Larry, KDØRIU, at the far end of the table, teaching Section 5, Radio Signal and Equipment.
Of the seven students that attended the 2025 SFTARC’s General-Class upgrade course, four upgraded to General-class on Saturday, Feb 22, and one upgraded about a week later. Congratulations! Jim Lee’s W5YI group once again conducted the testing session that went very smoothly. Two of the students already had General Class licenses and were sitting in the class as a review.
The seven weeks of Saturday-morning instruction, following the ARRLs General Class License Manual, were conducted at the Olathe Salvation Army building by five SFTARC instructors. Bob Davidson, KFØAUI, joined the instructor team this year and was the primary instructor for the first two classes. That instruction was followed by Larry Hall, KDØRIU, George McCarville, WBØCNK, Greg Wolfe, KIØKK, and Jim Andera, KØNK, taking the class through all 9 chapters in the book. Plus, there was a bonus Math Review in the first class. A lot of student-instructor interaction made the sessions enjoyable and successful. Students had the opportunity to put their hands on electronic components, observe digital communications taking place and “see electricity” in the form of RF modulation as it appears on an oscilloscope.
Digital Modes, in Chapter 6, was taught by Greg, KIØKK, with visual aids provided by remotely connecting to his station at home.
Then on February 22, the eighth session, the exam was administered. Following the exam, a “Practical Considerations” presentation was given by the instructors to help answer some of the 1001 questions a ham has when they upgrade to General Class and look to setting up a HF station. Topics covered in the Practical-Considerations presentation ranged from radios and antennas to the different styles of HF QSOs to QSL cards and Logbook of the World.
The instructors, the students that took the exam, as well as the W5YI volunteer team, enjoy a few moments of relaxation at the completion of the exams. George, WBØCNK, is taking the picture.
A thanks goes out to everyone who supported the class, including Marty, KEØPEZ, who ordered the ARRL manuals and jumped into action to get the order (that got delayed in shipping) to be delivered just-in-time. Rick Nichols often dropped by with cookies to help keep the class energized and George provided the coffee. And we are most appreciative of the Salvation Army for providing classroom space for the eight weeks.
We believe this is the 35th consecutive year that the SFTARC has been teaching ham-radio classes. And we take pride in the fact that these SFTARC classes strive to teach the subject matter, rather than just the exam’s questions and answers. Our overall goal is to allow the students to build a good foundation on which to grow their learning as they move forward with amateur radio.
