Foundation Amateur Radio Exam case studies
Foundation Amateur Radio Exam · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The Foundation Amateur Radio Exam is the entry-level UK amateur radio examination, run under the exams and training programme administered by the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB). It is designed for complete beginners: people with no technical background who want to get on the air, and younger candidates such as cadets and school groups, for whom a dedicated Foundation licence application route is published. The Foundation Amateur Radio Exam case studies are 5 cases and about 2,725 words.
1The 2 m Repeater and the Shared Antenna
A newly licensed Technician, Maya, lives in a town where the local 2 m repeater output is 146.940 MHz and its input is 146.340 MHz. She has a single dual-band vertical on the roof, a 50 W mobile transceiver, and a duplexer rated for 100 W.
608 words, about 3 min2The Dipole That Won't Load on 40 m
A General-class operator, Dev, builds a half-wave dipole for 40 m. He cuts each leg to 10.1 m, giving a total length of 20.2 m, and feeds it with 30 m of RG-58 coax.
517 words, about 3 min3The Overheating Transceiver During a Net
A station runs a 100 W HF transceiver in a small closet with the door closed. During a 90-minute emergency net the operator transmits in long SSB exchanges, sometimes 3–4 minutes at a time, with short listening breaks.
533 words, about 3 min4Choosing a Band for a Path That Won't Close
Two amateurs, one in the northeastern United States and one in the upper Midwest about 1,200 km away, want reliable evening contacts in mid-winter. They have been trying 80 m SSB at 21:00 local time and find the band noisy with weak signals and frequent fading.
547 words, about 3 min5The Mobile Install That Interferes With Itself
A ham installs a 2 m/70 cm mobile antenna on the trunk lip of a car using a lip mount, with the coax routed through the trunk and along the sill to the dash. The radio is a 50 W dual-band unit.
520 words, about 3 min