For years, the Radio Society of Great Britain has produced training guides for all three levels of amateur radio licences, with the current entry-level manual being the RSGB’s “Foundation Licence Manual for Radio Amateurs”.
This training book is produced and sold by the RSGB, and it covers the Foundation syllabus in sufficient detail to pass your first exam, although it does cover a fair amount of information that’s not required knowledge for the exam, making it a little bloated in places, notably in the technical sections.
The manual includes several pictures, tables and drawings to help with study. It’s 42 pages long and broken down into sections covered by training courses and the exam paper itself, including several pages of adverts. The book focuses on taking paper exams in person at radio clubs, despite it being more common to take exams online from home these days.
The book is written by Alan Betts G0HIQ and is published by the RSGB in paperback and Kindle format.
Be warned that there are various versions of the manual in circulation, and unhelpfully, the cover doesn’t state the version number, making it tricky to ensure you have the right version for the exam that you are taking.
RSGB Foundation Manual AvailabilityNot currently recommended! A new book was published in July 2024, but this appears to contain several errors and inaccuracies, making it difficult to recommend. New Ofcom licence conditions came into effect in February 2024, and this book appears to have been rushed out without adequate checks. We’ve reported the problems, and there is now an errata list of known errors for this book on the RSGB site. The book tends to focus on in-person paper exams at clubs, not the more-common online exams. The latest edition (third edition) with a yellow and purple cover, is available from around £8 online from: ISBN: 9781913995560 |
 Alternatives? We’ve released our own handy Foundation Study Guide – This is available in paperback from Amazon, and in electronic format for Kindle, Apple Books and Kobo.
Our new Foundation Study Guide covers the 2024 syllabus and is suitable for the v1.6 syllabus, for exams after the 1st September 2024. The Guide covers the essentials and is broken down into sections that match our course modules. The guide ends with some handy tips on how to pass the Foundation exam, as well as a mock test. It also contains a handy glossary and an exam FAQ. Foundation Study Guide is available from Amazon in two formats: Kindle & Paperback, as well as in eBook format for Apple Books and Kobo ereaders |
RSGB Book Versions
The exam syllabus changed on 1st of September 2024, so older books (such as Foundation Licence Now!”) should not be used.
The latest version that we know of, is marked as “Third Edition First Printed 2024”
Updates and corrections can be found here: RSGB Foundation Manual Corrections
Sections of the book
| Section | Number of Pages |
| Technical Basics | 6 |
| Transmitters & Receivers | 3 |
| Feeders & Antennas | 5 |
| Propagation | 2 |
| Licence Conditions | 4 |
| EMC | 3 |
| Safety | 4 |
| Operating Procedures | 5 |
Alternatives?
| There’s our newly-released Foundation Study Guide available in paperback and Kindle format.
We have also released a cut-down 35-page printable PDF Guide, which is available free to our Patreon Tier 2 and 3 members, or in our Patreon Store. See HamTrain Revision Guide (35 page PDF) |
RSGB Manuals
 Foundation Licence Manual Cost is around £8-£10, and available as a Paper version or Kindle Version |
 Intermediate Licence Manual After your Foundation, comes Intermediate. The book’s about £9, and is available as a Paper version or Kindle Version |
 Full Licence Manual After Intermediate, comes the Full licence. The manual is about £12, and is available as a Paper version or Kindle Version |
