[Sderby] Radio licences

[Andy Davidson]

At 21:03 05/06/2003 +0100, you wrote:
>OK, now its starting to look a bit more promising, whats involved in 
>obtaining a licence.

I thought someone more authoritative than myself would reply before now, so 
I was keeping my mouth shut, because the procedure may have changed in the 
last few years since I recited this information with some certainty..

When I last considered getting a license, just before going to university, 
the particulars were :

  Class B license - allowed to operate on 70cm and 2M bands
  Class A license - allowed to operate on shorter wavelengths (talk to 
people further away).

To obtain a class A license, you need to secure a morse-code proficiency 
test, and have a Class B license.

To obtain a class B license, you need to pass a Radio Amateurs examination 
which is set by the City and Guilds authority - the paper is in two parts, 
a Radio Practice paper (which is quite easy, if you want to become a Radio 
Amateur this should be all the motivation you need to become proficient 
with this section of the examination !!), and an electronics theory paper, 
which I say is quite hard, but I'm useless at anything electronic, so I did 
struggle through the chapters in the Radio Amateur Examination Manual.  I 
might fare better this time.

Ever since I was a Club Amateur, there's been pressure on the Radio 
Authority to make the examinations more inclusive before the hobby dies, so 
I hope it's got substantially easier to get a license (I don't know why you 
need to pass Morse proficiency, to operate on frequencies where most people 
communicate by *talking to each other*, and I don't understand why the 
electronics test has to be so strict..).

If it has got easier than I'll certainly have found an renewed interest.


-- 
Regards, Andy Davidson
<andy@nosignal.org>