Amateur Radio exam date approaching

brownmini

Those interested in sitting the next amateur radio exam should see
http://www.irts.ie/cgi/licence-exam.cgi for more info.

Our man in Havana

New syllabus this year too.

Daegerty

might try and get it this year then, is it after getting harder?

brownmini

Daegerty wrote: »

might try and get it this year then, is it after getting harder?

Only if you dont know the answers.

Our man in Havana

You never know what the IRTS have in store.

brownmini

Our man in Havana wrote: »

You never know what the IRTS have in store.

Whatever the next test looks like, if it turns out to be
a written 3 hour test and a 12 WPM morse test afterwards,
that's fine by me.

Our man in Havana

Me too as I will never have to sit it.

Daegerty

There is a morse test? thought they got rid of that years ago

Our man in Havana

It is still there if you want to do it. If you want to get rid of the B from the end of your call sign.

It is not required any more for the general licence.

Daegerty

Our man in Havana wrote: »

It is still there if you want to do it. If you want to get rid of the B from the end of your call sign.

It is not required any more for the general licence.

you can do the two seperately then?

also if you're unemployed but not drawing the dole can you sit the exam for the reduced fee? i'm just out of college

Our man in Havana

I don't know how you do the morse these days but it is there somewhere if you really want to do it.

Just tell the IRTS you are unemployed there will be no problem with that, you don't need to provide proof.

brownmini

Daegerty wrote: »

you can do the two seperately then?

also if you're unemployed but not drawing the dole can you sit the exam for the reduced fee? i'm just out of college

Yes, you can do them separately (and you don't have to the morse at all)
I doubt that COMREG would like to hear that whilst some people
were still finishing off the theory paper, that someone was
sitting in the corner sending out dits & dahs and sounding
like they were shredding a violin in the process :D:D


As for the reduced fee:
The 2nd paragraph of the HOW TO ENTER section of
http://www.irts.ie/cgi/licence-exam.cgi will guide you on this.


Whatever route you take, just do your best.

Read the exam paper (you've heard that before for the last 4 years)

When stuck on a question, consider which answers that can't be right
and figure out which one is the only one that can be right.

Remember, Amateur Radio is not rocket science- the questions aren't hard.

TheBoffin

Best of luck to anyone taking part in this years exam!

I cannot comment on the exam style as I am old hat - I did the exam back over 10 yrs ago when the old system was in.

Hopefully we will hear some new callsigns floating about soon!

:cool:

EI8GHB

I am the PRO for Dundalk Amateur Radio Society. We have nine candidates sitting the exam, so fingers crossed for them. We have been running classes since earlier in the year.

The new syllabus hasn't changed the exam - it will still be as tough or as easy as the candidate makes it, depending on their capabilities and whatever study they have done!!

Morse test is only for getting CEPT1 "A" licence (two letter suffix) and is run separately by IRTS. Nobody ever needs to sit a morse test to get a licence, but I would advise people to take up CW as it's a great way to work DX.

PS: My username is EI8GHB but that was my old call. I passed the morse and upgraded to EI2KC !!!

watty

All the best wishes to all taking the Exam.

Felim_Doyle

My brother and I took the exam about 30 years ago but, despite the best of intentions, we never got around to attending Morse tuition and taking the Morse exam. We didn't want to get Class B callsigns only to change to Class A at a later stage and so, regrettably, never collected our licences.

I contacted Derek O'Reilly at ComReg by e-mail a few years ago and he said that, if the paperwork was still in the archives, we could have our licences. I haven't followed up on it since but I may do so this summer. You never know, I might be an Echo India yet!

In the meantime I have a UK Foundation licence and M3 call and fully intend to get the Intermediate and Advanced licences but time has not allowed in the past few years.

Good luck to all those taking the exam this time around!

brownmini

Felim_Doyle wrote: »

My brother and I took the exam about 30 years ago but, despite the best of intentions, we never got around to attending Morse tuition and taking the Morse exam. We didn't want to get Class B callsigns only to change to Class A at a later stage and so, regrettably, never collected our licences.

In the meantime I have a UK Foundation licence and M3 call and fully intend ...

If you did get your B licence here, you can get that recognised by OFCOM
as a FULL licence over there and get your M0 by validating your Irish one.
or
If you do insist of going the long way around you should be able to get
your M0 licence recognised by COMREG and get a B licence here.

Our man in Havana

All you need is the HAREC cert to get the M0 in the UK. There is no need to pay Comreg €100 at all if you don't need the EI call.

brownmini

Our man in Havana wrote: »

All you need is the HAREC cert to get the M0 in the UK. There is no need to pay Comreg €100 at all if you don't need the EI call.

HAREC certs weren't available for exams that were held about 30 years ago
and in on order to try and get one, he would have to prove he sat the exam,
and to do that COMREG would have to dig up the old paperwork, and while
they're doing that then he might as well get his B licence then as well so that
all the paperwork can go back into the archive (for another 30 years).

Felim_Doyle

Despite the abolition of the Morse requirement, do ComReg still issue B licences if you haven't taken a Morse test? I assume that all of the other restrictions have been lifted and B licensees can now use all of the bands, modes and power that Full licensees always could, so why make a distinction any more?

watty

Because the non-B licence is for people that HAVE taken the morse test

all of the other restrictions have been lifted and B licensees can now use all of the bands, modes and power that Full licensees always could

yes.

Though if you are visiting some Countries you might still need the Morse test.

I never did the Irish Exam. I had my City & Guilds Cert from UK.

I don't agree with the "once off" €100 fee. I think €10 a year makes it more attractive for beginners. Comreg & Ofcom excuse is to cut costs. But if it's properly computerised there are virtually no collection costs for the €10.

However in context of cost of "off the shelf" gear, Apple iThings, 3 monthly Car Road fund Tax or TV licence the once off €100 isn't expensive. I think though there should be more emphasis on Experimenting, Construction, Theory and Electronics. For most people it's just a licensed high power CB (Nothing wrong with CB). It's also a shame they changed the name from "Wireless Experimenter" to "Radio Amateur".

Amateur used to mean an expert or enthusiast in a subject or Sport that wasn't paid (maybe 50 years ago). Now it just suggests "incompetence".

Felim_Doyle

I'm inclined to agree with you about changing the name of the licence from "Wireless Experimenter" to "Radio Amateur". Although this was to conform to the convention in most other countries, maybe it is everyone else who should have changed as "Wireless Experimenter" better reflects the intended use. However, sadly not everyone is interested in the technical side of the hobby these days!

I also agree that €100 is prohibitive for many beginners especially if they want to buy some equipment so they can use their licence! :rolleyes: A "self-service" licence for life, using the Ofcom on-line licence administration service, is free in the UK although, if you need to submit a paper application form, there is a fee of £20 for anyone under the age of 75. You are required to confirm or update your licence details every five years but there is no fee for this if done on-line. A reasonable compromise for ComReg might have been to charge an initial €20 or €25 to apply for a licence and a similar or lesser amount every five years to keep the licence current. Hopefully they will see the light and, with a largely automated licence administration system like Ofcom's, they will reduce or repeal the licence fee.

I wouldn't go around saying that "amateur" suggests "incompetence" in an Olympic and Para-Olympic year! I live in Stoke Mandeville and I wouldn't go up against some of the disabled athletes! :eek:

watty

Felim_Doyle wrote: »

I wouldn't go around saying that "amateur" suggests "incompetence" in an Olympic and Para-Olympic year! I live in Stoke Mandeville and I wouldn't go up against some of the disabled athletes! :eek:

Yes, you understand the proper original pre 1950s meaning of the word!

eth0

I'm after applying for this exam, does yer man usually send out a confirmation or anything? I applied offline.

The 100e once off fee seems like a better idea for me but the option to pay over a longer period should be there I suppose. Once the government have an annual fee coming in it is all too tempting for them to push it up. Car tax, household charge, gun license, all things that start off small and then one day they're pushed up massively. At least if you pay this once-off thing you don't have to worry about it again

PauloMN

Just checked my documentation while I was reading this, I'm totally confused.... I paid €30 for what I thought was a lifetime license about two years ago.

The letter I got with my license refers to it as a "lifetime license", and that I have to "make a return" to the Commission before every fifth anniversary of the license to keep it active.

When did the €100 come in? And does this affect those of us that already have a lifetime license? I logged into the eLicensing site and checked mine, no balance due but when I go to "View Licenses" it says renewal month "April" (no year is shown) and the fee being €100. When I go to "Renewals", it says I have no renewals.

It's really unclear what the process is. I've no clue as to how I should "make a return" to the Commission either when that's due (before April 2015 in my case).

brownmini

PauloMN wrote: »

Just checked my documentation while I was reading this, I'm totally confused.... I paid €30 for what I thought was a lifetime license about two years ago.

The letter I got with my license refers to it as a "lifetime license", and that I have to "make a return" to the Commission before every fifth anniversary of the license to keep it active.

When did the €100 come in? And does this affect those of us that already have a lifetime license? I logged into the eLicensing site and checked mine, no balance due but when I go to "View Licenses" it says renewal month "April" (no year is shown) and the fee being €100. When I go to "Renewals", it says I have no renewals.

It's really unclear what the process is. I've no clue as to how I should "make a return" to the Commission either when that's due (before April 2015 in my case).

If you were already licensed when the lifetime licence came in then you were transferred over to the lifetime system on cut-over day.
Depending on which side of that cut-over date your licence was oringally issued, you may have had to renew your licence one more time which if this was the case, because you have received your lifetime license means that your yearly licence was still valid at the time.


Anyone getting a fresh new licence nowadays only pays a once off fee of 100 Euro and thats it - unless you want to change things on it - thats a 30 Euro fee.


The 5 year notification is to let COMREG know that
1. you are still alive
2. the licence details on file are still correct.


As for making an actual real return, as far as I know no actual process has been created/formalised/set-in-stone yet.
In your case and many other cases, there is a long time to go yet.

I suggest that you wait until closer to the actual date before you send anything into ComReg unless you want to have your licence details changed.
e.g. address change, extra band, huge power increase.


I have no doubt that ComReg will tell us all when they are good and ready about how to confirm our details every 5 years.


73

PauloMN

Did some more digging in my files and found the letter from Comreg dated May 2009.

All new licenses are €100. The €30 (which I paid) was for existing license holders to convert to lifetime.

I do agree with the above that €100 is pretty expensive for first-time licenses. €50 is more than enough imo, when all that is really involved for Comreg is entering the licensee details in a database.

I hope they do notify people when the 5 years is up, it would be easy to forget about it over more pressing annual stuff like car tax, insurance, house insurance, TV license etc. and I wouldn't like to lose my radio license.

Felim_Doyle

So, it would appear that the system operated by ComReg in Ireland is very similar to that of Ofcom in the UK, except for the cost!

I would imagine that, as in the UK, you are expected to refresh your licence every five years without a reminder from the regulator. After all, they are trying to reduce the administration burden and it wouldn't be a self-service system if they still had to write and remind you. :rolleyes:

So, either add a reminder to your favourite electronic gadget or write it on the calendar and carry it over each year with the birthdays and anniversaries.

brownmini

Felim_Doyle wrote: »

I would imagine that, as in the UK, you are expected to refresh your licence every five years without a reminder from the regulator.

[think out loud]

Over here , I would suggest that it might be a nice idea that given that
the majority of licences were transferred over in YEAR 'X' with some the
following year because they were renewed prior to the lifetime cut-over,
that ComReg issue a specal postal address or email address and invite
everyone (yes every licensee - including fresh licensees) to send
confirmation postcard or short email during the last 3 months of the 5
years time-frame.

That way, everyone will reset their 'confirmation reminder clock' to
YEAR 'X'_PLUS_TEN and every licensee up to the end of that year
can relax for another 5 years including ComReg.
The only drawback is that there will be a sudden but brief mountain of
paperwork for ComReg to process but then after that it should only be
new/change licence stuff for another 5 years.


Just thinking out loud...

Our man in Havana

The fossils would not like that.

eth0

How did the ould exam go for everyone who done them this year? I passed em anyway, didn't have a whole lot of time to study for them but still scraped by