Cramming for the test
… or “How not to to study for your licence”.
Disclaimer: Since I’m in a rush and the language in which I’m studying is German I apologize for words/phrases, that I couldn’t properly translate.
You remember my article on how to study for your ham licence? Well…due to Corona the test was canceled. Since there was no new date and the numbers weren’t looking good I used my time wisely and stopped studying.
Fast forward two months, the test is…in 16 days!
This will be one big post that I will (regularly) write a log till to the test.
My plan is:
- 18 - 21.2: Study Law
- 22 - 25.2: Study “Betriebstechnik”
- 26.2 - 02.3: Study Engineering (28th is study-free)
- 03 - 06.3: Recap (3rd is study-free)
A good tool I used to memorize was AnkiDroid (F-Droid). In order to use it efficiently I want to share a few tips.
- Format your cards. It makes a difference!
- Structure your decks in subdecks of topics. But also study the main deck, where questions are mixed
- When you answer incorrectly, don’t just swipe to the next answer, but try to answer correctly (loudly), while looking at the answer (later just peeking at it).
- If there are cards that really bug you, don’t hesitate to “pause” them. Just don’t forget to unpause them later on (with enough time to memorize them)
- If you notice, that you’re drifting of, while answering questions, take a short break.
Structure
Before the date for the test got canceled I invested a lot of time in making a good set of Anki cards. These cards were structured in subsets, to make the studying more bite sized.
- Law (66 question)
- AF-Bewilligung (14 q)
- Behörden (22 q)
- CEPT (7 q)
- Definition (9 q)
- Funkverkehr (11 q)
- Betriebstechnik (79 q)
- Basiswissen (17 q)
- Betriebsarten (10 q)
- Diverses (6 q)
- Notverkehr (4 q)
- Rechtliches (12 q)
- Wellenausbreitung (29 q)
- Engineering (105 q)
- Subsets 1 - 7 (different size)
Learning off by heart
Some things can’t be explained, but simply need to be learned off by heart. Key is to regularly review. If possible I’ll review a few times a day, maybe only for 5 Minutes at a time.
Law
- Definitions (ITU, ITU-R, Internationaler FMV, Radio Regulations, Radiocommunications Bureau, Amteurfunkdienst)
- Prices for AFU (probably won’t come)
- Penalties
Betriebstechnik
- Q-Codes
- Bands - Frequencies
- Country codes
Engineering
- Antennas (subdeck 7)
Diary
18. February - Law 1
Today I made a rough plan (which is this post).
After that I went through my notes and the script, which I bought. It helped me remembering things, getting an overview and memorizing the first/easy answers.
Lastly I started studying with AnkiDroid. I studied the questions AF-Bewilligung, CEPT, Definition. Behörden was skipped deliberately, to ease back into studying and to finish on a good emotion.
My feeling is, that it went well and I still remember quite a few things.
19. February - Law 2
During the day I found out, that on two days I’ll have a little less time to study.
Some cards from “Behörden” bugged me, so I decided to “pause” 5 cards. That way I could study the rest of the cards in that category.
Apart from these 5 cards I finished all cards of the category Recht. So I started studying ahead and begun memorizing Q-Codes. For that I reset the progress of all cards in the Q-Codes deck. And it was good, that I did that, because there were quite a few Codes, that I have forgotten. Because of that I decided to reset the progress of the categories Betriebstechnik and Engineering too.
After going through the Q-Codes I decided to read the next chapter of my script (Betriebstechnik).
20. February - Law 3 & Betriebstechnik 1
My Plan for today was:
- Finish Law
- Start Betriebstechnik
- End with Q-Codes
After answering all cards of Law I read through my script of Betriebstechnik. Then I started answering the deck.
Luckily I’m ahead of schedule. It turns out I should have given more time to Betriebstechnik and yet more time to Engineering, since they have ~16% and ~100% more questions, than Law.
Most of my studying was flashcards. When I got tired I took 5 Minute power breaks.
As I was getting tired I made more and more breaks. In between breaks (;-)) I renewed the card limit to study 5 new cards each session. I managed to answer over 50% of the deck (43 cards).
In the end I studied the Q-Codes as planned.
21. February - Betriebstechnik 2 (Law 4)
My plan for today was:
Noon:
- Law (of the day) [~20% Mature, ~70% Young] and
- Q-Codes
Evening:
- Finish Betriebstechnik (saw every card at least once)
- More Q-Codes
- Learning things off by heart (Band plans)
The Noon worked as planned. In the evening I didn’t manage to see all cards of the Betriebstechnik deck (11 cards where missing). I decided to study the bands and skip Q-Codes.
I made a little table to memorize the bandplan
| Band | Begin | End |
|---|---|---|
| 160m | 1,81 | 1,95 |
| 80m | 3,5 | 3,8 |
| 40m | 7 | 7,2 |
| 20m | 14 | 14,35 |
| 10m | 28 | 29,7 |
| 6m | 50 | 52 |
| 2m | 144 | 146 |
| 0,7m | 430 | 440 |
| New Bands | ||
| 30m | 10,10 | 10,15 |
| 17m | 18,068 | 18,168 |
| 15m | 24,89 | 24,99 |
22. February - Betriebstechnik 3 & Engineering 1
Plan for today was:
- Attend meeting
- Finish Betriebstechnik
- Start Engineering
After listening to the meeting (longer than planned) I started answering all the “old” questions, so questions, that I couldn’t answer in the last days. Then I finished the missing questions of Betriebstechnik.
Since it was already quite late I chose to answer a few Q-Codes, before reading through the Engineering scriptp . I did not answer any flashcards of the Engineering deck.
23. February - Engineering 2
Plan for today:
- Finish reading the Engineering script
- Study engineering flash cards
- Learn frequencies off by heart
I flew through the script, eager to start the flash cards. When finished I decided to start with engineering. Normally I go through the other chapters first. Instead I answered ~5 questions per subdeck and then went to the other decks (Law and Betriebstechnik).
At least that was the plan. After getting stuck in subdeck 4 i decided to use the remaining time recap the other decks. This took so long, that I didn’t manage to get to number 3 of my plan. But that’s life!
24. February - Engineering 3
Plan:
- Recap all cards Ankidroid offers me
- Continue Engineering
- Learn frequencies off by heart
The recap went quite well. A few questions reminded me to study the “off by heart” category too.
After studying Engineering I’ve seen all cards of subdecks 1-3. I still have ~70 unseen cards. Which means engineering will surely be my bottleneck.
I didn’t get very far with the frequencies.
The day wasn’t as good as expected, but not that bad either.
25. February - Engineering 4
Plan:
- Recap suggested cards
- Continue Engineering (min. 15 new cards)
- Learn frequencies off by heart
Since I still have ~70 unseen cards and 10 days left I chose to set a goal to clear unseen cards. I decided to skip Law, because I was quite slow with Betriebstechnik. After studying through the subdecks of Engineering, I’ve got 49 unseen cards left.
Then I studied Law. Unfortunately I didn’t manage point 3 again.
26. February - mock exam and recap
Today I listened to a few mock exams. I noted the questions and significant parts of the answer. Later I moved the questions of engineering to a new subdeck. 10 of the 22 cards were unseen.
Since I just heard them I decided to study through all of them. Then I recapped suggested cards
27. February - recap + mock exam + Engineering 5
In my lunch break I recapped Law and Betriebstechnik. Then I made a list of questions I marked as important:
| Category | Number | Question |
|---|---|---|
| Law | 11 | Welche FA sind bewilligungspflichtig, welche Bewilligungen gibt es? |
| Law | 14 | Ein Organ der Fernmeldebehörde will ihre FA überprüfen, was haben sie zu tun? |
| Law | 18 | Def. Amateurfunkdiest |
| Law | 37 | Nennen sie einige Verwaltungsstrabfestimmungen in Bezug auf den AF |
| Betriebstechnik | 25 | Welchen Zylken unterliegen die Ausbreitungsbedingungen auf Kurzwelle? |
| Betriebstechnik | 33 | Was versteht man unter einem Notverkehr, wie wird er angekündigt? (Ablauf) |
| Betriebstechnik | 47 | Begriffe: MAYDAY, SECURITEE, SILENCE MAYDAY, MAYDAY RELAY |
| Betriebstechnik | 50 | Wie wird ein Funkrufzeichen allgemein bzw. ein AFrufzeichen aufgebaut - nach welcher Vorschrift? |
| Betriebstechnik | 54 | Landeskenner von 5 Nachbarländern und 5 weiteren Ländern |
| Engineering | 01 | Ohmsches und Kirchhoffsches Gesetze |
| Engineering | 06 | Stromquellen (Kenngrössen) |
| Engineering | 11 | Serien- und Parallelschaltung von R, L, C |
| Engineering | 25 | Die Elektronenröhre - Aufbau, Wirkungsweise und Anwendung |
| Engineering | 28 | Hochspannungsnetzteil - Aufbau, Dimensionierung, Schutzmaßnahmen |
| Engineering | 29 | Welche Arten von digitalen Bauteilen kennen Sie ? - Wirkungsweise |
| Engineering | 37 | Zeichnen Sie das Blockschaltbild eines Überlagerungsempfängers |
| Engineering | 42 | Nichtlineare Verzerrungen - Ursachen und Auswirkungen |
| Engineering | 44 | Mikrofonarten, Wirkungsweise |
| Engineering | 45 | Prinzip und Kenngrößen der Einseitenbandmodulation |
| Engineering | 46 | Prinzip, Arten und Kenngrößen der Pulsmodulation |
| Engineering | 49 | Prinzip und Kenngrößen der Frequenzmodulation |
| Engineering | 50 | Prinzip und Kenngrößen der Amplitudenmodulation |
| Engineering | 62 | Antennenzuleitungen - Aufbau, Kenngrößen |
| Engineering | 64 | Dipol – Aufbau, Kenngrößen, Eigenschaften |
| Engineering | 67 | Strahlungsdiagramm einer Antenne |
| Engineering | 74 | Aufbau und Kenngrößen eines Koaxkabels |
| Engineering | 77 | Welche Kenngrößen von Antennen kennen Sie und wie können sie gemessen werden? |
| Engineering | 83 | Blitzschutz bei Antennenanlagen |
| Engineering | 84 | Sicherheitsabstände bei Antennen |
| Engineering | 98 | Definition Sendeleistung |
Following cards were buried for later:
| Category | Number | Question | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Law | 02 | Was ist die ITU? | |
| Law | 03 | Welchen Zweck verfolgt der internat. FMV? | |
| Law | 04 | Welche Aufgaben hat das Radiocommunication Bureau? | |
| Law | 06 | Was ist die Radio Regulations (VO-Funk), was regelt sie? | |
| Law | 17 | Welche Gebühren müssen als Funkamateur entrichtet werden? | |
| Law | 54 | Welche besonderen Aufgaben hat die ITU in Bezug auf Funkdienste und welche Ausschüsse sind dafür zuständig? | |
| Betriebstechnik | 03a | Q-Gruppen | I've got them elsewhere |
| Betriebstechnik | 04 | Sie wollen, dass Ihre Gegenstation die Sendeleistung vermindert. Welche Q-Gruppe verwenden Sie? | I've got it elsewhere |
| Betriebstechnik | 40 | Nennen Sie die konkreten Frequenzbereiche, die dem Amateurfunkdienst in den jeweiligen Frequenzbändern zugewiesen sind (5 Beispiele) | In off by heart list |
In the evening i listend and took a mock exam myself. I aced it, which gave me a confidence boost. But especially with Engineering I was lucky with the questions I got.
As I did yesterday I made notes of the questions and moved them to the according subdeck adding 4 new questions. Afterwards I recapped Engineering.
1. March
Yesterday wasn’t much time to study. I studied a bit in my lunchbreak.
Today’s plan is:
- Recap (whatever Anki offers)
- Study engineering subdeck
- Learn frequencies
After the recap and subdeck I wrote the paper flash cards for the penalties and for the Überlagerungsempfänger. I read the script about Empfänger and Sender.
2. March
- Question-Meeting
- Recap
At the videoconference I understood the use of a Mischer with it’s zwischenfrequenz. Unfortunately there was also lots of talking about topics I already understand.
I only had half an hour left to study the flashcards.
7. March
After the 2. March cramming got so intense, that I didn’t find time to add to this post. In the end I studied flash cards, attended courses, when they took place and took a mock exam.
The exam in itself went quite well. So as of 7. March I am officially licenced ham radio operator. I applied for the callsign OE1DVD.