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Comment by apaprocki | Hacker News Reader

Are you in the US? There is no requirement to join a club to take the test or study for one. There’s an excellent iOS training app (written by Patrick J Maloney), and after using that for two weeks (e.g., during commute) you’d likely pass with no issue.

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Interesting, but no, I'm in the UK. We can sit a theory test online I believe, but there's a practical test you have to pass first, which it seems can only be done through clubs.

I would check with the club. Most tests in the US are administered by clubs, but you don't hav to join them to take it.

You can get the foundation with 2x 1hr visits to a local club. They absolutely don’t want you to do this, they really want you to join but it’s possible.

I got my foundation in 2015, 10watts even in a solar minimum Like just now is plenty.

I have a wire fan dipole strung up around inside my loft and i can do everything i want to on 40m band or above.

I’ve had untold hours of fun with gnu radio and a hackrf.

> You can get the foundation with 2x 1hr visits to a local club. They absolutely don’t want you to do this, they really want you to join but it’s possible.

I know it's silly but it's exactly the prospect of this awkward situation which is stopping me doing it. I can't bring myself to be saying to some old timer: I'm interested in this hobby, you're clearly interested, very knowledgeable and keen to share, but actually I just want to do the test and do my own thing thanks.

Not to mention I suspect every single member of my nearest club is about to be subject to an over 70s isolation policy.

I joined a university club to do the test even though I'm not a student. It might be worth seeing if a local university has a club that would be happy to help you?

As a ham who got licensed at 12 here in the states, I'd encourage you to fight the social element and give it a go... I had mixed feelings about it but it ended up being interesting to learn everything in a classroom style setting.

The hobby itself is huge, from talking locally, digital modes that are available under the signal to noise ratio (basically talking to people under the static around the world) and being in the UK, you could use the geostationary satellite and talk to anyone from UK to south africa, brazil and the middle east with very little effort. (https://eshail.batc.org.uk/nb/)

Check out https://www.essexham.co.uk/ they're pretty 'modern' as I understand it and could point you in the direction of a more local test session.

I've actually been tempted to spend a few weeks visiting a friend there and take the UK foundation course just to get my UK license for the added challenge ;) I used my US license over in Amsterdam when I was there over the summer.

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