Amateur Radio Operators who are preparing to take the Amateur Extra Class license examination should be aware of an upcoming change to the question pool.

On December 7, 2023, ARRL News announced the release of the 2024 - 2028 Extra-Class FCC Element 4 Question Pool and Syllabus. The new Extra-Class Question Pool is effective from July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2028.

ARRL VEC Manager Maria Somma, AB1FM, and member of the NCVEC QPC, said, “The new pool incorporates significant changes compared to the 2020–2024 version. We carefully went over the pool for technical accuracy, relevancy to today’s amateur radio practices, syntax, grammar, style, format, and clarity and redundancy within and between the pools. With these goals in mind, 82 new questions were created, and 101 questions were eliminated, resulting in a reduction [of] the number of questions from 622 to 603. Over 350 questions were modified. We considered a question modified when the knowledge being tested was not changed but wording was improved, or answers or distractors were replaced.”¹

The 2024–2028 Extra Class Question Pool, supporting diagrams, and syllabus have been published on the NCVEC 2024–2028 Extra Class Question Pool Release page.