HAM Radio Exam

You cannot enjoy all the benefits of ham radio without having a Ham Radio License. You can only receive signals but you need to have a license and a callsign for legally transmitting on ham radio. Once you have the ham radio license, you can talk to other hams, build your own ground station, participate in contests and foxhunts and also provide communication assistance during emergencies.

Amateur Station Operator's Certificate or ASOC is the examination that needs to be passed to receive an amateur radio license in India. The exam is conducted by the Wireless Planning and Coordination Wing (WPC) of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

• The examination consists of a 100 marks question paper (50 marks related to basic radio/electronics theory as per the syllabus + 50 marks related to Amateur Radio Rules & Regulations) which is of one, two, or three hours duration as per the “Grade” of license you will be going for.
• For getting the General Grade Licence, you also need to clear a practical test on Morse Code sending and receiving.
• This is a 10 minutes duration test to examine the candidate's proficiency in sending and receiving Morse Code.

• Application can be downloaded from here. Exam application along with the fee of Rs. 100 is to be paid online. The examination can be conducted in your own town provided there are a sufficient number of applicants.
• On passing the examination, you will be awarded the license on payment of the required license fee: Rs. 1000 for 20 years and Rs. 2000 if you want the license for a lifetime (80 years) here
• WPC grants the license along with the user-chosen callsign. Indian amateur radio operators are allotted only the VU call-sign prefix. VU call-signs are listed according to license grade: for general license holders, the call-sign prefix is VU2; for restricted license holders, the prefix is VU3.