We’ve recently been contacted by an Intermediate callsign holder looking for ideas on finding a course to help him study for, and pass, his Full exam. Here are some of the ideas our team has suggested – in case these are helpful to others in similar situations:
The first suggestion is to try your local club(s) – they may offer a course or exam session, or they may know of a nearby club or amateur who’d be willing to help. See RSGB Club Finder
Next, I’d normally be quick to recommend the Bath-based Distance Learning Course, run by Steve Hartley G0FUW. Sadly at the time of writing (February 2020), the course is taking a break currently, as they are having to re-write their training material due to a recent change to the exam syllabus. If you’re not in a rush, you could wait until this course restarts.
Obviously, there is the RSGB’s book for the Full licence – this covers the entire syllabus, and you can study this at home as you see fit.
You could try other clubs further afield to see if they can help.
You could put out a message looking for help from a local amateur – you could perhaps use social media, and local amateur radio groups, forums, on-air nets, club newsletters, etc to ask locals if anyone’s willing to help.
You could consider studying with others – perhaps there are other people in a similar situation to you locally, and you could form a small study group to help each other study. Again, using social media or local resources could be helpful.
There are several YouTube videos out there covering the topics you’ll need to learn for the Full exam, so if there are areas you’re struggling with, you could try watching videos on those topics
As well as clubs, there are some independent tutors out there. Some of these are listed in the RSGB’s annual Yearbook, or you can get the details from the RSGB
You could try to find a local mentor. If the clubs near you don’t offer formal courses, perhaps one or more of their members would be happy to take you under their wing for some one-to-one coaching
You could try contacting your local RSGB representative to see if he/she knows anyone locally that might be able to help, or contact RSGB HQ, to see if they can help.
Hopefully at least one of the above ideas will be helpful. If you have any other tips, please add them as a comment below.
Good luck!
