The General Class is much the same material as the Technician Class, but covered in more depth. For this endeavor I picked up a used copy of ARRL’s General Class 2007-2011 for $5 off eBay. As I’ve mentioned, the VECs maintain the question pools for the exams. They refresh the pools on a rotating 4 year basis. They drop questions about out of date stuff and add questions about new stuff or things that have become more popular as well as the usual corrections, etc. This means the ARRL publishes a new edition every 4 years. Therefore, not only are these books not worth a whole lot if you pass your test (the ARRL Handbook for Radio Communications is a far better and more complete reference), there are also not worth as much if you take too long. As a result used copies are pretty cheap on eBay, yay me.
On the downside I couldn’t rely on the copy of the question pool in the back of the book and didn’t trust the references to specific question groups in the text itself, but that seemed no big deal for saving $30. I went to the ARRL website and downloaded a copy of the General Class question pool. Then I neatly formatted and highlighted the document and printed it out (nice to have a duplex color laser printer at home). So I would go through the manual for a section and then study the questions in my exam booklet. That worked great. By the time I made it through the manual, I had actually gone through the exam questions 3-4 times. Then I went back to eHam and started working on practice tests. Anytime I missed something, I looked it up and figured out the correct answer.
Using this method I was ready for my upgrade exam in 2 weeks. I should note that this segment of time also corresponds to the point where I was employed as a developer, but my PC had not been delivered and my permissions not yet granted. So, basically, I spent 2 weeks sitting in a cube, 8 hours a day, with no PC, no outside equipment allowed either. So I studied the material they gave me and then I studied for the exam. It would probably have taken 4 weeks to prepare if that hadn’t worked out like that.
In any case, fortified with an understanding of what to expect at the exam, I went to the Maryland Mobileers exam session at the previous unknown (to me) National Electronics Museum near BWI. As an aside, if you get a chance, check it out, it’s a lot better than you might expect. Their hours are quite limited, but it’s worth the $5 or whatever they charge.Â
The Maryland Mobileers (seriously, who came up with that catchy title?) hold their exams on the last Tuesday of the month so I went after work. A rainy and very windy night. In one of the meeting rooms at the museum, they hold classes and on the other side of the building they hold exams in the library. A small but quite interesting library focused heavily, as you might imagine, on electronics and the associated sciences.
It reminded me of many many hours of my youth spent in libraries and therefore a pleasant and relaxing environment for the test. The VE team from the Maryland Mobileers is a bit more laid back than the AARC team, but it’s still well within the realm of appropriately proctored.Â
Again, I was the first person done and had the review my work for a while to not be “that guy”. So I turned in after maybe 15 minutes and was told to wander the museum while it gets graded. The grading process is fairly involved so it takes time. Therefore it was at least 20 minutes before someone came to find me.
Long story short, the examiner told me I had scored very well indeed and did I want to take the Extra exam while I was there… I knew they wouldn’t show me the exam results, so I asked him how well do I do and he said I had missed one. Apparently, from the way he was acting, that didn’t happen too often. Of course while he was thinking it was rare indeed, I was wracking my brain to figure out which one it might have been. It’s not some kind of intellectual conceit, it’s become a game and as an old min-maxer, I had to max it.
In any case, that wasn’t answerable, they only grade an answer sheet and while I could dig backwards, it wasn’t going to be allowed even if I were inclined. I declined the Extra test attempt. I hadn’t even cracked that book, though I had formatted up the question pool in preparation to study. But, as I mentioned, grading is pretty labor intensive, the same amount pass or fail. So I didn’t want to burden them with a shot in the dark.
In fact, at least 2 people failed their tests that night. Hard to imagine. If this is something you want to do, and the material is available online for free, why can’t you at least pass?