Posted: 11/22/2015 7:41:05 PM EDT
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I have had a tech. class licence for many years. I think its time to go for the general class. Is the AARL study guide still the gold standard? Or are there better offerings out there now? |
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Not sure about the General test, but I just passed my Extra yesterday.
I bought both the ARRL manual and the Gordon West book, along with reviewing the question pool downloaded from the ARRL site. In my opinion, the Gordon West book helped me the most. It had simple, short explanations for each question. The ARRL manual goes into so much depth the actual answers get lost in lengthy text. There are several sources of practice exams online. I took the practice tests on QRZ and EHam until I was scoring in the mid 90% range. It really doesn't take that much studying as you start to immediately identify the correct answer from repeating the tests. Good luck on your upgrade, and don't stop there. Extra class isn't out of reach. |
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I just got mine and I used the ARRL book and Ham Test Prep app on my phone. I then used aa9pw's site to take practice tests. I think I missed four on the test.... I will admit I had lots of time during the bean harvest to study... I took both Tech and General at the same time.. WP |
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Technician here also studying for my General ticket. Was studying the Gordon book but as others have posted, you are doing yourself a disservice by not fully understanding the material and just memorizing answers. I finally put down Gordons book and ordered the ARRL General Class License Manual from DX Engineering along with some other study material. Spring a couple extra bucks for the spiral bound version, you'll thank me later....
73! |
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Quoted:
Advice from an old ham, which many will scoff at. (licensed in 1960) Forget the damned question pool ............ learn the material. I just upgraded to AE by doing it the Arfcom way and getting both. I had Advanced and Extra ARRL manuals from the 1990's and an ARRL Handbookj from the 1980's sitting around. I figured that maybe the FCC rules and the Current New Data Mode Hotness(tm) had changed, but that current still led voltage through capacitors, that sharp nulls made for better RDF antennas, and that satellite ascending passes were south-to-north and you needed the Keplerian elements to find a satellite and point an antenna at it. So I studied the 1990's material, but downloaded the (current) ham radio exam prep app to my phone, studied against the current tests, and googled anything that didn't make sense. It must have worked. I just went from KB9-something-something-something to AD0-pending-pending last week. The punchline: learning the material is always better IMHO than just learning the test, but if we define "the material" as "that which the FCC/ARRL/W5YI say is to be learned," then the study guides offer the advantage of not forcing you to learn everything there is to know about electronics rather than just what's actually immediately relevant. Now, if we were to define "the material" some other way, that would be a long, long thread. Might be fun but I'm not going to hijack this thread to do it. |
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I used the Gordon West book in combination with HamStudy.
The book has many good explanations, and the HamStudy site has flash cards with the questions. If you don't know, you can "flip" it over for what is usually a good explanation. I then took multiple practice tests on: http://aa9pw.com/ EHAM QRZ I wanted to do more then memorize answers, and so when I didn't understand a question or answer a quick google search usually led to an explanation. Good luck, I was able to pass after only a couple weeks of effort and I don't have any background in this stuff at all. Now if only the FCC sorts out whatever hairball is holding up new licences, maybe I can actually use it. |
| I'm a big fan of HamTestOnline. I just used it this year to upgrade to Extra (from General) and couldn't be more pleased with how it teaches. Basically it learns your strengths and weaknesses in the material and teaches you what you're deficient in and reinforces what you've got down. Money well spent. I think it's $30 for General, but don't let that turn you away. It's well worth the price and you don't need to buy a book if you go with them. |
