Hi Tom.

I took the Extra exam in December.  I had someone read the ARRL Extra Class
Lincense Manual to me (I wish I could have gotten it taped).  That was
certainly doing it the hard way.  Anyway, in the last two weeks, I bought
the Gordon West tapes for the Extra Class, which I found very helpful in
figuring out how to avoid the need for a scientific calculator.  Actually,
with a little knowledge, a simple 4 function calculator will work just
fine.  Here is what I found to be helpful in avoiding complicated calculations:

1.  Pi = 3.14 (that's close enough to get you in the ball park).

2.  For calculations involving decibels remember:

1 dB gain = 1.26 times the original power
2 dB = 1.58 times the original power
3 dB = 2 times the original power
10 dB = 10 times the original power
-1 dB = 0.79 times the original power
-2 dB = 0.63 times the original power
-3 dB = 0.5 times the original power

Knowing these facts got me past a lot of the questions that were giving me
the biggest headaches, because knowing these things eliminated the need to
worry about any calculations that involved logarithmic functions.  I passed
my materials down to my sister, who has her General and is also blind.

Hope that this helps.

73, de Lou K2LKK



At 04:00 AM 5/3/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Mike, I'm also studying for the Extra.  I found a basic geometry book of some
>help as it'd been awhile since I'd done any of that.  I'm avoiding the
>question
>pool until I have a good grasp of how to do all this stuff.  I don't have a
>scientific calculator and I'm sure hoping I can get around having to use
>tables
>for this thing <g>.  Maybe a little programming will be in order for this one
><g>.
>
>Tom
>
>
>Tom Brennan KD5VIJ, CCC-A/SLP R/D - AU
>web page http://titan.sfasu.edu/~g_brennantg/sonicpage.html

Louis Kim Kline
A.R.S. K2LKK
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Work Telephone:  (585) 697-5753