Re: Re: How long does it take?
By: fusion to James Goble on Fri Jan 30 2026 07:55 pm
> On 30 Jan 2026, James Goble said the following...
>
> JG> Re: Just saying Hello to the
> JG> By: Daryl Stout to phigan on Tue Jan 27 2026 10:11 pm
>
> JG> How long does it typically take to get this license? To become a ham
> JG> radio op that is.
>
> a technician's license is really easy to get .. and in fact a lot of people
> do get them (perhaps unwanted lol) because of insistance from an SO or someo
> else.
>
> there are only 35 questions.. some of the questions are *extremely* easy. an
> they're multiple choice. some of the choices are obviously wrong, leaving yo
> with something like a 50/50 shot on a lot of them.
>
> if you know the FCC is responsible for radio communications in the USA and y
> get that question, you've got one right answer..
>
> by extension, if the FCC is responsible for licensing, from whom do you thin
> you'll get an email to download your printable license from? (the FCC doesn'
> mail anything anymore.. they're cheap as heck)
>
> some of them you might not know off hand but are easy to remember.. somethin
> happened just before they sent you that email.. they put your license in the
> ULS database.. so what proves you have a license, if they don't care whether
> you have a printed license or not? when you search the ULS database and your
> license is there :)
>
> there are a lot of questions about the rules, but you'll probably be interes
> in them anyways.. like where beacons are allowed (if you can hear the beacon
> that means there's probably good radio propagation toward/from where the bea
> is, etc) or how repeater frequencies are chosen (you have things like repeat
> councils that coordinate them so they don't interfere with each other.. and
> might get to know a lot of those people or want to run a repeater yourself
> someday)
>
> anyways.. imo the time isn't very long. if you mostly retain stuff you read,
> it's not very complicated where i think you'll be studying that hard. they
> offer ham-in-a-day classes at hamfests and fully expect you to pass.
>
> you'll probably wait longer for the license to show up in the database than
> did studying..
>
> Also, try to avoid paying somebody to take the test if you can:
>
> https://larc-vec.org/home.php
>
> it really rubs me the wrong way when your first interaction with your local
> hams is handing some dude $40 for no reason
Thank you! I will do some reading and maybe try this out sometime soon.
James,
telnet://ricksbbs.synchro.net:23
http://ricksbbs.synchro.net:8080
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