Would you like to become a HAM?
Cherryville Repeater Association II (W2CRA.org) – Hunterdon County’s amateur radio club – is a part of emergency management. It trains and draws upon licensed amateur radio operators to assist in times of emergencies and to help with community events. But mostly, it is a group of folks with a common interest helping one another to learn and enjoy two-way radio technology.
Periodically, several times per year, W2CRA, with the Flemington NJ W4VEC Team, offers amateur radio licensing examinations (commonly referred to as VE sessions. VE = volunteer examiner).
There are three levels (entry level, plus two advanced levels) of licensing classification: Technician, General and Amateur Extra, each requiring greater technical mastery, but conferring greater operating privileges. We offer all three testing levels.
We recommend several learning resources.
- Gordon West’s (WB6NOA) series of study guides. He offers three books – one each for Technician class, General class and Amateur Extra class. His books present the full question pool with answers, along with technical explanations of the material covered in the questions. As the question pools are updated every four years, be sure to purchase the correct edition covering the date of the exam you are preparing for. The current Technician class question pool will remain valid until June 30, 2026; the current General class question pool will remain valid until June 30, 2027; and the new Amateur Extra class question pool became valid starting July 1, 2024 and will remain valid until June 30, 2028.
- The full question pools with answers are also available from the ARRL website as free downloads. Here is the link: https://www.arrl.org/question-pools The examinations for each licensing class typically draw a sample of 35 to 50 questions from each of these question pools.
- Interactive practice exams are available at this link: https://hamstudy.org/
If you do not already have one, you will need to apply for and receive an FCC Registration Number (FRN) from the FCC before you come for the examination. This link will take you to an FCC instructional video that explains the process: https://www.fcc.gov/rofrn
For those upgrading or renewing, if you already have an FRN, but that predates FCC CORES and have not yet set up an FCC CORES account, you will need to do so in order to upgrade or renew. This link will take you to the FCC CORES site: https://www.fcc.gov/cores
As explained by the ARRL at https://www.arrl.org/cores-uls-registration (if you have not done so within the past year or so), you probably will need to register an updated CORES username with the FCC. The FCC CORES username registration site is: https://apps.fcc.gov/cores/userLogin.do The document at FCC site: https://apps.fcc.gov/cores/html/Commission_Registration_Instructions.pdf
should help you through the process. Or call FCC tech support at 877-480-3201 to talk you through the process.
Becoming a licensed amateur radio operator is an excellent opportunity to develop good radio communication skills that may be applied to service in the community. For many of us, it has turned out to be a very interesting and rewarding hobby as well.
Our next scheduled VE session
Cherryville Repeaters II (W2CRA) in conjunction with the W4VEC Volunteer Examiner Coordinator, will be administering our next amateur radio licensing examination (VE session) on Saturday August 2, 2025 in the Lower Level Meeting Room at the main branch of the Hunterdon County Library on Route 12 in Flemington NJ. The physical address is 314 Route 12, Building 3.
Pre-registration should be done on the https://HamStudy.org/ website. To find the Session with our W4VEC group, click on Find a Session. Choose W4VEC from the “From VEC” filter at the top of the page. Our next Flemington NJ W4VEC Team event should be posted. Choose the green 10:00 AM bar. Begin the “Register” process.
The VE exam session will begin at 10:00 am. All applicants must pre-register and obtain an FRN number from the FCC before taking the exam. All applicants must have a valid e-mail address. You may arrive early to begin the check-in process.
You will need your FRN number and identification, such as a driver’s license. For youths <18 years, an alternate form of photo id with address or a parental driver’s license showing your current address would be acceptable.
The fee for the examination is $12, preferably in cash. For this fee you may take exams for any or all of the licensing classifications – Technician, General, and Amateur Extra. You need to pass the Technician class exam, or already to be licensed at the Technician level to qualify for the General class exam. If you pass the exam and wish to, you may take the next higher level exam(s) during the session at no additional cost.
Similarly, you would need to pass the General level class exam, or already be licensed at the General level to qualify for the Amateur Extra class exam.
If you have a WiFi enabled laptop, please bring it to take your test. We will have additional laptops svailable if you don’t have a WiFi laptop. The testing and grading is done online with ExamTools. Use of browsers during the test is not permitted. Calculations must be performed on paper with a calculator.
If you are interested and/or have questions, please contact Mike Brown (W4VEC NJ Session Manager) at 908-892-3016.
W2CRA’s most up-to-date website is at https://www.w2cra.org/ You may need to enter this url directly into the url box of your browser to get to the current version of our site, which should open with color photo of our members operating Field Day 2023.
Pre-registration is requested to ensure a test slot, however, if you are planning to participate, a call to the Session Manager would be appreciated.