Amateur radio exam developments

| December 16, 2016

It has long been an aim of both the Radio Communications Foundation (RCF) and now the RSGB’s Examinations Standards Committee to be able to provide online amateur radio examinations.

The current exam system EMAS has proved to be an extremely reliable system since it was first introduced in July 2013.

However, a decision was made last year to investigate the potential benefits of online examination systems which could offer additional capabilities, such as online registration and statistical reports to analyse candidates’ results and the performance of individual questions.

After extensive investigation work by the Examinations Standards Manager, Ian Shepherd, G4EVK, a proposal was put to the RSGB Board to commence a ‘Proof of Concept’ exercise early in 2016.

That exercise took place over several weeks with the assistance of a number of radio clubs and existing radio amateurs, and proved to be successful.

We are now pleased to announce that the next phase of the project will be to carry out a pilot phase for online Advanced examinations based at radio examination venues.

The pilot phase will start mid-February 2017 with exams running from mid-March 2017.

We’ll announce further details early in 2017 regarding registering for the pilot phase and the equipment requirements for exam venues.

We appreciate that this option will not be for every one as many radio examination venues don’t have internet access.

In those cases the exam will still be available on paper.

The online Advanced examination will offer the same immediate, detailed feedback that is currently offered for the Foundation and Intermediate examinations.

As with all exams, the results will be confirmed by the Examinations Department approximately 10 days after the date of the exam.

If you have any questions about this pilot, please email online.exams@rsgb.org.uk.

Category: Front Page News, GB2RS Headlines