The 3rd Class Ticket.

[Scooter Lesley]

Some of the readers of this board will not understand the subject matter of this topic, but let's roll on it anyway!
The 3rd Class License. If nothing else...it screened-out the ones that were not serious about the business.
I still have mine!

 

[freqdev]

3rd class tickets were history years ago. scooter you are showing your age transmitter reading are logged by computers. what's a computer?

 

[Ssummers]

Some of the readers of this board will not understand the subject matter of this topic, but let's roll on it anyway!
The 3rd Class License. If nothing else...it screened-out the ones that were not serious about the business.
I still have mine!

Not sure why you'd bring 3rd Class licenses up unless you're just feeling nostalgic, but, hey, your dime. I killed all three elements at 14. Yes, still have it...in a scrapbook somewhere. But I gotta say, with all due respect, your logic is a bit flawed. I've known tons of ****** nozzles with 3rd Class licenses who never bothered to 'hone' their craft and I've known tons of accomplished jocks who got their provisional by doing little more than drooling on the signature line of the app they submitted.

 

[Gatekeeper007]

I believe that having to acquire your 3 class ticket back in the day was a good idea. I am not sure it helped on showing weather some people were serious about radio or not. I got mine when I was 14, my second when I was 16 and my first just before I turned 18. Althou it doesn't seem to mean much anymore I still hold my general class as I am sure a lot of people in the radio business still do, I as well am still listed as a Chief FCC examiner for the commercial radio services thru the NRE even thou nobody worries about getting a commercial license anymore for the general class services.

 

[whopper]

I believe it was elements 1, 2, & 9? I studied harder for that than anything in my life.

 

[radiostuwright]

I wish I could find my first class ticket...lost in one of many moves...it was one
of those lifetime ones the commission had for awhile. I may be one of a very few
to have a 1st class ticket and a CDL....(Commercial drivers' license)...
Somewhere deep in the halls of the FCC I wonder if a replacement is possible...

 

[more kilowatts]

I remember traveling to Atlanta in 1975 to test for my 3rd class. The FCC office was located on the 16th floor of the building that at the time was called the Gas Light Tower - I believe this building is called Peachtree Center North now. I was scared to death because all the FCC people working there seemed uptight and very intimidating to say the least. Remember, this was in an era where people still greatly feared the FCC (and Ma Bell.) I was in a large room with lots of people taking the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st class tests. When you finished your test, you handed your exam to the examiner and went back to your assigned seat and waited for him to grade your test. After a few minutes, he called my name out and said "you passed all three" (meaning I passed elements 1, 2, and 9.) I was excited to pass but I was sure glad to get out of there.

 

[Gatekeeper007]

Kilo I took mine in Miami, FL and it was just like yours, big room, bunch of people taking third, second and first class tickets, little desk you sat at go up give them your paper when you finished go back to desk and sit and wait till your name was called and see if you passed or failed and if you passed get the heck out of there.

 

[Al Timiter]

I had a third but it got left behind at a station where I literally couldn't wait to get the hell out. Haven't seen it since.

I took the test and passed in 1967 in Atlanta. I guess it was the same bldg referenced above. My dad put my young 17 year old be-hind on a night time Greyound bus to Atlanta...all by myself. It was quite an education. I stayed awake all night on the bus while a guy sitting across from me talked to himself. Another guy kept drinking from his flask. We pulled into Atlanta at 4:30am. I got my first look at "ladies of the evening." I remained at the Bus Station until it was time to go take the test while listening to the juke box which played "Respect" and "Poor Side of Town" among others. That trip was an education. But not nearly the education I received after I put my 3rd Class ticket on the wall of my first employer. Thanks for letting me remember.....

 

[Ssummers]

I remember it like that, too. The station that hired me at 14, WHSC in Hartsville, pounded the info we needed to pass all three elements(1-FCC law, 2-Phonetic alphabet, 9-transmitter reading math-for lack of a better term) into our heads. We had to pass an in-house test that made the actual FCC exam pale in comparison...and we only had one chance to pass it. We could've gone to Savannah to take the exam, but they only offered the exam once or twice a month then, as I recall(may be a little off, there), so, when me and another guy(Mike Hickey) passed the in-house exam, they gave us each 25 bucks and told us to go to the ATL. I couldn't drive, so Mike's uncle drove us down. I know what you mean, Al, about the 'ladies of the evening'. This was 1975 before they cleaned Peachtree Street up. Peep shows, adult bookstores, strip clubs...all bathed in the eye-catching(read:eyesore) fluorescent orange paint and multicolored neon that was a dead giveaway of the XXX trade back then. Like many of you, I remember plowing thru the exam in a classroom of about 30-35 people. I was nervous as hell. I finished before everyone, so, since I was only 14, I was SURE I'd failed. I moped back to my desk waiting for the inevitable news that I'd effed the whole thing up. I was in the middle of figuring out what I was going to tell my Dad and, I was sure, my 'ex' employers at WHSC when the exam grader called me back up to the window. I did the walk of shame up to the window. All the lady said was, 'PASS'. I had to ask her what that meant. She replied with a terse, 'You passed. That's what it means.' I couldn't believe it. I let out a bloodcurdling 'WOOOOOOOT!!!!!!!' which didn't exactly ingratiate me with the other exam takers. It was the first time in my life that I felt like, if I applied myself, I could accomplish anything. Initially, I thought this thread was a dead end, but it apparently brought back memories I haven't had in decades. How strange. I guess I was right in one respect...it WAS nostalgia. Plus, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than therapy.

 

[coolone]

As I started reading this thread, I was thinking of telling my story of driving all the way to Atlanta to take a 3 hour exam in a crowded room on a small desk, but you guys beat me to it. Exact same story. I wonder if the FCC still keeps records of who has these licenses and if they can provide a replica? Mine's long gone.

 

[RadioFan2J3]

One summer, early to mid-1960s, my buddy and I heard the FCC was going to be at Augusta Tech (GA), giving exams. We happened to have some study guide, don't really remember which one.

Drove up to Augusta and we both sat for the exams. I passed elements one, two and three, failing number four. My friend passed elements one, two and four, failing number three.

It must have been maybe summer of 1966, I went up to the FCC office in Atlanta and took element four and traded the 2nd phone in for the 1st. Some time later, maybe a year or so, I added the ship radar endorsement to the first phone.

 

[BobbyV]

Dad and I drove to Savannah for my 3rd Class test. I was a senior in high school at the time, and Jack Hawley, who owned WLAT AM-FM let me borrow a cassette course that I listened to the whole trip down. How I passed Element 9, I'll never know!

A few years later, after deregulation, I still had my ticket on the wall at the old WJXY when it burned to the ground. Ar that point, I couldn't get a replacement license. Even though the ticket was worthless by that time, I still hated the fact I lost it forever!

 

[vchimpanzee]

Dad and I drove to Savannah for my 3rd Class test. I was a senior in high school at the time, and Jack Hawley, who owned WLAT AM-FM let me borrow a cassette course that I listened to the whole trip down. How I passed Element 9, I'll never know!

A few years later, after deregulation, I still had my ticket on the wall at the old WJXY when it burned to the ground. Ar that point, I couldn't get a replacement license. Even though the ticket was worthless by that time, I still hated the fact I lost it forever!

I'm not aware of WJXY burning. I knew it was flooded by Floyd,

 

[BobbyV]

It was late '83 or early '84 when it burned. We were out there cleaning off what fire-damaged equipment and furniture we could with toothbrushes. They brought in an old mobile home, and made the master BR the studio. The floor by the BR door was REALLY weak, and I always thought I'd fall through!

Ahhh...good times!

 

[pellmell]

When I was 9 years old, I wanted to get my Third Class license. At the time, you had to be either 14 or 16, I don't remember which. Like a dummy, I wrote the FCC and asked them for an exemption. They granted it, and I passed. They later removed the age requirement.

 

[Powell]

The FCC came to Clemson when I was there at school, to give the test to us at WSBF. I was going along fine until I got to a question: Picture of a VU meter: Multiple choice answer : This is a VU meter, a "S" meter , a Speedometer. When I saw Speedometer I started laughing and I couldn't stop. The FCC examiner said "Lets go outside and see what's so funny". We got in the hall and I showed him. He looked at me and started laughing. We'd stop ..... look at each other and start laughing all over again. Yes, I Passed, and I got my Second and then First. They then neutered it to a "General Class"


Powell

 

[vchimpanzee]

It was late '83 or early '84 when it burned. We were out there cleaning off what fire-damaged equipment and furniture we could with toothbrushes. They brought in an old mobile home, and made the master BR the studio. The floor by the BR door was REALLY weak, and I always thought I'd fall through!

Ahhh...good times!

Oh, okay. I wasn't really following the Sun News way back then like I do now. I got started when I discovered the Winston-Salem library got it every day. That was after Hugo, when the entire front page was a giant photo of storm damage and the headline "I can't find my house."

My father visited his aunt once a month starting soon after that and I went to that library and read all the Sun News. By the time they cut back to just the Sunday paper I had discovered the web site. And it was there that I read WJXY was knocked off the air by Floyd and all the other stations moved to the company's other studios on 17 Bypass. WJXY took longer because their transmitter was lost. Before they came back, the station had gotten numerous complaints. So much for Joy 92 being an adequate substitute!

And don't look for those details on microfilm. The Sun News was careless with their TV/radio coverage.

 

[choicevoicepro.com]

Wow – haven’t thought about the old 3rd class in years. Though I still have it somewhere, I’m sure.

... and I still have nightmares about knowing Element 9!
:

In 1977 I got a job at a station in HN on the promise that I’d apply for my license… about a month after my hire I went to the state house in Boston to take the test. Result: Fail.

The second attempt was successful. And I remember the proctor’s amusement when he said “you passed” and I responded “I did?”

I only remember having to take readings for a few years – as by the time I was in Hartford in 1980 (at WTIC) they had computerized read outs . I’d only have to sign on and off the log (in military time… another thing that confounded me in the beginning)

Somewhere in the thread someone mentioned the 3rd ticket being ancient history, but I remember being asked by engineering to hang the 3rd ticket in the studio as late as 1993 when I’d arrived in DC… so when did the need for the paper disappear?

 

[Scooter Lesley]

I too have my story of when I passed that test. I truely enjoyed the stories, but what I really wanted to convey, when I started this topic, is this: We would not have to listen to some of the Awww-ful Alege-id Air Talent that is currently on the air! I'm not saying all, but some,...and you, yourself, can name them! They suck, and it is obvious that they are not serious about the business. The third class test was not hard to pass, but if we had it still today, it would be a good way to screen-out the lame, that simply want the fame! Broadcasting is a business, and due to the fact that the owners can't possibly get what they paid for it...NOW, some are starting to come around!