On September 13, 1982 the Communications Act of 1934 was amended to allow private individuals and organizations acting to prepare and administer ham radio exams to individuals wishing to obtain a new FCC Amateur Radio License or upgrade an existing license under FCC part 97. The legislation was public Law 97-259. The following month, the American radio Relay League (ARRL) petioned to only allow non-priofit educational organizations to participate in the program.

The license classes were trimmed from seven classes and/or sub-classes with various sets of priviedges down to three. The Novice, Conditional Technician, Technician Plus, and Advanced Class licenses became renewable in perpetuity but you could no longer test for them. Only the Technician, General and Amateur Extra Class remain available for new licenses or upgrades.

There are currently 14 FCC certified Volunteer Examiner Coordinators and  collectively they comprise the NCVEC. All of our examiners are at least accredited with ARRL-VEC and W5YI-VECs. The NCVEC is responsible for generating the three pools of questions to be used by all VECs and their VEs. We choose to affiliate ourselves with W5YI-VEC so all of our exams are processed up to FCC throuh them.

The question pools expire every four years, one at a time so three out of the four years in the cycle will see one of the three pools change. They always change July 1. The most recent change was effetive July 1, 2022 when Element 2 for the Technician class was changed and it will remain in effect until june 30th, 2026.

For more info on the program, go to the National Conference of Volunteer Examination Coordinators.

Jim Smith N3UZ, his wife Lynn and daughter Katie started the team giving exams wherever he could find a place that would allow him room to give exams, every other month. We got bandied around the New Castle County Libraries and eventually, they started over-booking their rooms so we ended up trying to give exams in the middle of the library so needless to say, that was not ideal. He got us set up to use a room once every other month at Christiana Hospital and that worked out for several years with only minor hiccups where we had to change rooms due to scheduling issues. Jim and Lynn retired, moved to Reidsvile, NC and set up shop giving exms down there with a whole new team of examiners. W3RSM (now AD3L), took over the team and got appointed CVE by W5YI-VEC with Jim's help.

Then along came Covid-19. The pandemic forced the hospital to refuse entry to almost all visitors and the volunteer program was suspended, which left us homeless. We only missed two or three sessions while they were developing the vaccines but even though the rest of the world was starting to open up, CCHS showed no signs of allowing us to resume testing in their buildings so one of our VEs, Dave Stepnoski, KC3AM approached his church about the possibility and they said yes so we've been at Holy rosary Catholi Church in Claymont ever since.