On 02-Oct-2021 I sat for the Amateur Extra exam. I passed! 49\/50 for those keeping score (I was). I’m not sure why I waited this long (aside from managing life and work through a pandemic that has touched ever facet of life) but once I started studying, it really only took about 2 or 3 weeks until I was doing well enough to pass with 80%+ on practice tests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the downsides of licensing in the U.S. is that so much of it is trivia. At this point in my life, I don’t memorize formulas because in 2021 I can ask the robot in my pocket to do all of those calculations for me in plain English rather than scribbling notes on paper. I also don’t really know that knowing how many lines are in a frame of SSTV is relevant outside of implementing software to decode those signals which few operators will use. What would be much better, in my opinion, is a focus on advanced operations. Something beyond calculating the impedance of a feedline, maybe?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In any case, I did win Trivial Pursuit: Ham Radio Edition and am upgraded to Amateur Extra. I also checked the box to get a 2×2. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to apply for a vanity call to be disclosed later, but for now, I’m waiting for the FCC to do its thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I should also note that I used https:\/\/www.hamradiolicenseexam.com\/<\/a> to do my study prep. I’ve used it for all three licenses because the way it presents information and the way it tracks what a user seems to know vs. where that user is struggling to recall answers was effective for me. I recommend it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On 02-Oct-2021 I sat for the Amateur Extra exam. I passed! 49\/50 for those keeping score (I was). I’m not sure why I waited this long (aside from managing life and work through a pandemic that has touched ever facet of life) but once I started studying, it really only took about 2 or 3 … Continue reading More Privileges<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kc3jxq.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kc3jxq.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kc3jxq.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kc3jxq.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kc3jxq.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.kc3jxq.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":174,"href":"https:\/\/www.kc3jxq.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions\/174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kc3jxq.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kc3jxq.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kc3jxq.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}