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Comment by morganvachon | Hacker News Reader

What is such a headache about amateur radio? The test is less expensive than two cups of coffee in most places and the license itself is free. I'd wager if you're a regular here, you'd have no problem learning the theory and rules to pass the test, especially if you're genuinely interested in radio communications.

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Is it still a requirement to be fluent in morse code? If so I personally feel this requirement is redundant in the current age with the tooling we have available which can easily encode and decode morse on our behalf... If not maybe I'll consider it, until then I would prefer to dedicate my time to learning something more current / relevant than memorising morse.

In the US morse hasn't been a requirement in the last decade or so (and I think basic classes without it even longer), and many other countries have dropped it as well.

I got my "no-code Technician" class license in 1998, not long after they did away with the code requirement for Technician. At that time, Novice, General, Advanced, and Extra classes all still existed and all required Morse code. Later the FCC dropped Novice and Advanced and later still removed Morse code from all tests.

Still, I wish I had started with Novice so I'd have learned Morse early on.

I'm in Italy. Morse has not been a requirement since 2005 or so, if memory serves correctly. If I'm not mistaken it has been phased out as a requirement throughout the EU as part of the communications legislation harmonisation process.

It's not a requirement in Germany either (or anywhere, really). Our local HAM radio club spends most of its time with modern technologies nowadays like 5 Ghz high-bandwidth radio links nowadays.

In the US there is no morse any more. The technician license test is very easy and will give you all the VHF/UHF bands and a few narrow HF bands. General class test is a bit harder and requires some basic math and electronics knowledge and will add most of the rest of the frequencies. Extra is quite difficult (for me at least) and gives you everything else. Each test is usually about $15.

You can also keep progressing in the tests under the same $15 fee. That is, after taking and passing the tech test, you can take the general during the same session (same day) without having to pay another $15.

I did it this way for the Tech/General/Extra, hammered all three of them out in the same session spending only $15 that Saturday morning.

I did it this way for the Tech/General/Extra, hammered all three of them out in the same session spending only $15 that Saturday morning.

Guess which one of us has the EE degree. :-) Kudos, that’s hardcore doing it all in one swipe. General took a little study for me, and after practically memorizing the questions, easily passed it. But Extra, damn, I’m going to have to bone up on some electronics before I pass that one. Or just do without the little sliver of frequency it gains me.

It's funny, I spent a month studying for general, and then three days studying for extra. Barely passed the general exam and easily passed the extra. (I took my tech exam almost precisely one year earlier)

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