Quick Version

The TLDR (Too Long Didn’t Read) version:

(Took about about 4-weeks for the study process & 3-hours for the tests)

1. Buy the following books
2. Synchronize the Audible audiobook and the Kindle Book 
3. Increase speed to 1.5x
4. Do every test after every chapter.
5. Take both the Technician and General Tests on the same day. (1-Day!!!)
6. Boom done! 🙌

Full Story

My kids have a very busy schedule. My wife and I are effectively shuttle bus drivers for our children. what I have found though is that I have a little bit of downtime while the children are in their activities.

Whether it’s gymnastics, taekwondo, soccer, piano or some other activity, I usually have 30-mins to an hour or so to myself, but it must be portable.

At the same time I wanted to get my Technician license.  I started by ordering the books you see on this page.  These are great books, they really are, it turns out I just suck at reading them and needed something a bit more focused that would allow me to inhale information fast so that I could take my Technician exam.

In the beginning the book approach was very slow going, I have insomnia and tend to pass out while reading.  So you can imagine how fast I’d be able to take my test.  

I was excited, stated digging into the ARRL website to find a testing location nearby and soon.  I found one site that was giving a test 1-month away so I reached out and schedule my Amateur Radio Technician License exam.

The generous fellow who I’d been in contact with mentioned that I could take both the Technician and General at the same time if I liked. I put that thought to the side given my  slow progress in study.

Progress was so slow though, I need to find a faster way. I started looking on Amazon for an audiobook version of the ARRL manual and I came across the Fast Track books by Michael Burnette. So I went ahead and ordered one of them.  It was the kindle version and frankly was a lot more totable than the book ARRL version.  Again I began to read but found it was slow going, so I found out that there is an Audible companion Audiobook. I was sold and downloaded the book immediately. It turns out that the Kindle and Audible version are linked so that you can play the audio version while watching the words in the Kindle version highlight as I progressed.  I soon found that I could increase the speed of the spoken text to 1.5 and I was zooming through the content.  I was able to inhale 4 weeks worth of content in about 2 and cram it in my head.  

Now I had a problem. I have 2 weeks till my test, so what did I do?  I went ahead and purchased the General Fast Track book and began jamming. Again I finished the content in 2 weeks and had a few days extra to cram for the tests.  All the while I was studying I would take the prctice tests. 

this gave me the confidence to take and pass both the Technician and General tests on the same day!  I told myself that if I passed the General, I would go ahead and try the Extra exam as well.  This was funny, because I got over 50% correct and the was thinking if I had just a few more days I probably could have passed, but General is good enough for me right now!  I barely have time to play radio while taking the kids abound! But now I have a shiny new ID-5100 from Icom in my vehicle and a few HT’s to play with in between the sessions.