Last Thursday, I became interested in radios. I found out you need to take a test to get licensed, get a call sign, etc.
On Friday, I found out you can study the question pools online and there was an exam session about an hour away from me on Saturday. I stayed up late studying the questions and felt extremely confident with the material for the Tech exam. I decided to start studying the General questions. I got through about 30% of the total question pool before I could tell I was keeping my partner awake and she would rather I was sleeping with her instead of studying.
On Saturday, I drove out to take the test. There were about nine people taking the test, all Tech, except one guy who was Advanced taking his Extra. They were all very friendly and encouraging. One of the VEs was 30 minutes late. So we started a little later than expected and some of the test takers were getting a little impatient. Friendly banter continued throughout the test taking.
The guy next to me asked what his score was, and they told him he got 30 out of 35 correct, but that the guy next to him (meaning me) got every single question correct. They asked if I wanted to take the General exam. I thought why not?
I took the General exam, but only scored about 55% correct. I realized I did better than I thought I would considering I had spent only about an hour studying for the General and maybe I had been a bit impatient about getting licensed. I was figuring I would have to take the exam at least twice to get the Extra license, so I wouldn't save any money whether I got General on the first attempt or not.
The guy going for Extra passed his test and gave me the thumbs up before he left. I received my CSCE for Technician license on 03/07/2015.
On Sunday, I started studying the General questions fully. I looked at the next time there would be an exam anywhere near me and found one for Wednesday about an hour away.
On Monday, confident with the General question pool, I began studying the Extra question pool. I realized that the Extra exam has significantly larger question pool and a higher level of technical difficulty in the question content, as well as more questions on the actual test. I realized I probably should have tried to get the General license on my first test, to narrow the question pool I'd need to be prepared for on the Extra exam, rather than trying to do so much at once.
I studied all of the questions for both General and Extra on Monday and Tuesday.
On Wednesday, yesterday, I drove out to take the exam. I arrived about 15 minutes late because the time on the ARRL website was incorrect and the exam actually started 30 minutes earlier than I expected. They were very accommodating of my mistake and took me in another room to register me, so as not to disturb the other test takers.
There were about five other people taking the test this time. I think some were doing Tech and maybe some were doing General. The VE team was much more organized this time. They all had matching shirts with their first name and call sign embroidered on the right breast. They were all very friendly and encouraging. A very similar atmosphere to the first exam session I attended, but this time it felt a little more formal than the first time.
I turned in my General test and they came back with a CSCE for me. I asked if I could take the Extra test. They didn't realize I wanted to do that and I thought they would ask, so I didn't mention it ahead of time.
There was a young kid, maybe like 12-years-old, who passed his Technician exam and got a Baofeng radio as a gift, I think from his dad who might have been one of the VEs or part of their club. I thought that was pretty cool.
I took the Extra test. It felt pretty good, but I knew I probably got a few wrong and I just skipped over questions I was really unsure about. When I got to the end I went back and found that I had skipped 10 questions. I went back through them and came up with my best answers. The VE who took my test looked at the answer key briefly and gave me a thumbs up.
I passed the test. He said it looked like I only got about eight or nine wrong. I asked if he could tell me what I scored on the General test. He went over to the table, but then they said they couldn't tell me what my score was for some reason. But he told me, "Let's just say you did very, very well." and smiled.
I received my CSCE for Amateur Extra on 03/11/2015.
However, I still have not shown up on USL for either the Tech or Extra license. So I don't have a call sign yet. I registered for a FRN prior to taking any exams and used that on my applications, rather than a SSN. I'll keep checking. Hopefully the fact that I have two applications for exam credit coming in simultaneously won't mess anything up.
I realize that I could have saved 15 bucks if I just took the time to study all three tests and go for the whole thing at once. I just didn't realize I would be able to absorb that much information in such a short period of time and sort of expected the Extra exam to be a longer term goal. I'm also pretty impatient with these kind of things. I tend to get into things extremely quickly and get a little obsessive about it.
But now that the pressure of exams and licensing, etc. is out of the way, I can actually figure out all the cool things I can do with my new privileges. I should probably get a radio...