Some Thoughts on Studying for the Ham Extra Class

In an earlier post I noted that have renewed my interest in amateur radio. Several years back I had given great thought to pursuing my Extra Class certificate. If you’re not familiar with amateur radio, Extra Class is the highest level of certification in amateur radio. This give you the greatest privileges and signifies, sort of, that you have a fairly decent understanding of radio theory, electronics, and so on. It doesn’t mean that you know everything there is to know or that you’re and “expert”. But it does mean that you’ve dug a little deeper, learned a little more, and that you’re likely to keep on learning.

As is often the case, though, other priorities pushed that study to a back burner and I did not continue that pursuit. Moreover, as I think I mentioned before, after moving I didn’t set up my radio systems and so had no reason to continue my studies. Another reason I didn’t persist is that I really didn’t see much benefit to the Extra Class cert. After all, the primary benefit is access to additional frequencies that are not available to the other classes. But I wasn’t likely to take advantage of those as they required more gear, antennas, etc than I had or that I wanted to invest in. Or in the case of antennas, had the space for.

With my renewed interest, though, I have set out again to pursue the Extra Class. Why? Well, primarily to prove to myself that I can. I still won’t likely take advantage of the additional frequencies. But I want to understand radios better. I want a deeper knowledge of electronics, radio theory, and all the rest. My curiosity has been reawakened and I want to explore some of the many ways in which radio can be used.

But couldn’t I do that with study alone? Is the certification really needed? Yes, I could but one of the things I know about myself is that I work best when I have to meet an external standard. I like knowing that I’ve obtained the knowledge necessary to pass a test. That proves to me that I actually have learned something that others believe to be important.

So, I have purchased the official study guide and am going through that. I’m also working through a series of YouTube videos that comprise a class on the content (and which is paced to the textbook). It is not easy and I didn’t expect it to be. But it is interesting and I am slowly – very slowly – beginning to make sense of some of it.

But I have one nit-pick with the book. At the beginning of each section it gives the questions from the question bank that are relevant to that section, along with the correct answer. Sometimes that answer is simply “D” or “A”, denoting the letter associated with the correct answer, but doesn’t give the actual answer. This leads me to wonder whether the goal of the book is to simply help you pass the exam, knowledge be damned, or whether it wants to actually help you learn the material. My educator side says it’s the former.

You see, I you want to help someone learn, it’s best to give the the questions at the beginning of the reading section and encourage them to read for the answers. Then, after they’ve read the material, give them practice questions with answer choices. You want to test them to see whether they’ve learned the material. Once they’ve answered the question, then give them feedback on whether their choice was correct. In a book that is difficult to do, but you can still provide more than “D” or “A”. You can provide the correct answer along with the explanation of why each of the answers is either right or wrong. This encourages learning.

So, I’m sort of doing my own thing here. I’m reading the questions, then reading the material to find the answers, then testing myself. And then taking advantage of the question bank at the back of the book to repeatedly challenge myself. Every few days I go back and test myself over a prior section to help embed my knowledge.

You see, I don’t just want to pass the exam, I want to learn something along the way. I want to be able to understand what those around me with more experience and knowledge mean when they speak. I want to be able to actually use this new-found knowledge to enhance my own practice and experience of the hobby of radio. And I want the foundational knowledge needed to explore new and different facets of the hobby without undue struggle. I’d rather do the struggle up front then build on that going forward.

We’ll see how this goes!