[Today: 4 miles]
After my run this morning I went to the ham radio club building to help with a testing session. I had not done that in quite a while.
They ended up having twice as many test helpers as they needed, but everybody got to participate and it all was good.
There were 6 people being tested and 5 of them had at least some success. I don’t know why #6 didn’t do so well, but his answer sheet was way off from our answer key template thing. I guess he will have to try again.
The testing costs a little bit of money. I think right now it is $15. There are three test levels. You can start from zero, pay the money and keep going up as long as you pass. So you could potentially get it all done in one go for one money. Another thing you can do: if you fail you can sometimes pay the $15 again and try again. You can keep doing that until the testers say, “go home.” I don’t remember anyone ever doing the 2nd try thing but we had two people today pass at one level and make a stab at the next level. Neither passed it. But it is free so why not?
We have a guy in the club who runs the testing sessions and keeps the test materials all nicely filed and up to date. He runs the test session. The rest of us do a bit of preparation work, checking people’s ID cards, etc. , but mostly we do the scoring and fill out paperwork. You have to have three testers sign the documentation when someone passes. So the smallest test crew you can have is three.
We like to see people pass. But we don’t bend the rules or accept any funny business. On the other hand, we wouldn’t know if someone had a hidden cheat sheet or whatnot… as long as they could manage it while three guys are sitting there staring at them. I would be surprised if anyone takes it that far. The material isn’t that hard, honestly. And the questions are all available on the internet as are sample tests. There is a “question pool” that is published. Each testee gets assigned a semi-unique testing book, so you can’t copy off of another person. But if you can memorize facts you could pass.
Like I said, we like to see people pass. We have no control over what questions are in which testing book or what the “right” answers are. That is all built into the question pool system. There is no time limit and we try to be quiet and let the people do the best they can.
2 replies on “Ham Radio Testing”
Are the people testing all hobbyists or do some of them take it for resume enhancement?
I think there are various motivations.
Some come at it from the emergency services side, we’ve had EMTs and firemen and those type of folks. A ham license will give them expanded communications abilities. Some similarly come to it from a non-professional emergency communications angle, for general preparedness or the zombie apocalypse or whatever.
Some come in from citizens band radio, they like the hobby part of communications, talking to people far away with equipment they are more able to understand than a cell phone. They may or may not want to get into building their own equipment.
Some come from radio-control, the “maker movement” and other electronics related hobbies. A ham license will give them an expanded ability to build radios and more frequency spectrum available. (The average robotics builder is pretty limited in the frequencies and amount of power they can use and stay legal under the FCC.)
There is/was a class at the community college where it was actually a for-credit exercise to get the introductory ham license, so we had some coming in from that angle too.
And ships at sea, people who live on board their sailboats or whatnot, they can use a ham-based system for email. So there are people who get their ham license just to do that, and things like that.
Hams can build their own equipment (other people have to use manufactured equipment that has been approved by the FCC)
Hams have chunks of radio spectrum from just above the AM band way up into the cell/satellite frequencies. Everyone else has to buy access in one form or another.
Hams can can run more power. People limited to off-the-shelf radio systems have much lower limitations or hit licensing expenses.
Hams can do experimental stuff (within boundaries)