General Class Study Guide by Gordon West, WB6NOA

A Review

by N6XN

Just arrived:  The 7th edition of Gordon's excellent series covers the Element 3 question pool beginning July 1, 2007.

This is a complete rewrite. At 218 pages it contains not only the question pool but is jam packed with reference material that will serve the Ham for years to come.

Some changes: While the book contains many of the photos and illustrations from previous editions, Gordo has added many new illustrations; some photos, some cartoons, and some drawings.  He has also added a number of "sidebars" that he calls "Elmer Points" that explain things like "Q-signals".  He has also removed the distracting URLs that were scattered throughout earlier guides and replaced them with tables here and there containing a collection of URLs that pertain to that particular section.

The "Happy Face" or "Magic Circle" illustrations which help to remember the Ohms Law formulas are also gone and replaced with a single illustration (also found on the cover of Ugly's Electrical Reference).  This illustration puts all of the various configurations of Ohms Law into one figure.

One of the best things that Gordo has done in previous guides is rearrange the questions so that they are presented in logical groups.  This allows the student to concentrate on each of the 18 topic areas individually.  The Sixth edition of this guide, which will expire on June 30th of this year did a great job on rearrangement for relevance, but the Seventh edition does it even better.

The Seventh edition comes with an audio CD on which Gordon spends 68 minutes explaining and demonstrating various aspects of Ham radio using 8 tracks.  Here is a list of the tracks:

  1. Welcome to HF Ham radio action!  (5:59)

  2. The general License - take a listen  (4:22)

  3. Let's eavesdrop on the HF bands and hear what's up (21:43)

  4. Tuning into the digital modes with a laptop (5:14)

  5. Learning how to tune in SSB voice (8:34)

  6. Expert advice on the best HF radio for you (8:24)

  7. Using your HF radio for shortwave listening (12:06)

  8. We'll hear YOU on the air soon! (1:09)

All in all this Study guide is an excellent investment and will be the one we use for the next General class training.  Available at HRO either by phone 800-854-9476 or from the W5YI group, on-line at http://www.w5yi.org or by telephone 800-669-9594.  $21 plus tax and shipping.