It was a big day in Ann Arbor today (February 12, 2022) for Amateur Radio License testing. I don’t have the exact count at this moment but it was on the order of two dozen Technician and upgrade candidates.
A large crowd for amateur radio testing may seem like a “so what” thing to the casual observer but it is strenuous for the VEs. The paperwork can easily have something go wrong so double-checking was the order of the day.
A further complication to today’s testing was the FCC itself. The FCC decided that a Saturday (today) was a fine day to conduct maintenance on the FCC website where FRN numbers are generated. For any testing, there will always be candidates who show up without an FRN number and so we have to walk them through obtaining one online on the spot. There were some candidates who showed up without FRN numbers and these could not test.
For this exam session, we had two teams of VEs plus one extra VE for a total of seven (7) VEs serving. Even with two teams of VEs, things were still mind-numbing. We can’t be making slipups on the paperwork and so double-checking was high on the list of priorities.