Upgrading to General Class

I've had my ham license since I was sixteen. I'm forty-three now. My callsign is N4JCJ.

For most of that time I've held a Technician license. That covers VHF and UHF: local repeaters and line-of-sight contacts. I didn't do much with it. The part of the hobby I was actually interested in, talking to people a long way off on HF, mostly needs a General license. So I finally upgraded.

The exam

The General exam is 35 multiple-choice questions, and you need 26 right to pass. The FCC publishes the whole question pool ahead of time, answers included, so in theory you could just read it. In practice it's a long, dry document, and I didn't get far that way.

How I studied

I used HamStudy.org. A few things made it work for me:

• Each question has a short explanation, so I learned why an answer was right instead of memorizing a letter.
• It tracks the questions you miss and keeps bringing them back until you stop missing them.
• The practice exams are scored like the real one, so it's easy to tell when you're ready.
• It lists upcoming exam sessions, including remote ones.

The website is free, and you don't need an account to use it.

Most of my studying happened on the couch after the kids were in bed, on my phone, a few nights a week. Amanda also helped by keeping the kids entertained to give me more study time in the days leading up to the exam. After a couple of weeks I was passing the practice exams comfortably, and the real exam went the same way.

What General opens up

Most of the HF bands: voice, digital modes, and CW, from 10 meters down to 160. How far you can reach depends a lot on propagation, more than on equipment.

If you're thinking about it

Start with the Technician exam. It isn't hard, and the same way of studying works for it. Then move up to General when you want to get on HF.

If you hear N4JCJ on the air, say hi.