This is a guide that I made for a local group of people I’m trying to turn into hams. I’ve adapted it here, with some details redacted, for future reference to anyone else who may be interested in becoming a ham and attending a ham cram. This is a living document and subject to be updated.

What is ham radio?

If you’re familiar with walkie talkies you may have used as a kid, the ones with 24 channels and a button you push to talk, that is Family Radio Service (FRS). Ham radio is kinda like that but with much more freedom.

At the lowest level of ham licensing, you are permitted to use fairly powerful radios, much more powerful than FRS lets you use.

Instead of 24 channels, you get to transmit on large swathes of the electromagnetic spectrum. You don’t just have to transmit a weak signal, you can transmit (almost) as loudly as you want, you can pick the best wavelength for your specific application.

You aren’t even restricted to mere voice, you can also transmit digital packets and hook up radios to your computer.

Why should I do ham radio?

Many people wonder why ham is useful if we all have cellphones. Well, it’s still very relevant today! Here are some reasons:

• There are many places without cell service. Like in the woods. Or many national parks. Or rural areas. Or highways. Or the boonies. Or undeveloped federal land.
• In places with cell service, it always goes down at the worst times. It’s good to have and be able to use alternate means of communication.
  • Natural disasters are the ones that always come to mind. Hurricane Helena is a recent case of cell outage. Also, we live in the Bay Area, well-known for having earthquakes.
  • The government sometimes does it if they don’t like a protest (e.g. BART cell shutdown of 2011)
  • I’m personally not too worried about societal collapse, but if you are a prepper, it’s better to learn before that happens!
• Learn radios and electronics! Though you do not need much EE knowledge to do basic ham radio things, it certainly helps, and ham is also a great excuse to learn!
• Talk to people with a cool device! It looks super cool! It has so many buttons and you can learn what they all do!

The one thing you CANNOT do is encrypt communications, unless to control a spacecraft. That does not prevent you from digitally signing them, though.

I don’t need to get licensed, because…

• As Rick from Rick and Morty once said, “We’ll always have cell service.” Unfortunately, this is not true, as addressed above.
• FRS (walkie talkies) and GMRS are good enough.
  • FRS has a max transmission power of 1w, so it only goes 1-2mi in rural areas and a few city blocks in urban areas.
  • GMRS has a max transmission power of 50w, which means it can go many more miles than FRS. However, GMRS also only lets you use bands in the 70cm range, which is often unsuitable for longer-distance communications because it’s easily obstructed and attenuates quickly, and it’s not very suitable for going through foliage.
  • Ham radio has a max transmission power of 1500w, which is so comically high for most applications that most hams never even get close to that. Also, even at the lowest licensing level (technician), you get access to a ton of bands – 2m and 70cm are the most common used among technician-licensed hams, and with 2m, you can penetrate foliage easily.
• I’m an illegalist! I’ll just do it illegally! Unfortunately, other hams will likely ask for your callsign, and if you don’t have a callsign, they will yell at you over it. In the absolute worst case, they will be extreme assholes and call in the FCC on you, which can be up to a $15k fine.
• I’m a prepper so I just need to wait for the FCC to collapse during societal collapse. Unfortunately not, because if you don’t know how to use it correctly and efficiently post-collapse, you may only be useful for handing your radio to those who do.
• All the repeaters and airwaves are full of racist boomers talking about the YL and their health problems and the “demon rats!” This is true, but luckily, we are creating a community of people interested in ham that aren’t boomers! It was certainly quite fun using radios with my college ham club, which was ⅓ queer and very friendly, and I would enjoy having that kind of radio culture again.

What’s so hard about using a radio? Just push-to-talk 4head!

If you’ve never used a handheld radio before, there are lots of little things regarding radio usage that you would never even think about unless you’ve actually done it.

• How should you hold the microphone to your mouth? If you hold it too close, you will be too loud and your voice gets distorted, but if you hold it too far, you’re too quiet. If you hold it in front of you, everyone can hear you breathe, so you need to hold it to the side.
• In general, keeping good radio etiquette is important, whether you’re talking with one person or multiple. One part of this is keeping messages brief so that others can talk, or possibly even cut in with more important information (i.e. someone is bleeding and requires immediate assistance).
• If you are using radios with a non-trivial number of people (like at an event, relief effort, or so on), it gets much more complicated – band plans, event-specific protocols, repeaters, coordination, you name it.

Can I go straight from unlicensed to extra?

Yep! But you have to do all three tests in order. Have fun cramming!

Do I need to prepare before the ham cram?

Nope, unless you’re doing more than one test! We spend 6 hours cramming, and in my experience, General took slightly longer than that, and Extra took much longer than that.

What’s the test like?

All tests are multiple choice, 35 questions

For all tests, 35 questions, multiple choice, 74% to pass. The questions are randomly chosen from a pool of at least 10x that many questions per test.

What’s the ham cram going to be like?

Most places run ham crams as about 6 hours of cramming, divided into blocks like so:

1. Repeat until lunchtime:
   1. Study for 50 mins
   2. Break for 10 mins
2. Have a 1hr lunch
3. Repeat until exam time:
   1. Study for 50 mins
   2. Break for 10 mins
4. Take the test which is unbounded but takes people 30-60 min per test usually

So I will be doing it this way too. We will be cramming by using hamstudy.org. It’s a whole-day affair, and we will probably be doing the cram from 10:00-16:00 or so and running the test at 16:00.

Most importantly, it’s not a guided class! It’s just a big session where everyone self-studies and supports each other and keeps everyone on track. I can answer questions if you have them.

I intend to run a study for only technician license, but if you want to upgrade a license or skip several levels, you can still cram some of your questions with us, or just come in at 16:00 when we administer the tests.

Isn’t the content so important that I should properly study it instead of cramming and testing?

It’s mostly important, but frankly it’s better (and way easier) to learn by doing. The exam is mere theory, and will only get you so far. To fully understand how to use the radio, you must use it, and you can synthesize your theory and practice to achieve true electromagnetic praxis.

Do I have to cram with everyone?

Nope, if you don’t feel like cramming or can’t make the cram session, just come in at 16:00 and take the test!

What can I do once I have my license?

All sorts of things! In fact, you can even do several things right now without a license!

No license ($0)

• You can get a $20-30 RTL-SDR and listen in on all sorts of transmissions, not only inside the ham band, but outside too.
• You can get a pair of $20-30 FRS radios, and begin talking with those! They are somewhat weak, but they are still quite useful.
• You can get a $200 flipper zero or a $300 hackrf and hack shit! However, do note that their transmission power is very weak (flipper zero is very protocol-specific and hackrf tx mode is <1W) and are only really useful for close-range hacking.
• You can buy a $25 Baofeng UV-5R and listen in on things, but NOT use it.
• You can borrow a friend’s ham radio equipment and use it under their supervision and callsign.

Technician License ($50)

• Buy a $20-30 Baofeng UV-5R (5-10W TX power) or one of the updated versions and you can talk to your friends over many miles!
• Buy a $10 Baofeng APRS cable with it, hook it up to your computer’s sound card, and you can do packet radio!
• Buy a $100-300 mobile car radio and you can do all of the above, but more powerfully (these often come in 25-200W)!
• Buy a $100-300 DMR handheld radio and you can use digital modes! These are interesting because digital compression preserves more audio even with more attenuation.
• With $500-1000, you can set up a repeater!

General or Extra License ($50 – $120 depending on how you take the tests)

• Buy a $300-3000 HF radio and you can talk to people at extremely long distances! On lucky days, you can even talk across oceans!
• If that’s too expensive, just borrow a friend’s. If you have rich or autistic friends.
• You can VE other people, like I’m doing, and participate in the FCC pyramid scheme!

I can’t afford the $50-75 startup capital!

No worries, I intend to organize a pool of money to sponsor you.

What should I bring to the cram or exam or both?

What if I fail the test? Oh no! I’m ruined!

Don’t worry! We’ll let you retake the test, if you’re close to passing! However, you would get a new, completely randomized test, and it costs an extra $15.

Can I immediately transmit when I pass the test?

If you already have a callsign, you get a provisional upgraded license and you can immediately transmit!

If you don’t have a callsign, you can only transmit after you’ve gotten your callsign on the FCC Universal Licensing System. So after I get my shit together and submit the results, and after whatever VEC I’m working with submits them in turn. But as soon as you get your callsign, go ham!

When and where will this be held?

Where: [redacted]

When: Uhhhhh that’s an extremely good question. I need to get a VE badge and so does [redacted] and we also need to find at least a third VE (insert “2 VEs looking for a third” joke here), so expect in 4-6 weeks or so. If you can’t wait that long to ham, you are free to take an exam elsewhere and I truly encourage you to do so!

I may miss this session if the date is inconvenient for me! Will you do others?

If there are enough people who may miss that session, I am fine running a second ham cram and exam! If there’s not enough people that it’s worth it, I am fine running just an exam for you only!

I don’t want my address doxxed!

You will unfortunately have to get a PO box or alternate address for that. Luckily, the only requirement for the address is that you are able to receive mail at it, and it’s not residence-based.

I don’t like the name on my photo ID!

If the name on your ID does not match your actual name, then unfortunately, you will have to put the ID’s name on your ham license. Your old name will show up on the FCC website permanently, with no way to remove it, even if you file a name change application later. Therefore, if you would not like your old name to show up on the FCC’s website permanently, you will have to change the name on your photo ID first.

Oh no! My question wasn’t answered!

Then just ask me! I won’t bite you unless you consent to it.