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License classes and privileges
Technician, General and Extra: what each adds and how upgrading works.
Technician, General and Extra: what each adds and how upgrading works.
A US amateur license comes in a class, and the class decides which frequencies and modes you may use. It does not decide who you may talk to or how good an operator you are. The FCC issues three classes today: Technician, General and Amateur Extra. Older classes (Novice, Technician Plus and Advanced) are no longer issued, though existing holders can keep renewing them.
Technician is the entry point. It gives full access to VHF and UHF, which is where repeaters, local nets, handheld radios and the ISS live, plus limited HF. On HF, voice is on 10 m only.
General opens most of the HF bands, where signals travel worldwide. Only four bands, 80, 40, 20 and 15 m, have slices kept for Extra. On every other HF band General has the whole band.
Amateur Extra has every privilege. The exam is the hardest, and many people take it for the challenge as much as the extra slices.
Exact band edges change with the band and the class: see Amateur band chart and Band plans.
You pass a written exam for the class you want, given by volunteer examiners (VEs). A Technician exam needs three VEs, each General or higher. VEs are accredited by a Volunteer Examiner Coordinator (VEC), not by the FCC directly. There is no age limit, and no Morse code requirement in any class. You may transmit once your license grant appears in the FCC's licensing database, not when a paper or certificate arrives.
To upgrade, pass the next exam. Your proof of passing (a CSCE) lasts 365 days, and until the FCC database shows the upgrade you add "AG" after your call sign when using General privileges. Find a session through a club.
The FCC contacts you by email, so keep your address current. If it cannot reach you, it can revoke your station license or suspend your operator license.
On the air, what you may do depends on the class of the control operator, not the owner of the radio. An Extra can let a Technician use a station, but the Technician still operates on Technician privileges. See Control operators and control points.