No. I slipped my Technician exam in right before things got bad, on Feb 8th. Right after that I started my General class, but that got canceled halfway through due to the pandemic. Starting that General class up again is currently still on hold. I am signed up for the restart, and also for the Extra class that will come after General. But I don't know when either of those will happen. They did not have licensing exams in my area for several months, but those have opened up now, and many Saturdays you can find some place in the area hosting an exam these days.

I am thinking I maybe should go ahead and get my General on my own, and then take the class later. Since the FCC will soon start charging $35 to process a license upgrade. Maybe I can sneak in General before that new licensing cost takes effect.

I like the classes because they are a lot of hands on training. Not just a review of material in the book. In the Technician class we erected antennas, ran cables, hooked things up to radios (Icom 7300's) and then did exercises using the radios under direct supervision and training by the class instructors. We measured SWR, tuned antennas, learned how to use some internet tools to check atmospheric conditions then tuned in to hotspots of activity (listen only for that part). Some of this hands on was maybe more General license type of stuff than Technician, but they were introducing us to the hobby as well as teaching the material needed for the Tech license.

We had a bunch of handhelds and the class spread out outside and practiced contacting each other under supervision. Got to try lots of different radios (that's where I found out that I liked the Yaesu FT-60R as my first choice for a handheld). It was funny that the vast majority of the students seemed quite shy to get on the radio the first few times. But that was part of the class - having a trainer with us and walking us through the process so we felt more at ease. After the class they gave each of us students a radio. OK, it was only a Baofeng UV-5R, but still, it was a nice gesture to give those to us - already pre-programmed with the useful frequencies in our area. This was an incentive for us to join the local club that put on the training class, which I believe ever single student in the class did.

So after that great experience in the Tech class, I want to take the General and then the Extra class as well, simply for the hands on and camaraderie. Book learning on your own will get you a license, but I definitely like the classes. I don't have any plans to get into HF quickly (that will probably take me at least another year), so I don't really need General, let alone Extra. But it's fun learning, so why not?