Canadian Basic Amateur Radio Qualification

2021-Apr-20

I explain how I passed the Canadian Basic Amateur Radio exam with Honours

Today, I sat my Canadian Basic Amateur Radio exam and passed! I have chosen the call-sign VE7YRK. VE7 is the "area prefix" for British Columbia. YRK is to link back to my home area, Yorkshire, UK. In this article, I'll explain how I studied.

History

I built small receivers (and the odd low-power transmitter) when I was a teenager. I also played around a lot with CB radios. I never got my UK Amateur radio license.

I took AS Level electronics when I was in school. This gave me a good grounding (pun not intended) in DC and digital electronics. We didn't cover much AC or RF electronics though.

Materials

I started with books. Initially I only had the Newnes Guide to Radio and Communications Technology and Starting Electronics. Together, these gave me most of the technical details I needed, but they were missing a few important things:

AC electronics (e.g. I didn't really understand inductors).
Canadian regulations
Operating procedures

For these, I turned to Canadian amateur radio resources: the Canadian Amateur Radio Basic Qualification Study Guide and an online course from the Surrey Amateur Radio Club (SARC).

Techniques

I borrowed several evidence-based tools from the Coursera course Learning How To Learn and The Learning Scientists Podcast. I believe these gave me a big "speed boost".

Retrieval practice

I practiced trying to remember what I'd just learned. For example, I write down the most important points of a lecture just after watching it. Similarly, after reading a section of my book I would try to write out the most important points. I would write equations, conceptual explanations, and occasionally diagrams.

Interleaving

The course was "on rails", but I avoided reading through my books in-order. I deliberately jumbled up my learning. One evening I'd learn about antennas, the next I'd learn about general operating procedures, and so on.

Spaced repetition

I made sure that I didn't make my studying "one and done". I re-visited sections periodically.

I used Anki every day. I built my own deck as I went. I included fact-based questions like "what is the frequency range of the 40m band?" and more conceptual questions like "why is the ionosphere most weakly ionised just before dawn during winter?".

Anki did three things for me:

Retrieval practice
Spaced repetition
Interleaving

I didn't need to revisit sections once I'd read them and entered them into Anki. I could just make sure that I studied Anki every day, and a new section.

Test and check

I took regular practice exams. I did this about once a week.

The Canadian site tells you your overall score and more importantly, your score broken down by section. I could see where I was weak. I would make sure to study up on those sections more than others. I also kept a record of my scores so I could see if I was improving and how likely I was to pass with Honors if I sat the actual exam.

Group study

I suggested we start a study group in the SARC course. We meet on Saturday mornings and discuss the recent lectures. We go over that week's pop quiz and talk about the questions we got wrong. It's amazing how many of us got the same questions wrong!

Results

My exam results. The last data point is my actual result.

I passed with Honors on my first try, scoring 94/100.

I decided that I would sit my exam as soon as I scored over 89 on the practice exam. This was when I was reasonably sure I'd pass with Honours.

The chart above shows that I improved relatively quickly, before beginning to level out, making incremental improvements. I did take many more weekly tests, but I only did 20 questions each time. These were too noisy to make consistent decisions.

Next steps

I intend to use the same techniques to study for my Advanced and Morse code qualifications.

I want to design and build small transmitters. I'm especially interested in low-power operation, called QRP. Anything that can do a lot with very little interests me.

I'm excited to get on the air and make my first contact. My radio is a Kenwood TH-K20A VHF hand-held transceiver. I've upgraded the stock antenna to a Diamond SRH77CA. I got all of my kit from Radioworld.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to my instructors in SARC, Coax Publications for re-sending my book multiple times (damn my impossible door!), and to my Aurora Amateur Radio Group examiner (Brandin Hess, WL1B) who gave me a remote exam in the times of COVID.