As soon as I decided that amateur radio was likely going to be a hobby I would enjoy, I ordered a study guide to help me learn what I needed to know for the Amateur Radio Operator Certificate exam. The study guide that I chose was the Canadian Amateur Radio Basic Qualification Study Guide, 9th Edition, published by Coax Publications.
I ended up ordering this book through Radioworld, and they included a nice little flyer that welcomed me to the hobby and offered various discounts for first-time hams that order a radio and associated equipment from their store.
It took me about 2 weeks to read through the study guide, cover to cover. Some things I remembered from high school-level math and physics, and other things I learned from scratch. Topics covered include physics, electronics, antennas, proper operation of radios, radio components, regulations, safety, and many other things. I enjoyed reading through the book, as it wasn't too heavy or technical, but didn't skimp on technical details when required. If you need a refresher on high school-level math and physics, there are appendices to help you brush up.
One thing I found distracting about the book was the frequency of grammatical or typographical errors. Normally you would expect maybe 5 or so such errors in a book, but I feel like I found about 5 per chapter. If a proof-reader were to read the book once through, they would have easily spotted such errors, and they could have been corrected before publication. Other than those type of errors, the book seemed pretty accurate on technical details, as far as I could tell.
Once I had finished the book, I spent about a week writing the practice exams on the Industry Canada website. I found these very helpful for improving my score. I wrote the practice exam a total of 16 times and saw a steady improvement in scores. When I wrote the actual exam yesterday, I got a higher score than I did on any of my practice exams! I would highly recommend the practice exams, because all the questions are from the same pool that the real exam uses.
The practice exam is especially useful for mastering trick questions. I found that there were a surprising number of trick questions on the exam. An answer you choose might end up being wrong, just because of careful wording of the question, or double negatives, or the same question phrased a different way than other similar questions. I found this very frustrating during practice, but once I recognized the trick questions, I could memorize the answers and then answer correctly on the real exam.
Once I finished the exam, I chose a call sign the same day and appeared in the Industry Canada database the next day. I'm waiting for my certificate in the mail, and I'm looking forward to buying my first equipment at the local Hamfest this weekend!
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