About
Built by a ham, for hams.
HamBeacon is the work of Blue Heron Data, an independent software studio building tools for the amateur radio and Apple communities.
Why HamBeacon
Studying shouldn’t be guesswork.
Hi, I’m Bill. I’ve been a ham since 1972 and an Extra Class operator since 2014. When I studied for my upgrades, I used the book, and the book couldn’t tell me where I stood. I had no easy way to track my progress, and no simple way to focus on the questions I kept missing until I’d actually mastered them.
I built HamBeacon so you don’t have to study that way. It keeps track of your progress for you, brings back the questions you haven’t locked in yet, and explains the why behind every answer. And it never charges a monthly fee for questions that are free and public to begin with.
Blue Heron Data
Small studio, no subscriptions.
Blue Heron Data makes a focused set of apps and tools, some free and some paid, always with a one-time price and never a subscription. Your purchase is yours, your data stays on your devices and in your iCloud, and our apps have no ads or trackers.
What we believe
A few principles we hold to.
No subscriptions
One-time price, yours for good. No recurring fees, ever.
Private by default
The app has no accounts and no tracking. Your progress syncs through your own iCloud.
Official pools
Built on the public domain NCVEC question pools, reproduced unmodified.
Made for the community
Designed around how hams actually study, by someone who has taken the exams.
More from Blue Heron Data
Other tools from the studio.
Ham Radio Contact Mapper
Turn your ADIF logs into interactive maps of every contact you have made. A free WordPress plugin.
VisitCalcLedger
A tape calculator for iPhone, iPad, and Mac with specialized tools for ham radio, finance, geometry, and more.
VisitFlexDSP Studio
A macOS companion that brings every FlexRadio DSP control into one panel, alongside SmartSDR.
Visit