCC has not issued since 2000.
Sources and further reading
- FCC Amateur Radio Service — the current rules and the
- AC6V's amateur radio history — Rod Dinkins, AC6V (SK): a
- Ham Radio History (W2PA) — the same events as reported in QST at the
orders behind each restructuring.
year-by-year chronology, including the license counts and class changes cited here.
time.
See license classes for what each one can do today, and a short history of amateur radio for the wider story.