First things first: What's a VE? (from
W5YI-VEC):
"Amateur radio license testing is conducted under the supervision of Volunteer
Examiner Coordinators (VEC's). Volunteer
examiners (VEs) are Amateurs holding General, Advanced or Extra
Class licenses who are approved by a VEC may prepare and administer
amateur license examinations to applicants.
"The examinations are given by teams of three qualified VEs
who volunteer their time to help the amateur service grow. There are 14
FCC appointed VEC's, but 90% of all ham radio testing is conducted by
only two of them, the ARRL-VEC and the W5YI-VEC. Ham testing is widely available
in all areas ...and in some foreign countries as well.
"There is a small examination charge (currently $14.00) to be
administered the examinations necessary to obtain any of the 3 ham
radio licenses. Many of the VEC organizations maintain permanent staff
with brick and mortar offices and the exam fee goes to help cover the
cost of administering exams and processing the paperwork and
electronically filing the application with the FCC.
"The VEs give examination credit
(called a Certificate of
Successful Completion of Examination or CSCE) for the license class
currently held so that examinations already passed need not be
repeated. Examination credit conferred by the CSCE is valid for one
year. The VEs construct the written examinations from question pools
that have been made public. It is the responsibility of the VEC's
Question Pool Committee (QPC) to develop and revise all of the question
pools. Each of the 3 question pools are revised on a 3 cycle period.
The question pool is valid for a period of about 4 years.
The content of these question pools are
available here. Helpful study guides and
training courses are also
widely available through the W5YI Group." (from W5YI-VEC)
The bottom line:
- Before 1984, the FCC (Federal Communications Commision) did all
the ham radio license testing. That meant you had to go to
somewhere far away (like Chicago) to one of the FCC's 23 district
offices to get tested
- After 1984, FCC delegated the responsibility of giving ham tests
to Volunteer Examiner Coordinators (like W5YI-VEC or ARRL-VEC).
- All questions on the tests come from a "question pool", according
to FCC Part 97:
- "Sec. 97.523 Question
pools All VECs must cooperate in maintaining one question
pool for each written examination element."
- "Each
question pool must contain at least 10 times the number of questions
required for a single examination."
- "Each question pool must be
published and made available to the public prior to its use for making
a question set."
- The test, whether it's from W5YI-VEC, ARRL-VEC or whatever, is
the same test from the same pool of questions, based on FCC Part 97.
- In February 2007, the FCC removed the Morse Code testing
requirement from all Amateur Radio Operator classes.
- Is Morse Code still used by hams? Yep.
- Is Morse Code required to get a ham license? Nope.
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Revised January 17, 2015