Last week, I taught a one-day Tech Class at DEFCON, arguably the premiere cybersecurity/hacker conference in the U.S. It was my fourth year teaching this class under the auspices of the Ham Radio Village. This year, there were 66 people in the class.

If there’s anything that radio amateurs like to kvetch about it’s licensing. How many license classes should there be? How difficult should the tests be? What kind of privileges should each class get?

Back in the 1950s and 1960s, the debate was incentive licensing. Incentive license was supposed to be an effort to get radio amateurs to upgrade their technical skills. As you progressed up the ladder from Novice to Extra, you received more operating privileges, mainly on the HF bands. In practice, however, it stripped privileges from General Class hams, and so many of them got upset with the ARRL—which backed the program—that I believe it was the start of the ARRL’s demise.

This summer, I have been activating the Iron Belle Trail, US-13184, a lot.  This is a newly-added POTA entity and it runs through Bandemer Park, which is less than a mile from my house as the crow flies, and less than a mile and a half by car. I can be on the air in 20 minutes or less from the time I leave my house.

If you’ve read my blog at all in the past, you know I’m not a fan of David Minster, NA2AA, ARRL’s current CEO. He’s driving down membership, which is now well under 20% of licensed radio amateurs. He’s driving away staffers, too. The latest to go is Steve Goodgame, K5ATA, ARRL’s Education and Learning Manager. In my humble opinion, his tenure has been a disaster.

Last August, I got an email from Skip, K4EAK. He wrote: I’m a member of an RV club (the Family RV Association) which has an amateur radio chapter. FRVA’s annual convention will be next March in Perry, Georgia, and ARC is going to do a one-day prep session, followed by the Element 2 Tech exam the next morning. We’ll be using your “No Nonsense” guide, encouraging the participants (as you suggest) to read through it several times, take a few practice tests, and then attend the session before taking the exam. We also plan to follow your prep-day schedule and outline of topics.

Earlier this week, the Dayton Hamvention announced its 2026 award winners. This year’s Technical Achievement Award winner is Bob Famiglio, K3RF. It’s hard to argue with this choice. As the Hamvention press release points out….

I found this post on reddit yesterday, and I loved the idea so much that I have volunteered to be the unofficial PR guy for this project. Say what you will about MFJ projects—and I have sometimes been critical myself about them—Martin and his company have played a big part in amateur radio for a long time. This is a story that should be told. 

When I first started publishing my , there were really only three of us producing amateur radio license study guides: the ARRL, Gordon West, and me. Now, there are many more. If you do a search on Amazon for “Technician Class license study guide,” you’ll see that there are at least a dozen other study guides out there.

Even though I am now retired, I am still a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and subscribe to their Career Alert newsletter. The latest issue features a short article from Rahul Pandey, founder of Taro, a platform for helping software engineers manage their careers. The article is about asking better questions to get the help you need in order to do your job better.