Obtaining an Amateur Radio License
There are three levels of Amateur Radio licenses in the United States:
- Technician
- General
- Extra
The Amateur Radio community and the FCC cooperate to develop large pools of questions for each of the license exams. A particular exam will have a random selection of questions from the corresponding pool. These question pools are updated every few years and the exams therefore change, making exam manuals and online courses somewhat outdated until they are updated to match the new question pool.
There are a variety of resources available that will help you obtain an FCC Amateur Radio License.
Books
Note: The Technician License exam question pool changed on July 1, 2022 with about 25% new or revised questions. If you have a Technician license exam book that was published before the question pool changed, you want to buy or borrow a newer edition.
Classes
- Portland NET Technician “exam cram” held in the fall and spring
- Oregon Tualatin Valley Amateur Radio Club
- Recordings and slides from Technician Amateur Radio online license classes previously offered by Portland NET AROs.
- Amateur Radio license classes by Dave Casler, KE0OG
Note: These online courses require that you be a member of ARRL and sign in.
- Amateur Radio license classes by Gary, W4EEY
Amateur Radio License Practice Exams
- You may find it helpful to take some practice exams in advance of taking an actual exam. These are available free from HamStudy.org. You will find the information at hamstudy.org/tech2022
- There are two types of practicing:
- Study mode: You are given a sequence of questions from the pool of questions. When you answer a question incorrectly you will see the same question again later.
- Practice exams: You are given 35 questions that are randomly selected from the question pool just like an actual exam. After you complete the 35 questions you are given your score. You can then take a different exam made up of a different random selection of questions and continue that process until you're confident you're ready to take an actual exam.
- For a more complete and accurate explanation see blog.hamstudy.org/faq
- QRZ.com has study material and online flashcards
- FCC license exams (Technician, General and Amateur Extra)
- Online exams given by Oregon volunteers. See aa7hw.org
- Portland NET. See tinyurl.comPNET-Ham-Exam
- Online exams given by groups around the country. See hamstudy.org/sessions/remote
- Oregon Tualatin Valley Amateur Radio Club first Saturday of each month except in June when it’s at SEA-PAC in Seaside