The FCC Technician Exam (Element 2) consists of 35 questions, you are required to get over 75% (26 out of 35) for a passing grade. There are 10 subelements, T0-T9, and the full exam consists of questions from each subelement (and from each of the topic groups within each subelement). You can use the checkboxes below to include some or all of the subelements in your practice exam.
Current Question Pool: 424 Questions, Effective July 1, 2022 - June 30th 2026
Technician Exam Subelements
The technician exam has questions that cover the following topics (subelements)
- T0: Electrical and RF Safety
- T1: FCC Rules, station license responsibilities
- T2: Control operator duties
- T3: Operating practices
- T4: Radio and electronic fundamentals
- T5: Station setup and operation
- T6: Communications modes and methods
- T7: Special operations
- T8: Emergency and Public Service Communications
- T9: Radio waves, propagation, and antennas
Recommended Supporting Materials
The exam prep provided here is great for practicing to pass the exam. That being said, I would also strongly recommend that you strive to understand the broader theory and practical applications that lie behind the questions. This will make answering the exam questions easier in the short term but perhaps more importantly will enable you to get more from the hobby once you are on the air. To that end I’ve listed below a few popular books that might be of help to you.
- The ARRL Ham Radio License manual gets consistently excellent reviews on Amazon and provides a great introduction to the theory and materials you’ll need to know, plus it introduces the relevant exam questions as you work through the chapters.
- The Gordon West (W5YI) Technician Manual works a little differently, covering each question with detailed explanations of the possible answers. This has less introductory material and background than the ARRL book so would be a good test prep review book and a good complement to the ARRL manual, however, perhaps not the best single book to get if this is your first introduction to the hobby.
- The Ham Radio Prep Technician Class License Manual is another popular option which introduces the key concepts with text focused on the information required to answer the questions, followed by a quick review of the questions relevant to the material you just read so you can test your recall and reinforce your learning.
