How to Obtain a Ham Radio License

Video Transcript

"For Expert Village, I'm Kurt Glaser, N7QJM. Welcome to the third section of this part on ham or amateur radio. This segment is going to be dealing with: How do you actually become a ham radio operator? Well, here we are in the shack of N7QJM. You have to be licensed, first of all, in order for you to operate a rig, such as this here. In order to do so, you can use one of three methods to become an amateur radio operator, or a ham. There are three basic licenses that one can get within the amateur radio community, and they are the Novice Tech, which is kind of combined now (there used to be five licensed classes but now there are just three), Novice Tech, then the General Class, which is what I am here, and then the third is the Extra Class licensee and that particular individual has pretty much carte blanche or complete services. For each one of the classifications or license grades, you have to prove your skill level, your knowledge of amateur radio, the frequencies and a couple of other things that are requirements for you to pass the test. It used to be that you would have to have the Morse Code thing and you would be sending Morse Code--the "dahs" and the "dits"--and you would have to understand that at particular words per minute, which with the old guard like myself, I like that, but they have done away with it now a few years ago. The governing body of the amateur radio community is called the ARRL, the Amateur Radio Relay League and they have decided that it would be better not to have that in the area of amateur radio anymore. So, going to the three classes again, what we'll do is we'll give you the first of the three ways to actually become a ham radio operator. The first and foremost is what I used back when I became an amateur. I went to the Radio Shack and I bought myself a book and it had a code test which had the Morse code because I had to have the Morse code testing in it. There was a book and this had a number of questions on operation frequencies, band allocations, and regulations governing operation. You have to take a test, and that's self-study. The other way, you can go to look it up on the Google website and look for exams. There are volunteer examiners throughout the United States and around the world these days, which is the second way. The third way, of course, would be to just self-study, go in and take the test and see if you can pass it without any study at all. I do know some people who are electronically gifted and they actually went in and took the test and passed it in flying colors, so it worked out really well for them. So, those are the three methods. Join us again in the fourth segment to hear what we talk about operating an amateur radio rig. 'Till then."