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I never even looked at the Tech test and passed on the first try. I am taking my General soon and was able to pass the test without studying. Here is a good resource to prep for the Amateur Tech test https://www.eham.net/exams/

Morse code not needed, Ohm's law: I=V/R. Here, done, you're ready for the test. Me and later my daughter used hamexam.org for the preparation. If you create an account there it'll keep your statistics, showing the areas to study/memorize more.

Hey just because I lost on "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" doesn't mean, well, maybe it does. - LOL Just a little joke there. Like I said, I looked into a HAM Ticket back in the 80's, so I guess I am very outdated. The CW was always my biggest problem as I would sit with my neighbor who was a HAM guy, made all his own antennas some out of really weird stuff (some would consider trash). He could CW like crazy and would often have entire conversations that way - honestly it scared me away. I will look into the test requirements as indeed this may now be a solution to the problem. Thanks berkinet and Downs - Really like the way members help out here instead of just beating people up like on other boards.

Good News! The CW test is gone. Also, you don't need to know ohm's law, the relationship between frequency and wave-length, or anything about antennas. All you need to do is learn all the answers. For example, to get a tech license you must answer 26 questions correctly out of the 35 on the test. Those 35 questions are drawn from a pool of 423 publicly available questions. You just study the questions, take practice tests, and keep doing that until you can easily pass the practice tests. BTW, out of the 423 questions, maybe 25% are pretty much common sense, and another 25% make total sense once you see the answer. So, you really only have to work on less than 1/2 the questions. There are a lot of online resources, for free, and for fee. Good luck.

Hey SteveC7010 - I've been to Northville before. When I worked in Lake George and lived in Warrensburg my buddy brought me there to fish. Small world. I live in Florida now. axorlov, Corey and SteveC7010 - Thanks for the info and link. Took a practice test and for sure need to study as I didn't do very well but that didn't surprise me. Time for this old dog to go back to school - LOL

You are obviously making an assumption based on a collection of multiple posts I have made... and your assumption is wrong. Actually, the radio in question is rated for a 10% duty cycle; 6 minutes transmit, 54 minutes receive. And I mentioned using the radio in extreme use conditions as a cheap/easy means of detecting if the radio will stay within its maximum deviation. If they can have a 20 minute conversation and not hear any deviation, the radios are performing very well. If they don't get the full 6 minutes of transmit before hearing a deviation, then there is a problem. I said that BTechs are junk because I have owned several mobile radios that failed within days/hours of ownership. I never mentioned the models, how I used them or what their duty cycle is rated for. Just to be sure there is no confusion.... I had two UV-50x2's which are rated for 100% duty cycle to build poor man repeaters (also has all remote control features built into it for remote management). I was only using them as mobile ham radios with light-duty use. They both broke extremely quickly while used, literally, for initial testing and configuration. Both radios had less than 20 minutes of total transmit time. The reason I think the handhelds are junk is because they are built with cheap plastic that has basically zero impact resistance. Also the transmit audio quality is terrible. For the same price as the BTech, I can buy something like an iCom or another mainstream, amazing performer that is also durable. The fact that the BTech units drifted a bit after the duty cycle was exceeded was never a consideration in my opinion of the handhelds. If you had good luck... God bless you. I haven't. I think after using radio's for work, recreation, and working in Electronics and IT for 27+ years, I'm pretty well experienced enough to develop a opinion on what is junk. You are welcome to disagree and have your own opinions based on your experiences, but please don't put words in my mouth.

CW test hasnt been a thing for the past decade. There are online resources to take practice tests on. Many have used this route to simply learn the test without doing a lot of actual studying. Grade school children have passed the tech test easily. This is a 15 dollar solution to your problem. Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk

Agreed but I don't know Ohm's Law, how to do Morse Code or much technical about radios. I have been around CB's a lot even remember old issued call sign back when they did that. I looked into HAM back in the 80's but just didn't get all of it and would have never passed the CW test. Guess this is why the GMRS appealed to me when they made the license just a pay to play. I do think 2 meter would be fun though. I agree that the downside of asking first is once they have officially said no, you are totally out of luck. I have had a 30' tower up for 14 years with no issue but due to some construction had to take it down this morning. It will go back up but thought if I could I might just go to 50' but then may be questioned.