Full Topic Study
Study the Full amateur radio licence exam one syllabus section at a time. Choose the sections to practise and see your accuracy in each.
What's on the Paper
- Licensing conditions and station identification: Message content and encryption, undue interference and clean transmitters, EMF assessments, and Schedule 1, including the Notice of Coordination.
- Technical aspects: Time constants, reactance and impedance, sampling and aliasing, transformers, crystals, Q, transistor amplifiers and switch-mode supplies, with resonance, Q and turns-ratio calculations.
- Transmitters and receivers: The largest section: modulation index, PLL and DDS synthesisers, PA linearity, unwanted emissions, dynamic range, superhets, SDR I/Q and transverters, including image-frequency sums.
- Feeders and antennas: Velocity factor, baluns, dipole lengths, feed-point impedance, SWR and return loss, and matching, including quarter-wave transformer calculations.
- Propagation: Inverse square law, E and H fields, circular polarisation, MUF and critical frequency, NVIS, moonbounce, auroral propagation, galactic noise and link budgets.
- Electromagnetic compatibility: Blocking, cross-modulation and intermodulation, IF and image interference, filters and ferrites, RF bonding, balanced antennas, mobile installations, complaints and field-strength calculations.
- Good operating practices and procedures: Split operation, interference testing, the 5 MHz and 472 kHz band plans, operating abroad under CEPT and HAREC, and the ITU regions.
- Safety: Lethal voltages, PME earthing, live working, ICNIRP exposure guidance, lightning, mobile and outdoor hazards, risk assessment, insurance and generators.
- Measurements and construction: Meter shunts and multipliers, frequency accuracy, PEP, SWR meters, oscilloscopes and spectrum analysers, with dB, dBW, dBm and dBV calculations.