In the United States, amateur radio licensing is governed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Licenses to operate amateur stations for personal use are granted to individuals of any age once they demonstrate an understanding of both pertinent FCC regulations and knowledge of radio station operation and safety considerations. There is no minimum age for licensing; applicants as young as five years old have passed examinations and were granted licenses.Girl Hams It Up for the World: Ham radio: At 5, she's maybe the youngest operator in U.S. Her mental skills are surprising.
Operator licenses are divided into different classes, each of which corresponds to an increasing degree of knowledge and corresponding privileges. Over the years, the details of the classes have changed significantly, leading to the current system of three open classes and three grandfathered (but closed to new applicants) classes.
Current license classes Amateur radio licenses in the United States are issued and renewed by the Federal Communications Commission. In 2022 the FCC began charging a Congressionally-mandated $35 administrative fee. Private individuals recognized through a Volunteer Examiner Coordinator (VEC) who administer the examinations may recoup their expenses by charging a fee in addition to the FCC's fee. Licenses currently remain valid for ten years from the date of issuance or renewal.
The entry-level license, known as Technician Class, is awarded after an applicant successfully completes a 35-question multiple choice written examination. The license grants full operating privileges on all amateur bands above 30 MHz and limited privileges in portions of the high frequency (HF) bands. The middle level, known as General Class, requires passage of the Technician test, as well as a 35-question multiple-choice General exam. General class licensees are granted privileges on portions of all amateur bands, and have access to over 83% of all amateur HF bands. However, some band segments often used for long distance contacts are not included. The top US license class is Amateur Extra Class. This license requires the same tests as General plus a 50-question multiple choice theory exam. Those with Amateur Extra licenses are granted all privileges on all US amateur bands. Each licensing class has its own set of possible exam questions called a question pool.ARRL page listing the current question pools The pools contain a few hundred questions each, divided into several sections. Each question in a section asks about radio or electronic theory, regulations, safety topics, or the meaning of diagrams or schematics. They are multiple choice, containing three wrong answers and one correct answer. To form an exam, a requisite number of questions are taken from each section of the question pool for which one is seeking a particular class, in random order, and with the four answers in random order. The passing percentage is 74, meaning one may miss up to 9 questions on each of the Technician or General exams, or up to 13 on the Amateur Extra exam. At many exam sessions, Volunteer Examiners may offer exams for all three license classes, so if someone desired, they could be eligible to be granted an Amateur Extra license in a single day, after answering 120 questions (and passing each class). Because of this nature of these published question and answer pools, it is also possible for an applicant not to know or understand radio, electronics, safety, etc., and just rote memorize the questions and the correct answers.
From February 17, 2015 onwards, the FCC stopped routinely sending paper copies of licenses to licensees (the official license being the FCC's electronic record). However, until December 2020, it would continue sending paper copies upon a licensee's request or a licensee could print it out online from the FCC's database. As of December 2020, the FCC no longer offers paper licenses for any amateur radio licensee, though users can still easily print paper copies and wallet cards from their online certifications.
Grandfathered license classes The FCC classifications of licensing have evolved considerably since the program's inception (see History of US amateur licensing, below). When the FCC made the most recent changes it allowed certain existing operator classes to remain under a grandfather clause. These licenses would no longer be issued to new applicants, but existing licenses may be modified or renewed indefinitely. The Novice Class operator license was for persons who had passed a 5 word per minute (wpm) Morse code examination and a basic theory exam. After the 1987 restructuring, privileges included four bands in the HF range (3–30 MHz), one band in the VHF range (30–300 MHz), and one band in the UHF range (300–3,000 MHz). This class was deprecated by the restructuring in 2000. Novice operators gained Morse code only privileges in the entire Morse code and data only segments of the General class portions of 80, 40, 15 and data and Morse code in the general section of 10 meters in 2007 just prior to the end of the Morse code requirement. The Advanced Class operator license, whose privileges closely match those of the General class license but included 275 kHz of additional spectrum in the HF bands, was deprecated by the restructuring in 2000. The Technician Plus Class was effectively introduced – though without a name – in 1990, when the requirement for Morse Code was dropped from the Technician Class. To comply with International Telecommunication Union regulations requiring Morse proficiency for working HF, Technicians were restricted to operating above 50MHz, but could gain access to the so-called Novice Class privileges (effectively getting what the Technician Class had before the change) by passing any of the contemporary Morse tests. In 1994, this was specifically separated out as a separate class, called Technician Plus. This class was deprecated by the restructuring in 2000.
Volunteer examiners Any individual, except for a representative of a foreign government, regardless of citizenship who wishes to apply for a US amateur radio license must appear before Volunteer Examiners (VEs); any person who qualifies by examination is eligible to apply for an operator/primary station license grant. VEs are licensed radio amateurs who conduct examination sessions, frequently through permanently established teams on a monthly or quarterly basis. VEs are governed by Volunteer Examiner Coordinators (VECs), organizations that "coordinate the efforts of Volunteer Examiners ... in preparing and administering amateur service operator license examinations." As of April 2021, the FCC recognizes 14 VECs. The two largest VEC organizations are W5YI-VEC, a privately held company, and one sponsored by the non-profit American Radio Relay League (ARRL). The ARRL VEC coordinates about two-thirds of all U.S. license examinations.
Prior to 1984, many Novice exams were administered by volunteers, but all other exams were taken at FCC offices. Some of the exam times were not always convenient for candidates, so a few exceptions were allowed in cases where candidates were physically unable to get to the field offices (such as the Conditional license, discussed elsewhere in this article).
In the 1950s and 1960s, Novice, Technician and Conditional exams were given by licensees acting as volunteer examiners. No Advanced and very few Amateur Extra exams were administered during this period, leaving the General exam as the only exam class regularly administered by the FCC.
The government's use of licensed amateur radio operators as voluntary examiners dates back to the founding of the Amateur Radio Service as a government-regulated entity in 1912 (Amateur Second Class licenses).
In March 2020 during the COVID Pandemic, the FCC authorized Video Supervised Remote Online Exams by PARC Radio & Technologyhttps://www.parcradio.org and NE1AR which became known as Remote Online Exams.
History of U.S. amateur licensing
Formation and early history Established in 1912, regulation of radio was a result of the U.S. Navy's concern about interference to its stations and its desire to be able to order radio stations off the air in the event of war.See FCC Docket 99-412, page 3 U.S. radio broadcasting was first governed by the U.S. Department of Commerce (the U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor until March 1913), then by the Federal Radio Commission, and finally (in 1934) by the FCC. The federal government's licensing of amateur radio experimenters and operators has evolved considerably over the century since the inception of licensing.
1912 through 1950
Under authority of the Radio Act of 1912, the Department of Commerce issued Amateur First Grade and Amateur Second Grade operator licenses beginning in December of that year.Friedman, Neil D., N3DF, "83 Years of U.S. Amateur Licensing," The AWA Review, Vol. 9 (1995) Amateur First Grade required an essay-type examination and five (later ten) words per minute code examination before a Radio Inspector at one of the Department's field offices. This class of license was renamed Amateur Class in 1927 and then Amateur First Class in 1932. Amateur Radio licensing in the United States began in mid-December 1912.
At first, the Amateur Second Grade license required the applicant to certify that he or she was unable to appear at a field office but was nevertheless qualified to operate a station. Later, the applicant took brief written and code exams before a nearby existing licensee. This class of license was renamed Temporary Amateur in 1927.
The Department of Commerce created a new top-level license in 1923, the Amateur Extra First Grade, that conveyed extra operating privileges. It required a more difficult written examination and a code test at twenty words per minute. In 1929, a special license endorsement for "unlimited radiotelephone privileges" became available in return for passing an examination on radiotelephone subjects. This allowed amateurs to upgrade and use reserved radiotelephone bands without having to pass a difficult code examination.
From 1912 through 1932, amateur radio operator licenses consisted of large and ornate diploma-form certificates. Amateur station licenses were separately issued on plainer forms.
In 1933, the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) reorganized amateur operator licenses into Classes A, B and C.
Class A conveyed all amateur operating privileges, including certain reserved radiotelephone bands. Amateur Extra First Grade licensees and Amateur First Class licensees with "unlimited radiotelephone" endorsements were grandfathered into this class. Class B licensees did not have the right to operate on the reserved radiotelephone bands. Amateur First Class licensees were grandfathered into this class. Class C licensees had the same privileges as Class B licensees, but took their examinations from other licensees rather than from Commission field offices. Because examination requirements were somewhat stiffened, Temporary Amateur licensees were not grandfathered into this class but had to be licensed anew.
In addition, that year the FRC began issuing combined operator and station licenses in wallet-sized card form.
During the First World War, licensing was suspended and amateurs were ordered to render their equipment inoperable. The military attempted to preserve this situation after armistice, though amateurs resisted and prevailed. During the Second World War, station licenses were again suspended, though operator licenses continued to be issued and renewed, which did allow hams to listen if not transmit, and rights were phased back in following the war's end.
1951 license restructuring In 1951, the FCC moved to convert the existing three license classes (A, B, and C) into named classes, and added three new license classes.