A little bit more training and a new licence or two. Part 5

Flushed with success and a shiny new Foundation M6 callsign we immediately began the Intermediate course, more practical work, a Chinese Pixie Kit bought, built and tested, sending Morse across a desk to another candidate is surprisingly good fun, possibly more fun than running lots of power into a well installed antenna system!

Suffice it to say, the course went well and I took the Intermediate test, along with another two candidates, on Sunday, 12th November 2017

Again preliminary indication was for a pass and sure enough, the pass letter came along in the post ten days later on the 22nd November so I logged into the OFCOM portal again and let it choose a callsign for me, this time 2E0EOA (a mouthful on 'phone, even worse in Morse, ..---  .  -----  .  ---  .-) 

Lesson learned, the next callsign will get some thought put into it. 

By this time confidence had set in and I began studying for the full licence, again with the RSGB book, Advance.

With North Cheshire, the full licence is self study (is it with all clubs?) and I'll be honest, I'm terrible at studying, I don't learn well from books, finding time to study was difficult, Christmas, kids, family commitments, medical things and work all got in the way so of course, feeling very unsure, I booked the exam, thinking that a target would motivate me. 

I really should know myself better by now.

Two weeks to the exam, panic!!

I know this stuff, I know all of it, I did a lot of this at college for City and Guilds Electronics but reading the book again, Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that, ooh, yes, I remember that now. Ohh, so that's what that meant.

One thing I realised from reading the book was just how much I had forgotten. 

Damn. 

Now I'm nervous.

Too late, David's booked the exam and no way am I going to waste the fee, worse, no way am I going to not take this exam, fail or pass, it will happen.

So, the day creeps ever closer and I find myself feeling less confident the more of the book I read, so, I closed the book to rely on what, if I let myself admit it, I already know.

Four days to go, a couple of online practice tests and they indicate a pass, not a good one but a pass all the same. 

I console myself with the knowledge that there's no mark given and a pass is a pass.

On the night? 

Two Hours, 62 questions, calculator, pen and pencil at the ready.

Most of the questions are fairly straightforward, I whizz through the ones that I know I know, then work back through the ones I'm not so sure of, surprisingly few of them, I whittle those down with the aid of the supplied reference materials and my calculator until I have one left, a resonance calculation which is, on my calculator, a pain. 

Finally decide the answer is correct, sign the paper and that's it, I'm done.

The wait, the worst yet, I was absolutely confident the Foundation and Intermediate were a pass, even before the preliminary assessment, but this one, I'm not sure and there's no reassuring indication from the invigilators so all I can do is wait for the official letter.

In the meantime I seek advice on choosing a callsign that's good for Morse and phone. 

Lots of opinions expressed, lots of advice and some comments along the lines of 'in my day, we had to eat gravel and be grateful' or something like that. 

I make myself a list of callsigns that look, to my untrained eye, 'good' in Morse and sound OK for 'phone.

The letter arrives,

PASS! With a merit too.

Seems my nerves were unnecessary.

So, now a callsign, OFCOM rejects the first eight and I run out of ideas, I resort to listening to random callsigns, choosing only letters which end with a dah for the last letter I finally end up with M0UAW, sounds pretty good in Morse too...

So, newly licensed, I went from no licence to full in a little over five months and now? 

Build the shack!