Ham Cram Results

Let's just say I was expecting and hoping for better results and leave it at that.  I drove home Saturday afternoon disappointed and a bit depressed.  It's hard on the instructors when candidates fail to pass the license exam. In my case, I immediately wonder, "What more could I have done?"  My personal problem is that, since I love Amateur Radio so much, I assume that every one in the class wants their license as badly as I wanted mine. So when they fail, I tend to internalize the blame.

But there was a clear division between the two camps. There were the people who wanted their license and actually studied the material diligently and there were the others who may have cracked open the license manual once or twice, if at all.  Listening to some of the comments from the folks who didn't pass, I was surprised at how little they applied themselves.

Let's face it, the Technician Class license exam is not the hardest exam in the world, but you DO have to study and you DO have to want it. Going to class because your good friend talked you into it; or because your supervisor thinks it would be a good thing to have a license is not good enough.  There has to be some personal motivation driving the effort.  As my RACES Bureau Chief said to me as we were leaving the building, "Just remember Lar, you can lead a horse to water; but you can't make him drink".  He's 1000% correct, but maybe there's more we can do to make drinking more enticing.

So where do we go from here?  While I am still wary of the Ham Cram process, I am willing to give it another shot.  I still think the full blown eight week class concept works better, but I do realize that less than perfectly motivated people are busy and have lives, and are not willing to give up that much time from their busy schedules.  I think with a couple of tweaks, the Ham Cram route can be a successful one.

Two changes in particular that I would like to make:

1) Ahead of the next "home study cycle", I would like an accurate head count of all the participants.  I would like to order their ARRL license manuals ahead of time and have a meeting with the candidates BEFORE the front cover of the manual is even opened.  I would like to take that opportunity to hand them their manuals, study guides and point blank tell them, "If you fail to study over the next month, or wait until the last minute to study, past experience indicates that you will not pass the exam."  I think it needs to be impressed upon the candidates how important the home study portion of this process is; and that without it, there's really no point in continuing on.  It would also be an excellent opportunity for Marv and I to introduce ourselves and give the students our contact information - so if they have any difficulty whatsoever, they know there's someone they can reach out to for help.

At that same meeting, there's an excellent video on Amateur Radio that we use for the first session of our eight week class sessions, that I would like to show. It comes in two versions, one 30 minutes long, the other an hour. Both go into a lot of the "fun" aspects of the hobby.  For those who are getting a license just for CERT and EMCOMM purposes, if they see the fun they can have once they're licensed, I'm willing to bet that it might be easier to get them to take a good, long drink.

I know that time is precious, but between handing out the manuals and study guides and then giving a little pep talk and then showing the video, we can keep that introductory meeting to less than 90 minutes.  I am coming to believe that this may be a crucial step in the process. If you're not willing to come to a meeting to get your manual and get a little pre-home study guidance, there isn't really a point with continuing on, is there?

2) A change of the Ham Cram review material. We used the W9PE Power Point last Saturday.  While it is complete and comprehensive and very good, I think it is more geared to the prospective Ham who is into getting a license for the hobby aspect of it.  I was given a Power Point produced by Alan Wolke W2AEW of YouTube Ham Radio videos fame.  His presentation is ideal for presenting to those who are coming to the Amateur Radio world from the First Responder world.  It is more visually appealing with lots of graphics; and as a result, I think it will be more successful.

I think if we make these two changes, our next Ham Cram venture will be more successful.  Now all I have to do is pitch this to the "Powers That Be".

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Ham Cram

This coming Saturday, Marv K2VHW and I will be attempting our first one day "Ham Cram". Normally, we conduct Technician License classes over an eight week period, one evening a week for two hours with self study in between sessions.

The group that requested this did not want to go that route.  With the unpredictable winter weather that we have been having, that's understandable. Instead of the usual routine, we composed a "Technician Class Self Study Guide" which was issued to all the prospective candidates a month ahead of time.  We broke down the ARRL License Manual into four manageable chunks. We also provided links to appropriate You Tube videos, as well as other on line resources to accompany the material in the manual.

The session on Saturday will start at 8:00 AM and will break for a one hour lunch period at Noon. We will continue on to about 3:30 PM with exams following at 4:00 PM.  The half hour in between will be used to fill out 605 forms and all the other necessary paperwork.

Marv and I will be "going boldly, where we have never gone before"!

Wish us, and our candidates luck!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Long night

Last evening, I finished the last two of four FEMA courses on the Incident Command System (ICS) and the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the National Preparedness Framework (NPF) that I needed to take for an Auxiliary Communications Workshop being held in October.

Description:

This class is designed for those auxiliary emergency communicators and groups who volunteer to provide backup emergency radio communications support to public safety agencies. Typically, this includes amateur radio and Radio Emergency Associated Communications Team (REACT) communicators, but may include other volunteer emergency communicators.

Volunteer emergency communications operators/groups, using amateur radio, have been providing backup communications to public safety for nearly 100 years. Event planners, public safety officials, and emergency managers at all levels of government utilize their services. Often, amateur radio services have been used when other forms of communications have failed or have been disrupted. Today, nearly all the states/territories have incorporated some level of participation by amateur radio auxiliary communication operators into their TICPs and SCIPs.

This course focuses on auxiliary communications interoperability, the relationship between the COML and the volunteer, emergency operations center (EOC) etiquette, on-the-air etiquette, FCC rules and regulations, auxiliary communications training and planning, and emergency communications deployment. It is intended to supplement and standardize an operator’s experience and knowledge of emergency amateur radio communications in a public safety context.

It's a two day event, held over the weekend of October 24th and 25th at the Middlesex County Fire Academy.  Looks to be interesting. My registration was received and accepted pending my sending in the certificates of completion, which I sent in this morning.

The FEMA courses were comprehensive in scope. Each was designed to be completed in about 3 hours and I came in slightly under that amount of time - maybe two and a half hours or two hours and forty five minutes each.

I crammed two in last night (which wasn't wise) as each evening for the rest of this week is booked with other activities. I was pretty bleary eyed for that last exam, but was pleased when I got the e-mail that I passed.

FEMA offers a lot of free, on-line independent study courses.  You can look them up at https://training.fema.gov/is/crslist.aspx?all=true

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!

2014 SET

This is the weekend for the 2014 SET - Simulated Emergency Test.  Are you and/or your club participating?

 

The South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club - SPARC, will be!

We are going to meet tomorrow at 10:00 AM at out EOC.  Once there, I will hand out scripts to the "players" who will be dispatched at various sites around town.  Basically, without giving away too much (some SPARC members actually read this blog - can you believe it?) we will be providing backup communications for the town as the result of a major natural disaster, including but not limited to, the manning of the regional shelter that is located in our town.

Each ARES/RACES member will receive an individualized script and will be directed, at specific times during the drill, to call the NCS and report a "situation". What is NOT scripted is the follow up actions and communications that will flow as a result of the reporting of the "situation".  NCS has no idea of what he will be called about - the following communications will be dealt with as the circumstances dictate.

Right now, the script is still evolving and won't be finalized until tonight. This is when I should have a very good idea as to how many SPARC members will be participating in the drill tomorrow.  Since tomorrow is Yom Kippur, some of our members will be unable to attend. I don't want this to be a boring, tedious drill. I want our members to actually do some communicating, and we will see where we go from there.

My part in all of this?  I will sit in the EOC and will play the role of ICS, throwing some curveballs to the NCS as well. This should be interesting.  

In addition, I will be looking for a volunteer to send a report of or activity to our Section Manager, our Section Emergency Coordinator, and our County ARES and RACES chiefs via NTS. (I would do it myself, but I'm taking the XYL out for dinner tomorrow night - today is our wedding anniversary!) This should be a good learning experience for some of our members who haven't has much experience with NTS. Instead of sending it as book traffic, maybe I can get four volunteers to send one message each.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!