The day you upgrade
This is the most immediately useful material in the whole subelement, because it applies to you within hours of passing.
You pass Element 3 at a session and receive a Certificate of Successful Completion of Examination (CSCE). Three facts follow:
On which of the following band segments may you operate if you are a Technician class operator and have an unexpired Certificate of Successful Completion of Examination (CSCE) for General class privileges?
On any General or Technician class band segment
You may use your new privileges immediately — you do not wait for the database. But:
Until an upgrade to General class is shown in the FCC database, when must a Technician licensee identify with “AG” after their call sign?
Whenever they operate using General class frequency privileges
So: “KF1XXX temporary AG.” Only when you are using the new privileges — on Technician segments you identify normally. And once the upgrade appears in the database, the suffix stops.
How long is a Certificate of Successful Completion of Examination (CSCE) valid for exam element credit?
365 days
A year to use the credit. If you pass Element 3 and want Extra, you have 365 days to sit Element 4 with the General credit standing.
Volunteer Examiners
The whole examination system is run by volunteers under FCC oversight.
Volunteer Examiners are accredited by what organization?
A Volunteer Examiner Coordinator.
A VEC — the ARRL VEC and W5YI are the largest — accredits VEs and coordinates sessions. The FCC certifies VECs; VECs accredit VEs.
What a VE may administer depends on their own class:
What license examinations may you administer as an accredited Volunteer Examiner holding a General class operator license?
Technician only.
You must hold a class above the one you are examining. A General may examine Technicians; an Extra may examine anything. This is why Extra-class VEs are in demand.
Who must be present:
Who must observe the administration of a Technician class license examination?
At least three Volunteer Examiners of General class or higher.
Three, minimum, all qualified to administer that element.
Eligibility to be a VE:
- At least 18 years old.
- Holding an FCC-granted amateur licence of General class or above — and that is the criterion for a non-US citizen too. Citizenship is not a requirement; the licence is.
Element credit for expired licences
Who may receive partial credit for the elements represented by an expired amateur radio license?
Any person who can demonstrate that they once held an FCC-issued General, Advanced, or Amateur Extra class license that was not revoked by the FCC.
Held once, not revoked — that is the whole test, with no time limit. Someone who let a General licence lapse decades ago retains the element credit.
What action is required to obtain a new General class license after a previously held license has expired and the two-year grace period has passed?
The applicant must show proof of the appropriate expired license grant and pass the current Element 2 exam
Element 3 credit survives; Element 2 must be retaken, because the Technician pool has changed beyond recognition since.
Operating remotely across borders
Two questions that look similar and have different answers.
When operating a US station by remote control from outside the country, what license is required of the control operator?
A US operator/primary station license
The station is in the US, so US rules and a US licence govern. Where your hands are does not change what the transmitter is doing or where it is doing it.
When operating a station in South America by remote control over the internet from the US, what regulations apply?
Only those of the remote station’s country
Same principle, opposite direction. The rules that apply are those of the place the transmitter is, not the place the operator is.
That single rule answers both, and it is worth holding in that form rather than as two memorised cases.
Check yourself
- You pass Element 3 this morning. May you work 20 metre phone this afternoon, and how do you identify?
- You hold General. May you administer an Extra exam?
- You control a station in Argentina from your desk in the US. Whose rules?
Answers
- Yes, immediately, on any General or Technician segment. Identify as “call sign temporary AG” whenever using General privileges, until the upgrade appears in the FCC database.
- No. A VE may only administer examinations for classes below their own; a General may administer Technician only.
- Argentina’s — the rules of the remote station’s country, where the transmitter is.