Where can I try it?

https://hamotazky.cz/

But why?

When you want to learn test questions for HAM radio exam in Czechia, the only official way is going to the website of Czech Telecommunication Bureau and download their materials. But there is a catch - the only form they present is the PDF files, which in case you want to learn on mobile phone, is very cumbersome, as it is not responsive, nor pretty.

As an author of Ham operator iPhone app , I had to go through the process of gathering questions, normalizing them, removing typos and so on. And I thought that it is a shame not to share the work, so others can use the question database if needed. There are several websites, facebook groups and similar places, where admins usually just copy-paste the official PDF and then forget about it. That leads to situation that over time, the learning materials become obsolete and nobody is really updating them anymore, which is a shame.

Implement, rinse and repeat

So as I said before, I originally thought about this web just as a source of questions in some better form than PDF. So I created the first version of the site, that just linked the “improved” materials in various formats for others to use. But then an idea came, that I could also have an ability to practice and make mock test there. So I went on prepared this functionality, so visitors of the website can also learn right away.

Currently, there is just one site in Czechia I am aware of, that offer this practice and test functionality, and that is well-known ham.smoce.net that Martin OK2UEC wrote a long time ago. I used his web app for getting the “wrong” questions for the test questions, because the official documents do not provide them - thanks for that! So what I have done here is that I basically created a web app with the same functionality, with the fact that it is optimized for mobile devices. It features dark-mode, provides test questions to third parties in various formats, if anybody is interested, and the whole web is open-source.

My design goals were simple:

  • Open source, so anybody can collaborate
  • Mobile first, so it’s 21.century-ish
  • Simple to use
  • Modern look
  • Simple to maintain

I hope I succeeded! The only thing that is remaining is the hardest one - spread the word around, so aspiring HAMs will know about it.

I would love this web to become the central-hub for all HAM students. Will I succeed? Time will tell :)

Future plans

I would like to also add the Kahoot-like group test functionality. This idea comes from OK1OMG and I like it very much. You can use this for traning in your radio club, various HAM courses, you name it. Their implementation of HAM group test is already alive, but I would like to integrate it here, so we rule out the problem of 10 people maintaining 10 different websites with the same goal, and rather collaborate all together on one thing and use collective inteligence :)

73, Filip OK1GOD