Licenses

High-water marks for Extra, General, and Tech - I'm still not on board with the hobby is dying crowd. Novice and Advanced can only go down - deaths, expirations.

Month	Extra	Advanced	General	Technician	Novice	ARS Total
Oct-15	139,309	48,631	172,276	361,564	11,104	732,884

Source

Amateur Extra

Well, I had a somewhat arbitrary goal of getting my Extra license before the current exam expired. Since I've not cracked a book in months, I'll miss that target. Too much three year old and too much running to have time for studying... maybe this winter.

Everything You Need to Be a Ham

Paul, AE5JU, posts his list of everything you need to know to get your ticket:

Go to this site:

http://www.w5ddl.org/

And on the left side you will see links to Classroom Presentations (in
PowerPoint) for Tech and General, as well as links to practice exams for Tech,
General, and Extra class. If you don't have PowerPoint, there is a link for a
free PowerPoint Viewer.

In each of those two links you will find both the separate chapters, as well as
a zip file containing all of the chapters.

Here is another site with classes:

http://www.rarchams.org/class/technician/chartsppt09/index.htm

There are also courses of study that may be subscribed to at:

http://www.hamtestonline.com

(NOTE- When you print out these guides, yes, print them... take a Magic Marker and black out all the wrong answers. This way you study only the correct answers and everything else looks unfamiliar. Seriously, print, black out, study. Just take my word for it and do it.)

Study Guides - right click on these links and Save As:

Tech:
http://www.kb6nu.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/2010_Tech_Study_Guide.pdf
General:
http://www.ncvec.org/page.php?id=358
Extra:
http://abacus.nmsu.edu/~shoran/PDF/Extra%20Class%20Amateur%20Radio%20Course.pdf
http://www.arrl.org/files/file/Instructor%20resources/ExtraClassSylalbus2009jan-\AD7FO.pdf
http://w5jck.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=28
http://www.nyc-arecs.org/2008-2012%20Extra%20Study%20Guide.pdf
http://kb6nu.com/extra-class-easypass-how-everybody-can-be-an-extra/


Podcasts:
http://hamradioclass.com/
http://hamradioclass.com/shownotes/

Practice Tests:
http://www.qrz.com/ham/
http://www.radioexam.org/
http://aa9pw.com/radio/
http://www.eham.net/exams/
http://www.w8mhb.com/exam/
http://www.hamtestonline.com
http://hamexam.org/

Testing Locations
http://www.w5yi-vec.org/exam_locations_ama.php
(Search by State)

http://www.arrl.org/arrlvec/examsearch.phtml
(Search by State, Country, or Zip Code)