Being straight with you: we do not run licence courses. We are a new club and we have not got the tutors for it yet. What we can do is the other half of the job — the part that a course does not cover and that most people find harder.
Passing the Foundation exam is genuinely not difficult; there is a good free course online and thousands of people get through it every year. What stops people is what comes afterwards. The licence arrives, and then you are sitting at a kitchen table with a radio you are not sure how to programme, an aerial you are not sure is legal, and nobody to ask whether the noise you can hear is interference or just how it sounds. That is the bit we are good for.
Getting licensed, in three steps
Step one
Do the course
Essex Ham runs a free Foundation course online: nine modules, videos, notes and a tutor to ask, over about three weeks. More than sixteen thousand people have been through it. There is a £6 option if you would rather start today than wait for the next intake.
Step two
Sit the exam
Book it yourself through the RSGB and sit it at home, on your own computer, with an invigilator watching over the webcam. You do not need a club to book, you do not need to travel, and you pick the date.
Step three
Claim your callsign
Your pass reaches Ofcom in about six working days. Then you open an Ofcom account, choose your own callsign — Foundation ones start M7 — and download the licence. Ten minutes, and it is yours for good.
RSGB exam fees at the time of writing: Foundation £35.50, Intermediate £39.00, Full £45.00, or £95.00 to go straight to Full. Check the RSGB page for the current figure before you book.
What we can actually help with
All of it free, all of it from members who were where you are not that long ago, and none of it requiring you to join first.
- Which radio to buy first. Come and ask before you spend anything. Twenty pounds of bad advice on the internet costs more than a hundred pounds of good advice at a club night, and we will tell you honestly when the cheap handheld is the right answer.
- Getting it programmed. Bring the radio and the cable to a meeting and somebody will sit down with you and the software until the local repeaters are in the memories and you know how to add more.
- An aerial that fits your house. A garden the size of a parking space, a rented flat, or a neighbour with opinions — none of it is fatal. Most of us have solved some version of it and will tell you what actually worked rather than what the magazine says.
- Your first transmission, with somebody sitting next to you. This is the one people are quietly nervous about, and the one nobody admits to. Come to the net, or come to a meeting and use the club radio, and you will get it over with in five minutes.
- Borrowing before buying. Where we can, we will lend you something to try so you find out what you enjoy before you commit money to it.
- The exam itself. If the online course leaves you stuck on something — Ohm’s law, the licence conditions, why the SWR matters — ask. Somebody here will explain it in a way that lands, and we can talk you through what the remote exam is actually like on the day.
- After Foundation. Intermediate and Full are the same route: study, book, sit it at home. We will point you at the right books and answer the questions the books leave hanging.
Would you rather do it in a room, with people?
Some people learn much better that way, and we are not going to pretend an online course suits everyone. Two honest answers:
- The RSGB keeps a list of clubs that run taught courses, and there are several within reach of Salisbury. Tell us what you are after and we will point you at the nearest one that is actually running — no hard feelings if you learn with them and come and drink tea with us.
- If four or five of you want a Foundation course here, say so. That is roughly the number that makes it worth finding a tutor and putting a course on, and it is how most club courses start. Email the Secretary and we will keep a list.
Meanwhile, the offer stands as it is: come to a meeting or find us on the air, bring whatever is confusing you, and ask. That costs nothing and you do not have to be a member.
Questions about any of this: secretary@g5srs.co.uk.
Anyone under 18 is welcome at meetings with a parent or guardian, who stays for the evening. Our safeguarding policy is on the documents page.