Course Offerings
The NRAO Office of Diversity and Inclusion is committed to providing free educational resources to everyone. We offer six online courses that you can take at your own pace. These courses, created by experts, are designed to be engaging and informative. You can access all the digital badge course materials at no cost. For the amateur radio courses, you'll need to purchase or borrow a book. If you are new to Superknova and are taking a course for the first time, please click on one of the courses below to get started.
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Course Offerings
All of the following courses are asynchronous and free of charge. To learn more about these courses and instructions for registration, please click on the title.
Technician Amateur Radio License and EMS Course - This eleven-lesson course introduces students to the electromagnetic spectrum and amateur (ham) radio. It starts with the basics of radio waves and simple radio equipment, then progresses to topics like frequency, propagation, antennas, and general circuitry. This course takes approximately 32 hours to complete.
General Amateur Radio License and EMS Course - This twelve-lesson course offers more detailed instruction on the electromagnetic spectrum and amateur radio. This course should be taken after you have completed the Technician Amateur Radio License and EMS Course. It begins with an introduction to electrical principles like reactance, impedance, resistors, capacitors, and inductors. The course then delves deeper into these subjects with lessons on filter types, oscillators, the structure of the ionosphere, and FCC rules. This course takes approximately 43 hours to complete.
Engineering Fundamentals Digital Badge Course - This course will introduce students to the engineering principles and concepts that those involved in the analysis, design, or management of the radio frequency spectrum may need to know, including transmitters, receivers, antennas, and radio link analysis. This course will take approximately 13 hours to complete.
Radio Astronomy and the Spectrum Digital Badge Course - In this course you will learn how Radio Astronomy uses the electromagnetic spectrum. Some topics included are an overview of astronomy, radio telescopes, radio interferometry, and typical emissions investigated in radio astronomy. This course will take approximately 18.5 hours to complete.
Science Fundamentals Digital Badge Course - This course will introduce students to the physical principles and concepts that those involved in the analysis, design, or management of the electromagnetic spectrum might need to know, including waves, propagation of waves, properties of signals in the time and frequency domain, and noise. This course will take approximately 10 hours to complete.
The Legal and Regulatory Foundations of Spectrum Management Digital Badge Course - This course will introduce you to the legal and regulatory aspects of spectrum management. Some topics included are early spectrum policies, current spectrum policies, the FCC rule- making process, and the future of spectrum management. This course will take approximately 20 hours to complete.
The amateur radio courses were made possible by a generous grant from the Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC). Learn more about this organization here. Additional support for the hybrid portion of the project came from the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), which donated license manuals and other learning materials. You can learn more about this organization here. Administrative and technical support was also provided by the Tucson Amateur Packet Radio and the Young Amateurs Radio Club. You may learn more about these organizations here and here respectively.
The digital badge courses are funded by a National Science Foundation project. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is working on the National Radio Dynamic Zone (NRDZ) project, which aims to create an advanced spectrum monitor (ASM) device. This project also seeks to encourage more people to get involved in managing the radio spectrum (NSF Award # 1647378). Dive into the groundbreaking research from the NRAO NRDZ project here.
If you have any questions or need more information about these courses, please click the button below.