Attended a course yesterday. It was organised by my sailing club, for a group of us, in an Edinburgh college. Tuition was given by an ex marine/rig/coastguard radio officer.
The time was split evenly between tuition in the classroom and hands on in the well equipt college 'bridge'
Very impressed with the day. It assumed no previous experience.
We were allowed to play with and programme info into live radios (on dummy loads). We were also given a broad sumary on the use of navtec, sat coms and erpbs .
SWMBO was there and she enjoyed it.
Total cost was £55 each including the £20 to the RYA for the certificate.