Comment by godelski
8 years ago
I just want to remind everyone that it only costs $10-$15 to get a license. You can generally take multiple tests in one day, so you could get a technician's and general in one day. Not too much use to get an extra.
The tests are pretty easy and I'd expect most people on this site can get the technician without studying. Test questions are from a pool and you can do practice tests here[1]
And you only have to do those tests once. You can renew every 10 years in perpetuity.
I got mine at a HAM fest I went to with my dad 12 years ago. I hadn't studied. It's fairly basic things about radio and legal things like 'can you use amateur radio for business?' (no).
- KD8ECA :)
Seriously? On my technician practice exams, I aced the physics stuff ("What's the wavelength of a 7.255MHz signal?" "Let's see, the speed of light divided by 7,255,000 is...") but the FCC regs part was an utter black box. "What's the maximum permitted power on a 20m frequency?" A lot of that was sheer memorization.
- KM6OCD
The technician part I was really mostly physics, so it was trivial. I see that on most practice exams (you do need to memorize some of the FCC stuff). When you go for general, that's where I felt that you needed more the memorization. (I tried to do a tech and general test in a single sitting. Missed the general by a point and never bothered going back for it)
- KK6AWC