FROM TECHNICIAN TO EXTRA IN 2 MONTHS!

Hello fellow amateurs and amateurs to be! I'm posting this to encourage those of you who are upgrading or looking forward to getting an amateur license. On June 13th, I passed the Technician exam. After passing the Technician exam, I decided that I wanted to go all the way so that I could have all of the privileges of the license. On July 11th, I passed the General license. I then started to study for the Extra license. It was a lot harder, so for the last two weeks before taking the exam, I turned the TV off and bucked down. First I studied each section, 1 thru 10 with a $4 app that not only had the questions and answers, but an explanation of the answers. Then I took the sections exams on QRZ.COM. IT'S FREE! Once I was consistently getting 80 and above on the section exams, I started taking the practice exams...the 50 question exams. When I was getting in the high 80's and above consistently, I knew that I was ready to take the Extra exam. I took the Extra exam on August 15th and passed with a 92.
I learned in the Marines, and in college afterwards, that you don't try to learn everything before taking the exams. If you try to do that, you will never pass the exam. Most of it is like, "ON THE JOB TRAINING". In other words, you'll learn what it means after you pass the exam.
One guy asked me, "Yea, but do you know your stuff?" I politely let him know that...you won't know most of it until you start doing it. I also told him that he should congratulate the person and not criticize.
Everyone will have their own method of studying for the exam/exams, but this is what worked for me.
Stay safe everyone!

 

Welcome aboard and Congratulations!

As they say, a ticket is a "License to learn!". I hope you have many enjoyable years of radio. It is a lifelong hobby.

73, Bill.

 

Congratulations!

Got tired of rowing the boat and stocking the beer fridge?

 

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Excellent! Congratulations, and welcome to the upper decks!

 

Congrats!

Dave
W7UUU

 

yeah,great !!.
at a hamfest i told my non ham wife she could take the novice test free and :learn" what she didnt know. she handed me a handful of "her stuff" and went.
didnt pass but learned and raised her interest. next time she made tech and was a very active member of the club.
a school teacher who knew NOTHING about radio...!!

 

What you stated in your post is why memorizing the answers to the test is a very bad idea. It accurately referred to as dumbed-down ham radio; just another Extra class ham who knows nothing about ham radio and won't be able to pass the test again in a month.

It is like getting a driver's license when you have never had drivers education or a learner's permit. In other words, a wreck going seventy MPH on four wheels.

Ham radio is about knowledge and a Technician license is about gaining experience before you upgrade. Ham radio is not about memorizing the answers to the questions. All that does is teach you nothing.

What you are saying, in a nutshell, is I'll let other hams teach me about ham radio after I get on the air.

Next time you get sick, try going to a doctor who is going to start a medical practicing medicine and then let his patients teach him to be a doctor.

It's just not smart to brag about knowing nothing and then posting "that's what works for me."

 

Wow! Ham radio being compared to a driver's license and a medical license. All that was left out was the pilot's license and the PHD.

 

Congrats,
Welcome to The Hobby
73,
Ric