Remote license exams have been a hot topic lately. I’ve blogged about it, the ARRL reports that remotely administered testing is promising, and the W5YI VEC in conjunction with HamStudy.Org has also conducted some remote testing. I think that it’s safe to say that before long remote testing will be widely available.
Not everyone is thrilled by this idea. Jeff, KE9V, tweeted the following yesterday:
Not a fan of remotely administered tests. It puts even more distance between newcomers and other hams, mentors, and clubs. I doubt it will cease when life goes back to normal so this feels like yet another self-inflicted wound. arrl.org/news/remotely-… #hamradio
He’s got a point. I think that we already have a problem mentoring the next generation of hams, and going to remote testing is only going to exacerbate this problem. The flip side, of course, is that this is inevitable. I replied:
That’s certainly a concern, but it’s been my experience that many, if not most, new hams don’t take advantage of mentors and clubs anyway. Whether for good or ill, they’re getting their mentoring from YouTube, reddit, and other online forums, or just foregoing it altogether.
Jeff went on to say, “I get that, but ceding this function renders local radio clubs a little more unnecessary, and most are in a tenuous position as it is.” Jeff is right on again, but the saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink” comes to mind. Even with local testing, most newcomers don’t attend local radio club meetings or take advantage of the mentoring that club members could provide. For example, I offer to help every single student that attends my one-day Tech classes. and over the past dozen years or so, I’ve had hundreds of students. My guess is that less than 10 percent of them have ever asked for help.
I still think it’s time for remote testing, but Jeff’s point is well-taken. There are lots of good YouTube videos on different amateur radio topics, but I don’t think any of them are designed to help a newcomer discover what he or she might like best.
I hope the VE teams that do remote testing will at least point the newcomers at some resources to help them get into amateur radio. Hopefully that would include links to the ARRL’s Find a Club page so that they could find some one-on-one help, if they need it or want it. And, it might be time for the ARRL to actually get serious about a mentoring program. Many folks do just fine on their own, but I’d guess that many more would benefit by having hams they can rely on for advice and a helping hand.
Howard AE0Z says
I also oppose the remote testing, but that’s mostly being curmudgeonly. What, can nobody wait a matter of weeks to take the exam?
Our local VE teams offer a free year of club membership to successful examinees. We get some coming to the club but lots don’t. It is in many ways their own loss. Not sure how to communicate that to them. This might be one of the ways the ARRL could help local clubs, something I know you have talked about. They won’t hear about the license classes, hamfests, and public service activities if they don’t subscribe to the club newsletters, which they won’t if they don’t join. But the Section Manager’s monthly emails might get to them.
Dave New, N8SBE says
I’m reminded of the old saw, “Don’t say, ‘Let me know if you need anything’, offer to do something, and make if specific”. This is in reference to those that say, “Gee, I told them to ask for help, but they never did”. Most folks either don’t know what they don’t know, are they are embarrassed to ask for help, thinking that they will be seen as dumb or silly.
In this time of social distancing, mentoring becomes even more difficult, but keeping in touch via email would be a good first step. Don’t let those newbies get away without getting their email address (ask for permission to copy it from their 605’s). Turn them over to the membership chairman — seems like the appropriate office to encourage membership.
Some folks respond well to books, and the ARRL has some basic intro books (http://www.arrl.org/shop/ARRL-s-Basic-Series-Bundle/) and the On the Air magazine, (http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/Launch.aspx?PBID=2b55b7de-280c-4770-b209-5aafb264d669 – requires ARRL login) which has some really nice beginner articles.
Seems like the local clubs could stock some beginner books to loan (again, after the current virus scare is over), and it should be the membership chairman’s duty to send emails out to the newbies to invite them to upcoming club meetings and events.
This is all difficult right now, but “this too shall pass”.
Some clubs have found renewed interest by holding regular/weekly Zoom meetings. A club can get an ‘unlimited’ account for $150/yr. I think it a good investment, to keep up face-to-face (over the Internet) encounters, where questions and answers can be batted around.
Adam N5YHF says
I don’t have a problem with remote testing. The club who runs the main tests around here do little to nothing to welcome new hams into the hobby. No free membership, not even a flyer about the club meetings. I had to figure out a lot of this on my own or with the help of clubs who don’t run testing like our DX/Contest club or a small club that mostly works online.
Mike W8MRA says
Adam may of hit the nail on the head here. Because it goes along with my first thoughts before I started reading the comments.
Assuming VE’s have the home address of those who passed the exam, I’m thinking it would not be much effort to send the club’s newsletter by snail mail for 3 months. Or at least a postcard invitation to the next club meetings and events for 3 months. If after 3 months of this, they are still a no-show, you’ve made an effort, and c’est la vie.
Jim Cook says
Remote testing means that a small number of VEs will preform all of the testing. Not many will be able to afford the infrastructure to do remote testing. With fewer people taking in person tests the number of test sessions will drop probably dramatically.
I also do now see any way to prevent cheating. While I hope many will not cheat, you cannot tell me it will not happen.
I am all for ham radio adopting new technology, but I am not sure remote testing should become the new norm.
We are headed down the path that will eventually become fill out this form and get your license or just forget about licenses altogether.
Richard Bateman says
Heh; I run HamStudy.org and and the software that most of the fully remote exam sessions are using… and I actually 100% agree that in-person classes and exams are a far better way to grow the hobby. Why, then, would I support this effort? Well, I think I’m completely on the same page with Dan in this case; it’s going to happen. If it’s going to happen, I’d like to do everything I can to make sure it’s done right, and Thank you Dan for the reminder to make sure that resources are provided to help applicants get integrated into the hobby.
I will definitely need to think about what things the software may be able to do to help facilitate / encourage that.
I also see this as an opportunity to improve the tools that we can use for giving *in-person* exams when this is all over. So far all of the software improvements that I’ve been working on in the examtools system (most notably fully digitized paperwork, 605s and CSCEs) are every bit as useful when in person and should help reduce the “busywork” time at exam sessions so that VEs can spend more time elmering applicants.
I think it’s important to have options, but I don’t think things should change just to change — we should look for the best solution for any given situation.
Jeremy KB7QOA says
Will cheating happen? Probably. It’s unavoidable no matter how the exams are administered. People can very lightly write Ohm’s Law on the palm of their hand, and with careful placement of their hand, the VEs monitoring the session will never notice it. The groups working on remote testing are putting rigorous requirements in place to ensure the exam environment is secure. It’s actually the same procedures that many colleges these days are using for remotely administered exams, the only difference is there are 3 proctors watching the video to watch for any signs of cheating instead of one.
I don’t think remote testing will ever fully replace in-person exams. Will it make a dent in the number of sessions? Probably. Will more people actually take the exam and become hams? My gut says yes. I’m the CVE for my team, and you’d be surprised how many requests I get for alternative testing times/locations. I do my best to accommodate them where as the other groups just so “No, this is our exam, show up if you want to take the test.” there are a lot of people that work shifts that prevent them from testing on a Saturday morning, which is the most common schedule around here, my own team included. I’m in a rural area, so often times the distance to the testing site and needing to be there at 9:00 AM is prohibitive. And there are also people that have testing anxiety and won’t go to a formal test center. Remote testing can accommodate all of those people that the traditional teams are unable to.
I want to preface my next comment by saying I certainly do NOT condone cheating, and am very careful to watch for it at my exams and follow all VEC and FCC rules to the letter. That said, if we take an objective look at it, what harm really can come from someone sneaking in a formula they struggle to memorize? The entire test can be passed from pure memorization without understanding a lick of the material covered if someone wanted to go that route. In fact a lot of these fast-track style classes actually encourage that, and say “the real learning begins after you get your license.” I’ve been a ham for over 25 years and I still to this day keep a band plan chart close at hand, and always double-check my frequency before operating in an unfamiliar band or subband. Is this a “real hams don’t use reference materials thing?”
KD7BBC and I were actually discussing this last night. One big positive that will likely come from this, even if remote testing isn’t the “new normal,” is that this will get the VECs to modernize their procedures to allow for fully paperless testing and session submissions. This will streamline the process for everyone involved. Digitally filled and signed forms will be immune to mistakes due to poor handwriting or smudged ink. VECs will have data in a format they can quickly verify and click a button to send to the FCC’s system rather than having someone have to hand-enter the data from the handwritten forms. This increase in accuracy and efficiency will lead to even shorter timeframes for people to get their licenses. It’s already down to less than a week on average, imagine all tests offering “next business day” or sooner timelines before an excited newbie can press the PTT. I feel this will allow ham radio to “set the hook” even faster in these people and will make more life-long hams as a result.
In true ham radio sense, I got a bit long-winded here but I do recognize the potential disadvantages of remote testing, but I feel the benefits will overcome the drawbacks in the long term.
Chuck K4RGN says
Remote testing is inevitable, and it could lower the barriers to being licensed. There is no guarantee that any new ham will grow or even remain active in the hobby, whether the ham was tested by VEs or not. I’ve seen previously unknown people show up to be tested at a hamfest and then walk out the door immediately after, apparently not wishing to interact with anyone.
Clubs are better off attracting people before they take the test.
As for cheating, a lawyer friend of mine with exceptional memory passed his FCC exam simply by memorizing answers for the entire question pool. Or to put it differently, when I took the Novice exam in 1970, the integrity of the test was up to the two of us.
Steve~W8SFC says
I feel that if there is no physical presence of the VE team at the testing site there is no way to assure the candidate is not cheating – all it would take is for the examinee to have a second computer or a book with the exam questions and answers there next to them when they are taking the exam, and without a second person in the room there would be no deterrent to cheating.
If that is going to be deemed acceptable, why not just make the exams open book? Online remote exams would water down the knowledge required of individual amateurs to the point that licensing would become a joke. If people do not have to assimilate the information, regulations and requirements regarding each level of license, FCC may as well just issue licenses based on paying a fee. Some will take on learning as a challenge; something to take on and a goal to achieve and take pride in. Unfortunately, there will be a certain number of license candidates that will not have a problem with taking advantage of the situation and have some type of currently forbidden resource there at hand to find the answers in, instead of working to assimilate that information that the exam questions are asking them to answer. Without learning the material the practices of amateur radio will eventually become a lost art. Adopting remote examinations will be a net loss not only to the individual operators but to ham radio as a whole because it will invite a raft of problems for amateur radio with people on the air that do not know how to conduct themselves or even the basics of obeying the rules of courteous operations.
People who do not respect the rules and don’t know what they are, or do not have a grasp of how to operate with courtesy and within the bounds of FCC rules will become problems between amateur radio and the rest of the non-participant population. There will be a lot more problems stemming from remote exams than the benefits derived from them.
It is my opinion that this practice will devalue the license, the process of learning the material, and the achievement of earning that license when compared to the standard examination procedure, and that would hurt amateur radio more than waiting out this pandemic and then resuming regular procedure. If the FCC decides to implement this policy, they may as well just allow people to purchase a radio and start transmitting without any training because they will be removing the reason that we have exam preparation classes and the exams themselves.
William Vaughn (Kj7BIH) Amateur Extra and VE says
As a VE since March of 2020 and an in-person VE before that, I have administered tests to over 2500 potential hams. Before you criticize the process, I suggest you volunteer as a VE and learn the steps we take (or at least the steps our VEC takes) to ensure a fair test. We first identify the candidate using a photo ID in the same way in-person tests are conducted. We then search the entire room looking for any study aids, cameras, or if the candidate has hearing aids (headsets are not allowed). We look at the floor, the ceiling, and the work surface. We have the candidate turn the camera on the laptop screen or use a mirror or a separate camera. Some VECs require two cameras to monitor the candidate during the test. And in most of our tests, there are four VEs watching the candidate’s face–especially his or her eyes and mouth. We listen as well to the room and do not permit anyone to even approach the area of testing. We permit a blank piece of paper and only a simple calculator (but prefer the built-in calculator in the OS). We ensure that there is nothing running on the system other than the browser. We maximize the browser window to cover any content on the screen.
When we monitor the test, we can quickly tell if someone might be cheating. Most candidates work through the test quickly and get through the 35 questions in under 10 minutes–sometimes far less. In our opinion, these candidates don’t have time to get answers from some other source. Some candidates struggle with the math or more complex subjects. These are the ones we watch more closely.
As I said, I’ve administered over 2500 tests. We’ve turned down about five candidates and refused to test them when they show up in testing places that do not meet our stringent requirements.
And to answer another point, we DO provide candidates who live near Seattle with a document that introduces them to the local community, encourages them to join our club or one of the others in the area, points them to our numerous nets, and gives them the names of Elmers ready and willing to help. We have always done this–for over a decade.
As to the future, we already have a pilot program that tests candidates in person. It’s done outside to protect the candidates and VEs from COVID exposure. The candidates stay in their vehicles which are cleared of all materials which might assist them in the test. When we restart in-person indoor testing, we plan to use the same tablet system which accesses Exam Tools online which simplifies the administration and grading of the tests and eliminates all paperwork–except for the handouts we’ll provide once the ham passes the Technician test.
Online tests, whether in-person or held remotely uses far fewer VEs, takes less time to set up and test, are more secure (every test is different), and candidates don’t have to wait for paperwork to be mailed to the FCC so they get their callsigns more quickly (often by over two weeks). And one other point. Not a single VE has caught COVID or anything else while administering these tests.
Mickey Baker says
Contact information for new licensees is readily available – from the FCC database itself or from the ARRL for affiliated clubs, so contacting new licensees via mail is easy.
In February, the ARRL published an Info-card – “Help for New Hams is HERE” promoting On the Air magazine, the ARRL and providing a space for local organizations to put local contact information.
25 cards were sent to every Section Manager and Director. I had 200 printed and have given them to people who run the VE sessions with direction to put a sticker in the appropriate place for contact. PDFs for commercial printing and informal printing are available for affiliated clubs.
Then the Virus stopped most person-to-person contact and exams stopped.
These cards are likely still on a shelf somewhere, waiting to be used.
Again, the ARRL keeps a database of licensees that Section Managers can access by license date and zip code. Affiliated clubs should be (and some are) reaching out to the SMs, getting this data in CSV format and mailing the provided cards.
There is nothing keeping clubs from aggressively recruiting new hams. Those that do, and then have programs of wide interest are growing. Those who have the same guy doing the same stuff every month are not.
73,
Mickey N4MB
Mickey Baker says
W8SFC wrote, “I feel that if there is no physical presence of the VE team at the testing site there is no way to assure the candidate is not cheating ”
The remote testing procedures adopted by the ARRL VEC goes into a lot of detail to reduce the probability of cheating. I feel confident that it would be difficult to cheat.
The reality is that prudent methods to eliminate cheating simply need to make cheating more trouble than studying and passing the material. In this day and age, people can cheat by using all sorts of technology in an in-person testing scenario, but if they can do that, they likely have the intellect and drive to take a few hours, study the material, and pass the test legitimately.
73,
Mickey N4MB
Barry Porter, KB1PA says
Each test has 3 VEs remotely monitoring. Before the test, the room is examined via camera. No books, 2nd monitors, other tablets or phones no on TV screens are allowed. No other people are allowed in the room. If the examinee’s eyes wander from the screen, the test is terminated. One VE has control of the test taker’s computer (after asking), all apps are required to be closed except the remote connection software and a web browser. The test taker is required to show his arms, hands and thighs to be sure there are no stickies or stuff written on them. If the test taker wants to use a calculator, they have to demonstrate on camera that the memories are empty or clear them. Doing remote testing is probably way more secure than doing a test in person.
Tom says
During this COVID-19 crisis why not offer remote testing? For those of us who have bought Extra Exam study manuals and or paid for Ham Test Online and been studying for months, we have only two months before this current pool of questions ends. So for those of us who have been studying and spent money and time, an exception should be made.
Desperate times means desperate measures.
Or extend the current Extra Class pool of questions. Seems like a fair solution.
Allan Batteiger says
Here in North Texas there are regular exams scheduled each month. Weekends, weekdays, etc. Yet I get calls asking if there is a way to take an exam other that at a scheduled session ? Why – various reasons, Work schedule, drive time to the test site ( the only one giving a test when they have time is across town a couple of hours away). Disability you name it there are reasons in person testing can be problematic. Remote testing is another tool in the VE’s tool box. It does require some extra protocol to limit the possibility of cheating. Its not faster or slower than normal in person exams ( or at least will be one some rough edges are finished off). So I do not see it going away or reducing the need or attendance at regular exam locations once we are past the current nonsense. BTW there will be another excuse to Quarantine or limit everyone at some point.
George Robinson says
Gee–Where do I start. First of all ,I’m against Remote Testing. I’m old school. I grew up having to learn morse code to advance on to the HF frequencies. I understand that changes were made to keep up interest in Ham Radio. But like what has been said many times before; let’s just give it away like they did in the CB world.
Old hams (not by age necessarily ) took pride in WORKING for and passing tests to upgrade. Today that pride is gone. The new people want it as quick and easy as possible. When you passed an exam you couldn’t wait to get a pat-on-the back at the next meeting. I remember that feeling to this day.
One last thing; I know CW is not required anymore (replaced by technology they claim) but We ( the amateur community) should have left a least a 5 -7 word min. requirement for the Extra Class. After all Extras should do something other than just read a book.
Here’s a PS; (example of today’s ham) I heard a newer guy talking on the radio the other day trying to give a newbee Code advice. The one who said he had been licensed just over a year said to do it like this ; 1 dot for T , 2 dots for for M, 3 dots for S. and so on.
Ye You BET ! Remember just because it’s a new idea doesn’t automatically make it better. George AG8AR (VE over 15 years)
Tom Schaefer NY4I says
I read the material about the remote tests. I could not tell if all three examiners were watching the candidates or just one? This is more important when talking about doing multiple candidates. If I am signing my name on the form 605, then I need to supervise (And for remote, that means I had to watch the every candidate). I cannot cede that responsibility to another examiner as they could be in cahoots with the test taker (not likely but that is why we need three VEs and not one). So beyond one candidate, as long as I can watch each candidate it is workable (after the initial security checks). I also believe requiring a camera behind the test taker might be useful too. But that might be too high a burden to ask someone to use a webcam in front and a camera of the room behind them.
Hal Casteel says
W0TTE here, new Technician license in June 2020. I wanted to add my 2 cents here having wanted to get my license since I was a kid and never getting around to it, having googled around and found one didn’t need the Morse requirement any more, was surprised at that, I must admit. Did some more googling and found I could do my Technician test online (local HAMs in Orlando public meeting and test space is shut down indefinitely due to Covid). So Hamstudy.org and some kindle books to round it out, 2 weeks later, got licensed. Pretty excited, went the Baofeng route for starters just to get orientated to 2 M and 70 CM band and programmed to the local repeaters on those bands. Not much activity until today on the 4th of July. I definitely want to get a mentor, and get connected with more HAMS.
Given the local lack of activity on the 2 M and 70 cm bands, I have started to study for the General as I am hoping that my next radio will put me in a place to reach out and connect on more bands and over more distance. I am also learning Morse as I have an interest in that. It seems like from what I can gather, a lot of activity on the other bands and a lot of people going digital. I hope to learn a more and as HAMs that you will help me learn more.
Just a word on my online test using Zoom with 2 cameras – 1 front and the other to the side, the VCEs checked the room from floor to ceiling and under the table), more than 3 VCEs all watching me like a hawk (no way to cheat, who would want to or why I don’t know). The testing was super well organized and proctored by the 3+ VCEs (from all over the US BTW.) I had studied, was well prepared and passed the Technician exam with 34/35 in less that 15 minutes all told. I did not just memorize the questions and answers, as learning the concepts behind it actually makes it much easier to pass when you understand something.
Hope to meet some of you someday soon. 73