Copy of Extra welcome

Members Home

Home
Up

Handiham Home Page

Welcome to the Courage Handiham University Extra Class lecture series.  Your moderator will be me, Patrick Tice, WA0TDA, Handiham manager.  Our lecturer will be Gary Gordon, K6KV, and , of course, me. Our lectures will be in audio format.  Each lecture will be presented in streaming audio with an option to download each MP3 file if streaming audio does not work for you. Please read this entire page before continuing.

You may listen to this welcome lecture in streaming audio by using this link.

If you have not already e-mailed me, please do so immediately and the let me know that you want to register for this course.  You may e-mail me at wa0tda@handiham.org. We will not log any course credit unless you are registered, nor will you receive any course e-mail. 

You may proceed through the course at your own pace, taking charge of your own learning plan.  This gives you the power to study what you want when you want to.  Be sure to listen several times to a particular lecture if you find the material difficult.  You may also send us e-mail if you have a question or cannot understand a concept.

Here are some things to think about as you begin your Extra Class studies.

1. The Extra Class license is the highest class of license, and we feel that the Handiham members who aspire to it should truly be the very best amateur radio operators.   
2. Handiham members who are the very best and thus qualify to study for Extra Class should be able to take charge and set goals for themselves, planning out their course of study and then following through with it.  In other words, we expect you to schedule most of your studying on your own and be responsible for your own learning.
3. We want to discourage memorization of questions and answers.  We want you to learn concepts instead, so that you will really understand the process behind your radio's front panel.  Of course you do not need to be an electrical engineer, but a good working knowledge of the mathematics related to radio as well as electronic theory will help you enjoy amateur radio as an Extra Class operator.  Needless to say, this level of understanding could not be taught in a week at a Radio Camp session or a couple of weeks of memorizing questions and answers at home.
4. The question pools for every level of amateur radio license are getting larger, with many more questions.  This is being done on purpose to discourage memorization of the questions and answers.  The question pool for Extra Class now exceeds 800.  Needless to say, it is impossible to go over all of these questions and answers thoroughly in only a week at Radio Camp.  

Planning your study:

The Extra Class exam is a 50-question multiple choice test.  It is only available to holders of General or Advanced licenses here in the United States.  While 50 questions may not seem like a lot, remember that they are drawn from a pool of over 800 questions and answers, many of which contain lengthy, complicated text and/or mathematics.  If you are blind, you should know that some of the questions refer to "figures".  You can request that the VE team provide a test for you that contains no figures.  That means that when you plan your studies, you can skip the questions that refer to figures.  However, there will be other questions related to the same topics that do not refer to figures and you will be asked some of those instead, so you will still get the full exam.  One question I often hear is whether or not a blind person is responsible for questions that refer to mathematical formulas. The answer is, in a word, yes!  As you go through your studies, you will need a calculator.  If you are blind, you should go shopping for a talking calculator.  Please learn how to use it before you go in to the VE session!  In fact, as you study, try to use your calculator on a regular basis so that you are very familiar with its functions and will not have to worry about how to use it at the time of the examination.

Here is another thing to think about: The Extra Class requirements will be changing in coming years.  Exactly how they will be changing we cannot yet say, but it is possible that there will be a second restructuring of the amateur radio license classes within the next year or two.  This follows on the heels of WRC-03, the world radio conference at which the Morse code requirement was dropped as an international mandate and left to the discretion of individual member nations.  In the United States, the FCC is the governing body for radio regulation, but it has not yet acted as of this writing.  Many other member nations around the world have already dropped the Morse code requirement.  At the present time, our best guess is that if there is a Morse code requirement in the United States, it will only be for the Extra Class.  Even then, it is likely to be only a slow-code requirement.  There is also a possibility that no code at all will be required.  Many amateur radio operators currently holding Extra are of the opinion that dropping the code requirement will make the Extra "too easy", and they feel that there should be a corresponding increase in the difficulty of the written exam to make up for the loss of Morse code.  Our recommendation is for you to take your exam for Extra Class under the current question pool rather than waiting for the more difficult one.  This is a no-brainer!

Find a nice, quiet place to study.  Study every day.  Rather than immediately firing off a question when you don't understand something, instead try to go over the material again to see if to see if there is something you missed that will help you understand.  Although Handiham staff will be as helpful as they can during this study process, our time is limited and I will tell you right up front that we expect our "top hams" who are studying for Extra, should be capable of going through this material without asking hundreds of questions simply to avoid looking up the answers on their own.

Don't push yourself beyond your capabilities when you are tired.  Too much study can be worse than not enough.  If you try to study too much material in too short a time your memory retention rate will go down, and you will have to repeat your studies of that material more often.  Instead, it is better to plan your study for a given time each day when possible, then sticking to the time you have allotted yourself.  When study time is over, go do something else until it is time to study again.  That way you will not become discouraged and studying for the exam will be more effective.  If you have to travel or if you commute to work on a bus or train, you may want to consider studying via audio cassettes or MP3 player so you can make use of what would otherwise be wasted time.

There is no radio club that we know of that offers Extra Class licensing courses, since most amateurs capable of Extra Class are expected to study on their own anyway.  However, there may be someone in your local radio club who will want to give you a helping hand by answering some of your questions in more detail, helping you learn how to work your calculator, or giving you a hands-on experience with antennas or radio/test equipment that you cannot get by taking this online course.  Remember, part of earning the highest class of amateur radio license is experience.  That means experience on the air, solving problems for yourself, perhaps making your own antennas and some of your own equipment, being able to troubleshoot, and taking leadership roles in your radio club.  While you are studying, you should also be participating on the air and at your local radio club.

Practice exams are available online, and we encourage you to use them after you have already done considerable study toward your goal of the Extra Class.  We will provide links later on in the course.  Now is the time to study, not to take practice exams unless you have been studying already for quite some time.

System requirements:

To take this online course, you will need a Windows computer that is capable of running multimedia applications, an Internet connection, Windows Media Player, and an e-mail address.  If you are using some other kind of computer, such as a Mac, you can still take the course but you will have to download the MP3 files as streaming will not function.

Technical support:

Please do not hesitate to let me know if something does not work for you.  I will do my best to figure it out and e-mail you the answer.  Did you notice that I said e-mail and not telephone?  Good!  Again, my e-mail address is: wa0tda@handiham.org.  By the time you are studying for the top license, we really expect that you will know how to operate your own computer and how to use your screenreading software if you are blind.  I will not have the resources to teach you basic computing skills or how to use your screenreading software.  But I can answer questions related to the functioning of the CHU web site.  

I do want to emphasize that we do not expect to answer questions by telephone unless absolutely, positively necessary.  Sometimes it is very busy at HANDIHAM headquarters and more telephone calls simply add to the difficulty of serving many members with a limited staff.  Besides, using e-mail will allow a staff member to prepare a thoughtful answer to your question rather than being put on the spot by a telephone call.  In almost every case, a question related to an online course will be answered by e-mail rather than telephone.

Well, those are the rules and regulations for getting started with your Extra Class. I want to wish you the best of luck with your studies and we hope to hear you on the air soon. It is a lot of work, but you will find it well worth the effort!

Best 73,

Patrick Tice, WA0TDA

Handiham Manager