I'm wondering if anyone here has taken the ARRL EC series of courses, and what they thought of them.
I have been involved in ARES in the past, and was inactive for a time, but now with my renewed activity on the bands, would like to give back a bit through public service. While not required for ARES participation, the courses DO look interesting.
Due to the fact I would be starting with EC-001, to those that have taken the course, my questions are:
1. If you took the course, how much of the information was actually "new" to you?
2. What was the one thing you walked away from the course thinking "that was a REALLY good chunk of information" (where something just "clicked" or something you've previously observed was suddenly explained, etc.)
I am very interested in learning any information that may make me a more competent operator, or provide information that will assist in preparedness.
What I'm not interested in "learning" is all the information that should be common sense to the skilled operator, or that highly specialized information that can be easily looked up in the handbook or operators manual. I don't want to take a course that is going to teach me how to draw up NTS forms from scratch out of my head, or help me memorize the organizational chart of various ARES leadership positions. Like any compulsive "filer" I've already got this reference material in the shack, no need to waste what little brain-storage I have left on this stuff.
I have been toying with the idea of just trying the course out to see if the information presented will actually be useful. As an ARRL member though, even the $45 seems like a big risk to take. I know I'll be a member for as long as I can operate, QST alone is worth the price of admission. I am a little skeptical about everything else the league charges for, though. After scanning through my library to figure out what actually warrants the limited bookshelf space in the shack, and what goes on the "house bookshelf" I got a nice refresher on just how many of my ARRL books are just neatly organized collections of the information that is more easily searched through on line. (so essentially, are worth EXACTLY the price of the paper they are printed on)