I’m teaching a Technician Class on behalf of the Newport County Radio Club, and the first class begins tonight.
Over the years I’ve taught many classes in various different subjects (micro-controller applications, celestial navigation, boy scout merit badges, boating safety, etc.) . But this is the first time I’ve taught a ham radio related class.
I surprised myself by selecting a Gordon West book as the basis for the course over the ARRL material. Both texts are approximately $20, but Gordon has organized his book into 20 topics that cover all 10 exam areas, and has integrated each of the 394 questions into the book; organizing them in a way that doesn’t involve flipping around from section to section.
Its hard to project back 43 years to when I was taking my Novice class. I do know the exam was longer and covered much more electrical theory, plus it had a 5 WPM code requirement. Today’s test is only 35 questions, out of a pool of 394 questions; all of which have been published. In terms of theory, ohm’s law and the power equation are the only thing involving math and there are only 4 questions related to that. It seems almost impossible to fail, but of course, after 43 years of ham radio, it should seem easy, right?
In reality there are 701 power-point slides to cover in 10 hours of instructions. It is a lot of material to go through each class for sure. But with a decent book, and online resources like the eHam.net Exams, it should be pretty simple for anyone to pass even with my dubious instruction.
