They came to a Hyatt hotel by the Cincinnati Northern KY airport. It was a class of about 22 people I think. It was a great experience but intense. Talk about your cram session. They also did the radar endorsement which was neat as I got some insight into shipboard radar. I met the president over the phone though. Because I had a FRN already for my GMRS license, then tied into the new FCC site around the same time they had problems registering my results. He personally worked through it for me on a Friday night. I have the trainer's name at the office with my books.
Elkins has/had a permanent classroom at a very small hotel in a very small town on the California coast, like seriously, a 4 way stop sort of town. It was set up there because it was close to the owner. I spent a few days there for the GROL and radar endorsement class. There was about 6 people in the class total. Only one guy went on for his GMDSS certification.
I had been studying the book off and on for years and was going to just take the test. We ended up with some spare training funds at work, so I requested the full course and it was granted. I spent 3-4 days in this tiny 100+ year old hotel in this little tiny town. A little coffee place, a deli and a market/liquor store were the only other places there. There were a lot of dairy farms around, and the whole place stunk and a lot of flies.
My brain hurt. I knew most of the technical stuff, but the math really dredged up some high school nightmares that I'd long since forgotten. I was glad I took the class to bring some of that stuff back out of the cobwebs (where the quickly returned to). Permanent lifetime license, so most of that stuff can stay back in the cobwebs now.
But, that instructor was a lot of fun. Lots of good real world experience that he worked into the class. I remember him talking about when he retired from the USAF, they took him up in one of the jets he'd been working on most of his career.
The last day was test day, and we pretty much wrapped up right about 12 noon. David Byrd walked in with a bunch of pizza and we all got to sit around and shoot the bull. Most of the people in the class were BDA installers getting the GROL so they could design systems. The other guy worked for some shop and was doing a lot of marine installs and needed the GROL for the marine and GMDSS work.
