• Foundation training material?

    From gareth evans@21:1/5 to All on Mon Sep 6 22:57:08 2021
    Is there an on-line training manual or examination manual
    for the Foundation Licence?

    An 85-year-old acquaintance of mine is interested in getting
    a licence and has appealed to me for help.

    (I have discussed my stance of opposition to the scheme with him and
    have told him that I won't QSO with him unless and until he gets
    a Full licence)

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  • From David Wade@21:1/5 to gareth evans on Tue Sep 7 08:28:15 2021
    On 06/09/2021 22:57, gareth evans wrote:
    Is there an on-line training manual or examination manual
    for the Foundation Licence?

    An 85-year-old acquaintance of mine is interested in getting
    a licence and has appealed to me for help.

    (I have discussed my stance of opposition to the scheme with him and
    have told him that I won't QSO with him unless and until he gets
    a Full licence)

    I assume you mean "free" then there is no manual and most of the
    training courses refer to the RSGB manuals to avoid copyright issues.

    So you probably "need" the official manual....
    ... essexham have free courses

    https://www.essexham.co.uk/train/foundation-online/

    Dave

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  • From Ottavio Caruso@21:1/5 to gareth evans on Tue Sep 7 08:40:08 2021
    On 06/09/2021 22:57, gareth evans wrote:
    Is there an on-line training manual or examination manual
    for the Foundation Licence?


    No, the RSGB want you to buy their booklet. The exam contains question
    from the textbooks, including mistakes.


    --
    Ottavio Caruso

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  • From Radio Man@21:1/5 to gareth evans on Tue Sep 7 07:55:01 2021
    On Mon, 06 Sep 2021 22:57:08 +0100, gareth evans wrote:

    Is there an on-line training manual or examination manual for the
    Foundation Licence?

    An 85-year-old acquaintance of mine is interested in getting a licence
    and has appealed to me for help.

    I've heard good things about The Chippenham & district Amateur radio Club:

    https://www.g3vre.org.uk/

    Their training page says that they do the course and the exam online.

    (I have discussed my stance of opposition to the scheme with him and
    have told him that I won't QSO with him unless and until he gets a Full licence)

    I'm sure that he found that encouraging, Gareth.

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  • From David Woolley@21:1/5 to Ottavio Caruso on Tue Sep 7 20:49:27 2021
    On 07/09/2021 08:40, Ottavio Caruso wrote:
    The exam contains question from the textbooks, including mistakes.

    I think that is a common problem with accreditation exams if there are
    any questions where there is any subjective element. Although I never
    did the Microsoft ones, I'm told, by people who did, that they had to
    learn the "correct" answers, rather than the ones that they actually
    believed.

    In how many cases are the distractors actually the true answer, and the intended answer worse than the distractors?

    (Unfortunately I know someone who boasts about getting through the
    intermediate by learning the question pool. They are very public about it.)

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  • From Stephen Cole@21:1/5 to gareth evans on Tue Sep 7 19:44:37 2021
    gareth evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> wrote:
    Is there an on-line training manual or examination manual
    for the Foundation Licence?

    An 85-year-old acquaintance of mine is interested in getting
    a licence and has appealed to me for help.

    (I have discussed my stance of opposition to the scheme with him and
    have told him that I won't QSO with him unless and until he gets
    a Full licence)

    BRATS do an online course, if that’s of any interest:

    https://brats-qth.org/training/indexx.htm

    If your acquaintance is not averse to buying an RSGB book, I can
    wholeheartedly recommend their Exam Secrets publication:

    https://rsgb.org/main/blog/publications/books-extra/2019/10/10/exam-secrets-for-radio-amateurs/

    HTH.

    --
    STC / M0TEY

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  • From David Wade@21:1/5 to Stephen Cole on Wed Sep 8 12:18:37 2021
    On 07/09/2021 20:44, Stephen Cole wrote:
    gareth evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> wrote:
    Is there an on-line training manual or examination manual
    for the Foundation Licence?

    An 85-year-old acquaintance of mine is interested in getting
    a licence and has appealed to me for help.

    (I have discussed my stance of opposition to the scheme with him and
    have told him that I won't QSO with him unless and until he gets
    a Full licence)

    BRATS do an online course, if that’s of any interest:

    https://brats-qth.org/training/indexx.htm


    I am sure like most courses it expects candidates to have the book. It
    says on the second page:-

    "You may carry out self study from the web site and the RSGB book on the
    Foundation licence"

    so whilst its not mandatory it seems to me to recommend getting a copy.


    If your acquaintance is not averse to buying an RSGB book, I can wholeheartedly recommend their Exam Secrets publication:

    https://rsgb.org/main/blog/publications/books-extra/2019/10/10/exam-secrets-for-radio-amateurs/


    This is an excellent book.

    HTH.


    Dave

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  • From gareth evans@21:1/5 to David Woolley on Wed Sep 8 12:23:09 2021
    On 07/09/2021 20:49, David Woolley wrote:
    On 07/09/2021 08:40, Ottavio Caruso wrote:
    The exam contains question from the textbooks, including mistakes.
    I think that is a common problem with accreditation exams if there are
    any questions where there is any subjective element. Although I never
    did the Microsoft ones, I'm told, by people who did, that they had to
    learn the "correct" answers, rather than the ones that they actually believed.
    In how many cases are the distractors actually the true answer, and the intended answer worse than the distractors?
    (Unfortunately I know someone who boasts about getting through the intermediate by learning the question pool. They are very public about
    it.)

    With my other hat on (Which nowadays pushes Ham Radio into the
    shadows for me) as a dabbler in clocks, I queried a letter that
    had appeared in the Horological Journal of the BHI, in regard to
    the claimed advantages today of involute gearing instead of
    the widely-accepted cycloidal tooth forms.

    Cycloidal tooth forms are held to be lower friction because
    of the action-after-centre.

    An examiner of their professional certificates replied to me
    in effect to say that if I wished to pass their exams then
    I should continue with my stance on cycloidal gears because
    their exams represent the state of the art
    from 1950 backwards in time and not the practices of the
    internationally recognised Swiss watch manufacturers of today!

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Ottavio Caruso@21:1/5 to David Woolley on Wed Sep 8 08:44:39 2021
    On 07/09/2021 20:49, David Woolley wrote:
    On 07/09/2021 08:40, Ottavio Caruso wrote:
    The exam contains question from the textbooks, including mistakes.

    I think that is a common problem with accreditation exams if there are
    any questions where there is any subjective element.  Although I never
    did the Microsoft ones, I'm told, by people who did, that they had to
    learn the "correct" answers, rather than the ones that they actually believed.

    In how many cases are the distractors actually the true answer, and the intended answer worse than the distractors?

    (Unfortunately I know someone who boasts about getting through the intermediate by learning the question pool.  They are very public about
    it.)

    I can only speak for myself. I passed the Advanced Exam (with honours) memorising the textbook. I'm not proud of it and it's a shame, but I
    thought that that was the only way I could pass the exam.

    --
    Ottavio Caruso

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  • From Les. Hayward@21:1/5 to gareth evans on Thu Sep 9 09:14:10 2021
    On 08/09/2021 12:23, gareth evans wrote:

    With my other hat on (Which nowadays pushes Ham Radio into the
    shadows for me) as a dabbler in clocks, I queried a letter that
    had appeared in the Horological Journal of the BHI, in regard to
    the claimed advantages today of involute gearing instead of
    the widely-accepted cycloidal tooth forms.

    Cycloidal tooth forms are held to be lower friction because
    of the action-after-centre.

    An examiner of their professional certificates replied to me
    in effect to say that if I wished to pass their exams then
    I should continue with my stance on cycloidal gears because
    their exams represent the state of the art
    from 1950 backwards in time and not the practices of the
    internationally recognised Swiss watch manufacturers of today!



    That reminds me of sitting the broadcast ops. certificate in Australia.
    One of the questions was 'state the advantages of using a VU meter.' My
    reply was that there were no advantages and went on to point out the disadvantages of slow response time, loading, etc. and suggested that a
    better solution would be a PPM. Another question related to calculating
    the power transfer from a mic. into an amplifier. I pointed out that the current method was to regard the mic. as a voltage source feeding a
    bridging impedance.

    I flunked the exam.

    Next time I parroted the expected answers and passed with flying colours...

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