About Amateur Radio Licenses

• An FCC Amateur Radio License is required in order to legally transmit on amateur radio frequencies.
• You must pass an exam in order to earn an Amateur Radio License. The fee to take an exam is generally $14.00, and is paid to the Volunteer Examiners that administer your exam. After you pass the exam, you must pay a fee of $35.00 to the FCC before your license is issued or renewed. Your license is valid for 10 years. You do not need to take an exam to renew your license.
• Three classes of Amateur Radio Licenses are available: Technician, General, and Amateur Extra.
• A Technician class Amateur Radio License is the entry level license, and is sufficient for emergency communications. The Technician exam is not very difficult, and requires only a minimal amount of studying.
• Exams are offered online (using Zoom) or in-person. Most people find it more convenient to take their exam online.

Obtaining your Amateur Radio Licenses

• The AA7HW VE Team is a 501(c)(3) approved by the United States Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt, charitable organization. We are organized for the specific educational purpose of licensing new amateur radio operators and upgrading licenses of existing amateur radio operators.
• Three of the four Board Members of the AA7HW VE Team are Portland NET (Neighborhood Emergency Team) volunteers, and we are especially interested in helping NET volunteers and other CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) volunteers to obtain their Amateur Radio License.
• We generally recommend that you prepare for your exam using the HamStudy website. We recommend the Study Mode on the hamstudy.org website because this website customizes the study experience to the needs of the student, spending more time on the topics that are giving the student the most problems, and utilizing the students' time most effectively, while ensuring that the student receives practice on every question in the test question pool. However, we recognize that some people prefer to prepare using Books, Classes, or Videos.
• Please click here when you are ready to find and sign up for an exam session with our team of Volunteer Examiners. Please click here for more information about online exams.
• Please contact us if you have any comments or questions, or if you need assistance with studying or scheduling an exam. We are often able to schedule exam sessions at your convenience (evenings or weekends) if our schedule does not meet your requirements.