Yesterday, I had a fun, if smallish, class, including three women, three university students, and several other young people. I almost achieved a 100% pass rate, too. Two of the students missed by one question. One of the students passed the General test, so that made up for it a little bit.
Notably, this was the first class that I’ve taught with the new question pool. The addition of the questions about series and parallel circuits stretched out the morning session a little bit, so we didn’t get to lunch until about 12:10, but the afternoon session went a little faster than before, so I actually finished ten minutes early.
The DMR questions seem appropriate. I had one student comment about them after the class. I’m still not so sure about the FT8 questions, though. That seemed to go right over their heads.
Two of the students are also members of All Hands Active, the local makerspace. They’re already talking about doing some ham radio related activities. I’m a member there, and I’ve suggested that we build J-pole antennas. Another thing I’m going to suggest is that we 3d-print some of the parts used to make tape measure Yagis and build some of those.
Steve W8SFC says
Being an applicant for VE I was allowed the privilege to assist the VEs and VEC with scoring the exams and I can say it is a lot different than being an examinee. The pressure is off, and you feel genuinely happy when those taking the exam pass, and a little down for those who try but don’t quite make it. It was actually exciting when the one candidate passed both the Technician and the General exams in one shot. Those who did not pass were reminded of the next opportunities coming up for them to retake the exam, and that softens the blow a bit.
Dan is the master of the one day Technician class, and these results are evidence of that. Congratulations to all for passing and becoming fledgling hams, and also to Dan for once again succeeding at bringing more people into amateur radio.
I also want to thank the VEC and the other VEs for allowing me to assist them in their task. It was a great experience, and hopefully I will be a fully credentialed VE soon so I can be of more help at a future exam session.
Dave New, N8SBE says
FT8 in the Technician pool? What’s the point, unless they thought that Technicians would rush out and use FT8 on six meters?
It just makes my point, that Technician class should have CW AND digital privileges in the Novice/Technician sub-bands on 80, 40, and 15 meters. With he popularity of FT8, adding that mode (and others like it, including RTTY) on HF for Technicians would give the needed boost to get them on HF.