Sunday, June 1, 2014

Perl script to quiz you for ARRL Ham radio exam

I've been studying for the Technician class amateur radio license. The ARRL sells a book that includes a CD with some nice software for practicing tests. However, if you don't have the book and/or CD, you might want to practice the test questions anyway. So I wrote a perl script that reads the text version of the question pool ( 2010 version or 2014 version), then asks you questions from it. example run:
# study.pl ~/Downloads/question_pool.txt

enter question # (blank for random question) or Ctrl-C to exit :

T6B07
What does the abbreviation "LED" stand for?
A. Low Emission Diode
B. Light Emitting Diode
C. Liquid Emission Detector
D. Long Echo Delay


answer? A
*** WRONG!      correct answer is (B)

enter question # (blank for random question) or Ctrl-C to exit :

T7A07
If figure T5 represents a transceiver in which block 1 is the transmitter portion and block 3 is the receiver portion, what is the function of block 2?
A. A balanced modulator
B. A transmit-receive switch
C. A power amplifier
D. A high-pass filter


answer? b
CORRECT!
Download the script