Exam.Tools


The FCC used to administer all exams. As the volume grew, conducting exams was delegated to a number of Volunteer Exam Coordinators (VECs) including the ARRL and their Volunteer Examiners.

Our club's Education & Testing team is exploring the use of online systems to help us be more productive and serve people better.

Some new ARRL VEC procedures regarding the paper exam booklets and answer keys will take effect July, 2025.


Exam.Tools

Exam.Tools aka examtools.org and its sister site HamStudy.org have been used by people to practice exam questions and pass exams. The system is sponsored by SignalStuff.com. A number of VECs use exam.tools to administer online and in-person exams.

Concerns around getting started using exam.tools for our exams include purchasing and supporting a number of hardware tablets (perhaps limiting our peak capacity), the need for reliable WI-FI at exam locations and the need for some amount of time to pre-register for a session and obtain an exam.tools PIN in addition to the FCC FRN number requirement. Many of our candidates have told us they prefer to walk into our sessions without advance notice. Some people drive great distances to do so.

Volunteer Examiner Coordinators

There is more than one! The official list of VECs shows fourteen groups organized like the ARRL that help the FCC proctor and submit exam results in the US. Questions for all VECs and exams come from question pools available from the same place, www.ncvec.org. The Technician, General and Amateur Extra pools are updated in alternating years effective in July.

The ARRL conducts the most exams and is what our club uses on paper so far. We are exploring using exam.tools.

The Benicia Ham Class uses w5yi-vec.org of TX for their exam sessions with exam.tools (thank you Bob W6RBF for many details) with exam.tools as does the Gwinnett Georgia Amateur Radio Society.

Some people associated with Google use the Laurel VEC larc-vec.org of AZ with exam.tools. Laurel-VEC does not require ANY exam fee.

The online exams of the Greater LA Amateur Radio Group glaarg.org VEC also use exam.tools.

Traditional Exam Benefits

There are advantages to how our club conducts exams now. In person exam sessions enable meeting at least three interested hams, the three who sign your Certificate of Successful Completion of Exam with their name and call sign. You may also want to strike up a conversation with them after your exam session though noise levels must be kept to a minimum for other testers. Our club holds monthly exam sessions before each of our monthly general meetings.

Session Locators

You can find our club's sessions and many other exam sessions at: arrl.org/find-an-amateur-radio-license-exam-session

Hamstudy.org also has a session locator: hamstudy.org/sessions/remote