Brutkey

Michael K Johnson
@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.info

My friend Brad Bazemore KK4PWJ wanted a totally free — zero cost, 100% open source — comprehensive US Amateur Radio study app. His day job is in testing, and he really knows his stuff.

So he built Open Ham Prep.

I'm super grateful for Hamstudy — it's how I passed all three tests, and I contributed to a bunch of explanations, especially improving ones that were just mnemonic gimmicks. But every time I recommend it, I also say, "If you are having trouble with a question, take a note of the question ID, and send me an email describing the problem, and I'll happily do my best to improve the explanation." Guess how often people take me up on that? 👻

By contrast, Open Ham Prep has an integrated, public Discourse forum for discussing the test questions. Almost every question has an explanation, and if a question is confusing, you just reply with a comment to get help. Or, if you want to Elmer new or upgrading hams, you can subscribe to get notifications about new comments in one or more of the test levels, and help answer them! You don't need to be an Amateur Extra to help! 📣

#AmateurRadio #HamRadio

Michael K Johnson
@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.info

Here's the latest announcement from Open Ham Prep. It's had keyboard controls since right near the beginning, about a month ago. Brad told me he was committed to accessibility the first day he mentioned his prototype, when I asked him pretty skeptically why he was working on this. He's now improved from initial keyboard support to full keyboard navigation and screen reader support. 🎉

If you find accessibility bugs 🐛 please holler! 📣

Michael K Johnson
@mcdanlj@social.makerforums.info

I was initially skeptical when Brad first proposed yet another ham study app. But when I saw his results so far, I was convinced enough to volunteer to maintain the Discourse forum for it. I also linked up questions to the ARRL chapters. He has a lot of other ideas to keep improving it, too! It's already useful, yet just getting started.

But a lot of its potential depends on you, the #HamRadio community!

Would you like to help people study successfully?

Click the 🔔 and choose “Watching” in the Technician Questions, General Questions, or Extra Questions categories to be notified of changes. Every new question from a student will turn into a notification.

Are you trying to help someone specific get or upgrade their license?

If you both sign up on the forum, you can ↑ watch for updates for the question category/ies that they are studying for, and help answer their questions.