Transmission1

This licensing section hasn't had much action lately.
Is anyone currently doing any amateur radio courses? Working towards a new license etc?
Let us know!!

I'm doing my Foundation licence at the moment - Wednesday nights for 2-2.5hrs over 7 weeks (including practical tests and exams) - just completed week 2.

Cost is £27.50 for the exam and I paid £25.00 for the course which includes notes each week. Plus there are about half a dozen club members at the venue to help and as a few specialise in various subjects.

CDAW wrote:I'm doing my Foundation licence at the moment - Wednesday nights for 2-2.5hrs over 7 weeks (including practical tests and exams) - just completed week 2.

Cost is £27.50 for the exam and I paid £25.00 for the course which includes notes each week. Plus there are about half a dozen club members at the venue to help and as a few specialise in various subjects.

Sounds good mate. Reasonably priced too!!
Sounds like your course is well structured and planned out. My foundation course on the other hand was so disorganised, i was frustrated to hell. Ended up doing the practical tests rushed in one evening and went home and read the book cover to cover and studied by myself.
Then i passed the test 24/26 questions so wasn't that hard at all.

Listen to what the experienced guys tell you on your course..
Read the foundation book over and over..
And perhaps try some mock tests on hamtest website, just to get the feel of it..


Good luck.

Studying for my intermediate now. Done 9 of the 10 practical assessments at my club so looking to do the exam in the summer some time and hoping one or two of the other M6's there catch up and want to do theirs then also. The more that do it the cheaper the room is to hire to take the exam in.

RedDragon wrote:

CDAW wrote:I'm doing my Foundation licence at the moment - Wednesday nights for 2-2.5hrs over 7 weeks (including practical tests and exams) - just completed week 2.

Cost is £27.50 for the exam and I paid £25.00 for the course which includes notes each week. Plus there are about half a dozen club members at the venue to help and as a few specialise in various subjects.

Sounds good mate. Reasonably priced too!!
Sounds like your course is well structured and planned out. My foundation course on the other hand was so disorganised, i was frustrated to hell. Ended up doing the practical tests rushed in one evening and went home and read the book cover to cover and studied by myself.
Then i passed the test 24/26 questions so wasn't that hard at all.

Listen to what the experienced guys tell you on your course..
Read the foundation book over and over..
And perhaps try some mock tests on hamtest website, just to get the feel of it..


Good luck.

I've got my first practical on 14th May then the next on 21st May and mock exam on 4th June to prepare for our main exam on 11th June. Then I'm out the country for 2 weeks from the end of June so wont have much time to get n the air before I'm on holiday but busy getting some kit setup.

The guys at the course are good and each gives any input they might have from additional info to tips for the exam. We also get homework tests on the subjects covered each week so we get to feedback on our downfalls each week. I've now just got to find time to keep reading the book - I've been through it a few times prior to the course but the last few weeks/weekends have been rather busy with work and personal issues but it should quieten down now plus there's a long weekend coming up which I can use. I'm not a technical person so the technical sections are more baffling than the rest.

I've been listening on the repeaters each day and I see it's like driving a car - learn what you have to in order to get a licence then forget to use most of it. However it does help in some ways to the way people use the frequencies (especially simplex) and also being able to pinpoint their mistakes (or what they forget to do).

Well good luck to you both.
Like i mentioned earlier my foundation course was virtually non existent. After completing the practicals it was just a case of going home and reading the book on my own. I was certain i was going to fail but flew through it in the end.
For my intermediate i attended two different clubs and neither of them were running courses. I nearly gave up until i seen a article in radcom magazine. It stated there was a chance to sit any of the three license exams at the annual RSBG convention. And so i got in touch with Steve Hartley who wrote the article, and he's also author of the intermediate license study book. And after he emailed me back we both decided the best route was not to turn up at the convention unprepared, but rather i get myself enrolled on one of Steve's home distant learning courses run by their club in Bath. Enrolled i did and soon i was set up and ready to go studying via their online tutorials. They set weekly worksheets for the 12 or so of us students. Which told us what pages to study in the intermediate book and what practical tests we were able to do at home. After two months we pretty much covered all the study material from the book and all had to meet at the clubs HQ in Bath to get our practical assesments signed off. Most of us had done most of the assesments by ourselves over the previous weeks.
Then two weeks later it was back to Bath HQ to sit the exam. I must have read the book 5 times over.
Every single one of us passed. I scored 39/45.

I am now awaiting for the Bath advanced home study distant course which will start end of june i think.
I best get reading that advanced book asap!!
Good luck to you both and do keep us updated how you got on.

Yup am on with yet another POVA course that it is totally worthless!

I'm part way through my Intermediate. Most of the practicals are done, I just have to get my head the the book.

Passed my intermediate last Tues still waiting for my validation. dam you Ofcom .... hurry up

M6OOC soon to be something else....

hi CDAW

which club are you training with ?

7 weeks to teach the foundation license... wow!

vx900 wrote:hi CDAW

which club are you training with ?

Radio Society of Harrow - http://www.g3efx.org.uk/

Courses are held at the scout hall located at Harrow on the Hill.

I thought it was, I am a member and sometimes help brian out with the on air part of the practicals
with the foundation students

LeakyFeeder wrote:Yup am on with yet another POVA course that it is totally worthless!

Whats a POVA course then?

am currently doing my foundation course at my local club am a complete newbie to ham radio but have done cb radio for a while will be nice to have the extra bands though