Disappointing Email from ARRL
A few years back I took the best online course and today I have found nothing that compares. It was an ARRL propagation course it involved interaction with a mentor who was assigned to you. It had fantastic course material, as well as hands on projects. Before enrolling propagation was like a foreign language to me. By the end of the course with the help from the mentor, course material and the reviews I began to fully understand how important propagation was and also understood terms such as CME, A and K index, Flux, Solar wind and so on. I was able to put it all together and make sense of things when it came to ham radio and propagation. To this day I still refer to the notes and course materials to clarify things. There were many online course's that were offered. Some courses that still interested me were antenna modeling and RFI....so it was off to the ARRL site to find it. The only coarse's that was offered were public service and emergency communications. I emailed the ARRL asking if any of the other courses were available below was my reply.
It seems to me that a "course book" is the new online course replacement when (and if) it comes out. The propagation course formate was very good and can't be replaced with a book. Seems to me the online learning was just not a priority when the ARRL web platform was revamped......well I'm one disappointed ARRL member.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].Hi Mike, You are correct-- we now offer only emcomm courses online. We had to take down our old online course platform and have not re-invested in redeveloping the other courses to re-launch them on the new platform. However, we are looking at ways to re purpose the content from those courses. The first effort is to publish an "Introduction to Antenna Modeling" course book utilizing the material from the course you mention.
It seems to me that a "course book" is the new online course replacement when (and if) it comes out. The propagation course formate was very good and can't be replaced with a book. Seems to me the online learning was just not a priority when the ARRL web platform was revamped......well I'm one disappointed ARRL member.