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1991-05-29
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┌────────────────────────────────────────┐
──────────────────┤ N1GFQ FCC License Exam Study Assistant ├────────────────────
└────────────────────────────────────────┘
This program is provided free of charge for the private use of individuals
and Amateur Radio clubs. It may be freely copied or placed on electronic
distribution media (BBSs) as long as no charge is made for its use.
Although reasonable care has been taken to assure the correctness of the
question pools, the author can assume no responsibility for the use of
the program, and no guarantees are implied or intended.
The program is designed to operate on IBM PC and compatible systems running
DOS 3.0 or higher, or on an IBM PS/2 running OS2.
IMPORTANT
**NOTE** There are two versions of STUDY.EXE in this ZIP file. STUDY88.EXE
is for 8088 Machines. STUDY86.EXE is for 80x86 Machines and OS/2 or
DOS. Rename the file for the machine type that you are using to
STUDY.EXE
Recommended Usage
─────────────────
The program is NOT intended as a substitute for the various study guides
such as the ARRL manuals. It is recommended that you obtain and study
one of these guides for the class of license that you are going for, then
use this program as a means of drilling yourself on the relevant question
pool. In some cases, you will need to refer to an illustration in the
appropriate guide in order to answer a question.
Program Operation
─────────────────
The program uses two files for each question pool: a text file (poolx.txt)
that contains the questions and answers for a particular pool; and an index
file (poolx.idx) that is used to keep track of your progress on that pool.
The name of the main program is STUDY, although you will probably have no
reason to invoke it directly.
For your convenience, the program package contains a DOS BAT file for each
question pool that will create an appropriate index file for that pool if
it doesn't already exist, then invoke the STUDY program for the pool. These
BAT files are named POOLx, where x is the FCC designator for the question
pool. The question pools and their corresponding BAT files are as follows:
Novice POOL2
Technician POOL3A
General POOL3B
Advanced POOL4A
Extra POOL4B
The rationale behind the program is simple; when you begin to study a question
pool, all of the questions in that pool are "open". Questions are selected
at random and displayed on the screen, and the user is prompted to enter the
letter of the correct answer. Once you have correctly answered a particular
question a certain number of times IN A ROW (default is 5), that question
will be "closed". Once a question has been closed, it will not be asked again
UNLESS you reinvoke the program with a higher cutoff value. This feature
permits you to do a quick review of the questions after closing them all at
a particular cutoff value by simply invoking the program with a cutoff value
that is 1 higher that the last one you were using. For example, suppose that
you close all of POOL2 at a cutoff of 5. You are pretty confident that you
know the answers cold, but on the morning of the exam you want to do a quick
review. You can run through all the questions one more time (assuming that
you get them all right!) by entering POOL2 6.
If you're not sure of a particular question, simply press ENTER to bypass it
for the time being. To exit from the program, enter an X in response to the
prompt. Your status will be saved, and you will be shown some statistics
regarding your performance thus far.
Three numbers are displayed in brackets in the header line for each question:
- the total number of times that the question has been answered;
- the number of times that it has been answered correctly; and
- the number of CONSECUTIVE times that it has been answered correctly
(reset to 0 on a wrong answer).
If, for some reason, you would like to reset all of your statistics for a
pool, just use the DOS ERASE command to delete the corresponding index file.
For example, to reset the statistics for POOL2, enter the following command
(after exiting the program):
erase pool2.idx
When you next invoke POOL2, a new index file will be built for you.
Comments and suggestions on the program are welcome, and will be addressed to
the extent that my limited free time will allow. However, I cannot commit to
providing any kind of formal support for the program or upgrades to the quest-
ion pools on a timely basis. Since this package will inevitably find its way
to many bulletin board systems over which I have no control, it will be impos-
sible for me to notify you of any upgrades that do become available if you have
obtained it from such a source. The best source for obtaining a current copy
of the package is the COYnet public BBS, (914)-485-3393, 1200-9600 baud. Set
your terminal emulation program for 8 bits, no parity, and 1 stop bit.
Acknowledgements
----------------
Thanks are due to William B. McCormick (KC4SKV) for OS2ifying the programs, and
to the following for the many hours of wrist-wrenching labor they contributed
by updating the question pools:
Pat Ciferri (WA2P)
Linda Ferdinand (N2YL)
Lou Voerman (KB2XN)
Good luck on the exam!
┌─────────────┬───────────────────────┐
│ │ Bruce Hartigan │
│ 73 de N1GFQ │ Ferrimont Orchard │
│ @W1KOO │ Ferrisburg, VT 05456 │
│ │ (802)-877-3050 │
└─────────────┴───────────────────────┘