OT: do we have any leverHAMs out here?

mklwhite · Post by **mklwhite** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:32 am

I've been thinking about studying for the technician license and was wondering if there where anyone on the forum with a HAM ticket.

adirondakjack · Post by **adirondakjack** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 11:20 am

There's quite a few
73s, DE KF2OR

TxHunter · Post by **TxHunter** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 11:26 am

QSL ,KB5AMX

wecsoger · Post by **wecsoger** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 12:03 pm

N4MDT

mklwhite · Post by **mklwhite** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 12:10 pm

I'm very new to all that and just doing the reading phase on it, but have read enough that I want to get (at least) the Tech license. My dad was a big HAM even from his early teens. I remember seeing him surrounded by radios and his working on them. I've been reading about some of the different radios/frequencies that become availer with the tech license. Easy to get in over your head a bit. But I hope to focus and get studying later this month and take some of the online (practice) tests I've seen before throwing down on the test (early) this fall. Then on to get a 2 meter radio. Maybe a dual band. Looks like it can get expensive (to me) if your not careful especially when your not too sure what is what. One thing that I have read both side of is new HAMs buying used equipment (Ebay). Some say its great, others say too big a potential headache for the newbie who is still trying to remember how to tune on the radio and memoirs their q codes. Any opinion on used equipment? Good value or headache in the making?

adirondakjack · Post by **adirondakjack** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 12:44 pm

Find a HAM club in your area and join it. There are ALWAYS locals who will help you with hardware and other questions, and may well have a used rig to sell....

Used to be you pretty much had to join a club to get enough training to take the test. I was in the last class of Novice license folks taught code and the rest of the novice license stuff by our local club. Then I bought the books and did the Tech, then bought or borrowed code practice tapes to get my CW speed to 13wpm for the gneral test, then more book work for the advanced test. I think it took about 3 or 4 years to progress through that.

Nowadays, SIMPLE 2M gear is really pretty cheap and works well. I wouldn't bother with a dual band rig myself. If I was starting out now, I'd get a 2M hand-held to start. Then I'd probably do what I did before, save my money as I continued my training, and get an HF rig and a decent antenna for the house, so that, depending on conditions, you can work the whole world. (That was an amazing thing pre-internet, chatting with folks in Australia, Africa, Europe.... Nowadays anybody with a computer can do so over the internet and thinks nothing of it.....)

Ben_Rumson · Post by **Ben_Rumson** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 1:00 pm

Recently I was chatting with a nurse who'd got some kind of HAM license and could talk with folks all over the world... This was great for enjoying new friends and saving bucks during travel both here and abroad... as many of the friends she'd made would pick her up at airports... put her up at their places... steer her away from troubled areas.. She'd been all over the place and done the same for her friends...Very cool I thought..

AJMD429 · Post by **AJMD429** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 1:20 pm

adirondakjack wrote:There are ALWAYS locals who will help you with hardware and other questions, and may well have a used rig to sell.

That's not been my experience, unfortunately. I got my Tech license about 15 years ago, and then a practice move and other distractions prevented me from doing anything (that, plus I hadn't gotten a radio yet). A year or so later, I got a used Icom dual-band HT, but just as I was learning to use it (complex durned little thing!) the guy who I'd been "hamming" with moved away and the other guy who'd been a good question-answerer passed away. So back in the closet with the gear for awhile. Later, I find out that the Icom has in the interim become obsolete, and a new battery-pack to replace my dead one will cost more than it's worth, so I ordered a really nice Kenwood mobile transceiver, but that's about where I've been stuck for ten years.

The problem is, it's now been so long since I took the license test, and so long since I've used any transceiver, that I'm dumb as a box of rocks when it comes to even the basic operation of the units, don't know local conventions as to who's on where, and without someone literally in the same room and patient enough to really walk me through the process of getting on-air, my transceiver just functions as an expensive weather-radio receiver.

The guy I talked to at the local Radio Shack store a few years ago was so obnoxious and downright hostile (he wouldn't sell me a HT even though I'm licensed, because I said my main use for it would be to have at home so my wife could listen to the SkyNet or whatever the storm-spotters network is called).

[/cynicism off]

I do think that the concept of base-to-base communication could be very 'tactical' in times of weather or political catastrophe, although I'm not as sure the repeater-based stuff would be quite as helpful in the latter case, as the repeaters would doubtless be targeted.

adirondakjack wrote:(That was an amazing thing pre-internet, chatting with folks in Australia, Africa, Europe.... Nowadays anybody with a computer can do so over the internet and thinks nothing of it.....)

It is true that the internet and cell-phones have sort of replaced many of the 'fun' things ham radio could provide, so those of us pressed for time are likely to figure why bother, when we have cell-phones and internet. Both of those DO depend on an infrastructure that could someday be dysfunctional, however, and neither offers the degree of anonymity or free-association that one gets with radio.

Beaker · Post by **Beaker** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 1:47 pm

Oh, I thought you were talking about hog hunting license.

vancelw · Post by **vancelw** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 2:23 pm

How far are you from Mena? Should be an active club near there. They have a field day and swap meet on Rich Mountain every September.

mklwhite · Post by **mklwhite** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 2:51 pm

adirondakjack wrote:Find a HAM club in your area and join it. There are ALWAYS locals who will help you with hardware and other questions, and may well have a used rig to sell....

I thought I might. That is the club that offers the testing and they have set up a few repeaters in the area and also participate in ARES/RACES training. After what happened in Joplin, well, I thought that might not be a bad idea.

adirondakjack wrote: (much deleted) If I was starting out now, I'd get a 2M hand-held to start.

I was afraid that a hand-held would be a bit weak. (Lots of hills and woods around here. Plays merry havoc with CBs, thought the same might hold true.)

vancelw wrote:How far are you from Mena? Should be an active club near there. They have a field day and swap meet on Rich Mountain every September.

Not too far really, nor too close, depending how you look at things. I'm about 200 miles away. Which is doable for a special event.

I am looking forward to getting started and learning something new.

adirondakjack · Post by **adirondakjack** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 4:24 pm

In recent years, I haven't been active much at all. I sold my HF rig (Icom 735, worked the entire world with it, including "portable" 10M to create a "hillbilly cell phone" "patch" to talk to the house from the deep woods, using two cash register batteries and a wire antenna run into a treetop using a fishing rod and a 1oz sinker to launch 20 lb line as a halyard.), and YES I keep a 2M radio around just in case we suffer a "Joplin-like" event. Races/Ares will spring into action, and I'd be available to be a "station" to relay information or to use my 2M rig as a repeater (car batteries work wonders when "real" repeaters are down, and it is very much legal to operate as a temporary repeater on their freq. if they ARE down). You can't beat Ham for that kinda situation. Anybody with a car battery and a radio can be a "node" on the network, functional for a week or three easy. A buddy just wired a hospital for Ham radio to replace phones and such in emergency use. Hams would be in the hospital acting as "comm" for the docs, etc if the "world" grid/etc goes dark.

vancelw · Post by **vancelw** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 8:27 pm

mklwhite wrote:
vancelw wrote:How far are you from Mena? Should be an active club near there. They have a field day and swap meet on Rich Mountain every September.
Not too far really, nor too close, depending how you look at things. I'm about 200 miles away. Which is doable for a special event.

I am looking forward to getting started and learning something new.

Well, that's probably too far for a club to help you get your ticket. You should be able to Google for an amateur club in your area.
Go to Radio Shack and buy a No-code Tech book by Gordon West. Work through all the questions in the bank, get help with those that boggle your brain, and take the test. Your local club usually sponsors the test once a month or so. Or you can find a Ham-fest and take a test there.
Morse code is not required anymore (I think it's a mistake). I'm a no-code tech from '93 and at one time learned some code, thinking about upgrading. Now all you have to do is the written test, which takes the challenge out of it for me. Morse code will work in any medium when all the technology is kaput.

mklwhite · Post by **mklwhite** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 9:33 pm

vancelw wrote:Well, that's probably too far for a club to help you get your ticket. You should be able to Google for an amateur club in your area.

Thankfully I do have a club a lot closer than that to me, but I am unaware if they do any hamfests. I couldn't find any info about them having one on their site. There is a club about 20 miles from here. I was afarid that I would have to test at a palce about 50 miles away, but this is much more handy.

Mike S. · Post by **Mike S.** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 10:28 pm

de KB0VXN

I was first licensed back in 86 or so when I was 15. Had a blast with it, but then discovered beer & girls....then came work, wife & kids and I just started messing around with it again after a long time. Having a lot of fun with it again now.

My latest interest is the amateur radio satellites, which can be used with just a dual-band handheld...its pretty cool, and that tech license would let you play with them too.

I'd say go for it!! Always looking for new interest in the hobby.

73, Mike

salvo · Post by **salvo** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 10:07 am

Extra Class here.
Go for it, so many avenues to explore in amateur radio. I found that long distance contacts are what I enjoy the most. I put together an offset dipole antenna and with 100 watts, I can talk all over the world.
I got into HAM after 911 and was heavy into the Emergency radio aspect for quite a few years, then Morse code took over, now I just enjoy making contacts and talking with people in far off lands

Just need more time in a day to do it more often.

mklwhite · Post by **mklwhite** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 11:37 am

Mike S. wrote: My latest interest is the amateur radio satellites, which can be used with just a dual-band handheld...its pretty cool, and that tech license would let you play with them too.

I had heard about HAM sats but had no idea that a dual-band hand-held could hit one. Would you know a good website talking about the process? Very interesting.

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 2:18 pm

General class here KE4VBB.

Google is your friend when looking for information. Bookmark everything you find helpful so you can go back to it later.
If you can get the Gorden West book as was mentioned earlier you can read the book to learn the information, then look at the test questions in the back of the book. There are something like 200 question in the pool of test questions. of those 200 possible you will only have to answer something like 35 questions. Memorize the questions and the correct answers. Then go online and practice taking the tests online. When you can take the practice tests and get 90- 95% right you should be able to pass the test for real.
If you contact the American Radio Relay League and or the American Red Cross you should be able to find a club near you.

If you start with a 2m or 440 HT you can use it as an HT or if the model you choose has the right antenna connections you can hook it to a base station antenna or an antenna mounted on your car. Either one will make your little HT 5-10 times more efficient.
There is also a website IIRC echolink where you can talk via the internet to repeaters all over the world.

k8bor · Post by **k8bor** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 4:44 pm

Go for it. General class here.

AJMD429 · Post by **AJMD429** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 5:28 pm

salvo wrote:I got into HAM after 911 and was heavy into the Emergency radio aspect for quite a few years, then Morse code took over, now I just enjoy making contacts and talking with people in far off lands.

Dumb Question: How often do you really use the Morse Code? I got my "Technician - code-free" license so would have to brush up and learn Morse to use it - but where/how/when would I really use it...?

It may be a moot point unless I can find a local HAM to help me learn how to operate my Kenwood efficiently...

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 6:41 pm

Some people really like CW more than voice. If you really want a thrill do a search on high speed code. Some of those guys can really give a key a workout.

I have worked cw mobile with a knee key just to give it a try. I never really cared for it.

Mike S. · Post by **Mike S.** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 7:46 pm

I had heard about HAM sats but had no idea that a dual-band hand-held could hit one. Would you know a good website talking about the process? Very interesting.

Yes, check out http://web.me.com/clintbradford/Work-Sat/Home.html Click to download the four-page tutorial...it will tell you most everything you need to get started.

It is pretty cool to point a handheld antenna at a target the size of a shoebox, a couple hundred miles away, that is traveling at around 17,000 mph and communicate through it.

I am far from an expert, but let me know if I can help you further.

Mike

adirondakjack · Post by **adirondakjack** » Sun Jul 17, 2011 11:21 pm

I use CW just enough to pass the General exam. I used to say nobody ever passed the general test knowing LESS CW. Since the skills are quite perishable, and I never spiked the key but once on the air, I have forgotten most of it.

My FIL, age 86, OTOH, was a radio operator in the Navy in WWII, copying coded CW at 30 wpm by the hour, groups of five "gibberish" characters the crypto guys then decoded into plain language. He can still "copy" the auto-id of a police or fire repeater (and they are fast), or "sing" whole words in "dum, de, de, dums" at 20 wpm or better. But, he did it all day every day for a couple of years. He also got his HAM ticket pulled in the 50's, after his "bread board" 100W HF CW rig interfered with a Navy ship out in the atlantic due to weird harmonics. He defied the FCC, said he didn't do it. When he refused to desist, they came and took his radio. He honestly didn't understand harmonics.....''

BUT, in a bad times scenario, CW will punch through when voice at the same wattage won't.....

mklwhite · Post by **mklwhite** » Mon Jul 18, 2011 6:49 am

Mike S. wrote: Yes, check out http://web.me.com/clintbradford/Work-Sat/Home.html Click to download the four-page tutorial...it will tell you most everything you need to get started.

It is pretty cool to point a handheld antenna at a target the size of a shoebox, a couple hundred miles away, that is traveling at around 17,000 mph and communicate through it.

Thanks for the link! I just read a little bit about the history of OSCARS here and can see an area I want to know a lot more about. That is just incredible. I know in a world of Internet and facebook and smart phones it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it looks good to me! New territory to explore.

crystal river charli · Mon Jul 18, 2011 1:48 pm

W4CDF
20 and 40 meter psk mostly.

Charlie

Mike S. · Post by **Mike S.** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 11:01 am

mklwhite wrote: Thanks for the link! I just read a little bit about the history of OSCARS here and can see an area I want to know a lot more about. That is just incredible. I know in a world of Internet and facebook and smart phones it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it looks good to me! New territory to explore.

That is a cool link....I hadn't seen that before.

Idahoser · Post by **Idahoser** » Tue Jul 19, 2011 1:09 pm

first of all, yes, there are many hams here. Notice that's "ham", not "HAM". It doesn't stand for anything, it's not an acronym, it's just a word, like the lunch meat. "hamming it up".

Next: there is no longer any requirement to know any Morse code for any license level. My mother is an Extra and couldn't care less about radio, she just did it for fun. If you can memorize answers you can get all the way up in one sitting. You should try, in fact. When you pay the volunteer examiners at the testing session you get to try all the tests as long as you pass the one before. If you're ready for tech, you may pass general with no further study; and if you pass that, there's no harm in trying the extra exam. There's nothing on your license that says "tried and failed". It can be done with nothing more than taking the online practice tests a few hundred times, you don't have to understand, you only have to remember the right answers. They aren't in the same order, but they are the same questions and answers. Come back and learn what it's all about after the exam.

What radio? You probably already have a shortwave portable. String up a wire and you can probably listen to some HF (high frequency, between about 2MHz and 30MHz). If you have a scanner for local police, fire, etc, you can hear local ham repeaters in the VHF and UHF bands. You can listen to Echolink repeaters all over the world, but you do have to have a license before you can sign up for that. There are online HF receivers you can tune into.

You do NOT need a license to buy a radio. Just don't transmit.

A dual-band (2m, also known as 144MHz, VHF, and 70cm, 440MHz, UHF) is a good rig for talking on the local repeaters, like a walkie-talkie only it does what you want it to do, where walkie talkies generally fail to do so.

To skip out of your local neighborhood you have to get down to 6m 50MHz and below, down to 1.5MHz 160m. That takes some land to get a reasonable antenna up. 80m 3.5MHz and up isn't too difficult or expensive, can be a "$4 special" wire antenna and a used manual tuner under $100, and you can build kit radios that only cover one band and have "QRP" very low power for just a bucks, if you just have to save cash. A really decent setup without a lot of manual labor would be something like a used Icom 706 all-band transciever for maybe $600 and another hundred for a tuner and a wire antenna if you have space, or a vertical if you don't but that costs more to buy. I wouldn't even consider mobile HF until you know what it's about, but if you did want to you could transplant most of the good lower-end base rigs to mobile use. You might go mobile right at the start with a uhf/vhf rig, instead of or in addition to a handheld.

I think I must have been about 10 in the late sixties/early seventies when I first found out about ham radio. I wanted to and just never did get involved until the code requirement was dropped. The funny thing is, code is one of the aspects of this broad hobby that intrigues me the most, and I'm learning the code now, because I want to, not because I have to.

mklwhite · Post by **mklwhite** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 6:52 am

Idahoser, thanks for the post. You introduced me to some ideas there that have my interest. Maybe they are ideas everybody who isn't me knows about but with me being mew and all I like it. I really like the write-ups I have been seeing about the $4 antenna (never heard of that before). Sounds like a great hobby that I can tinker with.
I better hit the books hard. I can't wait.

Idahoser · Post by **Idahoser** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 9:55 am

Yeah the $4 was just what the example he writes up cost him, but the idea being it isn't supposed to be a major operation to just get something in the air. That would be a decent antenna to start with, using junk wire and insulators made of anything. With twinlead feeding it and a tuner, it's supposed to be a decent all-band antenna. It isn't necessary to have an all-band antenna, you could choose one band and cut a resonant dipole and feed it with coax if that's what you had handy. That kind of "fiddling with stuff" is more interesting to me than "talking on the radio".

The sun is not being kind to us these days, so you pretty much need to be on 40m and lower for good HF. The rules are different for 6m and 10m, they are sometimes open long-distance for other atmospheric reasons, not really predictable.

There's a lot of stuff you can branch off into if it strikes your fancy such as satellites and moonbounce and meteor scatter and television and fax and digital and remote control and way too much to list. But the basic station that most folks use is a single-sideband high-frequency transceiver for phone (voice) with either several dedicated antennas (you can start with just one) or a multiband antenna with tuner. You'll always find a paddle or key hooked up too, even if you don't use it.

I must confess I've only been a ham for a couple years but even I realize I'm too slow getting a real station set up. I've had a couple of VHF/UHF stations set up in various locations in the house but I can't seem to make up my mind where I want it... and that leads to hesitation setting up good antennas, since I don't want to make holes in the wall and all that and then decide that's not where I want it. So I have portable antennas setup and very rarely I'll string a long wire out a window or the garage door or something, to where I have to disassemble it before I can close up for the night, and so they don't get much use.

My wife bought me a nice older Kenwood mobile that I never installed in my truck, and now I've traded in that truck I again need to get it set up in the new truck... someday. Don't want to pay somebody to install it, don't have much time to figure out how to do it myself... and so it sits.

But, talking to you about it gets me motivated to try again, so we'll see.

Rusty · Post by **Rusty** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 2:01 pm

You can always tell when you see a devoted ham. He'll be driving a $700 car with $2000 worth of radios in it.

These days new radios are so miniaturized you can't work on them like in the old days. That leaves antenna construction as a way to exercise your do it yourself skills. The first antenna I built for HF was a G5RV which is a multi band wire antenna. You can also build VHF antennas to improve your performance.
If you want work on the guts of the things you'll need to pick up an older radio. If you do a search look for older radios they call boat anchors.

Retro · Post by **Retro** » Wed Jul 20, 2011 2:21 pm

ZS1KE

Worked the world on CW, back when I was a student and had free time.

These days, not so much

bsaride · Post by **bsaride** » Thu Jul 21, 2011 1:27 am

KI6WZU here!

Check out the messages and see that I made my first sat contact a week and a half ago with the help of the work-sat group.
ARRL member, two local clubs, plus on the board of our small church club.

Mostly work VHF/UHF but also have HF radios that I haven't spent alot of time with.

I use my mobile every day, my HT once or twice a week, my 897D is getting used more lately as I'm working 6M.
6M did socal to new jersey on Field Day (sporadic E). Next month I will be working the booth at the fair one day
and hope to get time for the HF radios.

Talk to the guys at your local club that is working the local repeaters before buying a radio. Find out what bands/repeaters are active,
Get a repeater directory, look it over and see what frequencies are listed in your area. If you have 14XMHz and 44XMHz repeaters around
I would strongly suggest a dual band (2M, 70CM) radio. An HT (handheld) is usually good for 5W max output power and you might want to
get a mobile dual band radio as they usually put out 40-50 Watts which you might need in hilly, mountainous areas (line of sight to repeater).

Jay
General License
FT-950, FT-897D, FTM-10R, 4x HT's
Working 6M from the field, VHF/UHF daily from the car.

mklwhite · Post by **mklwhite** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 2:13 pm

Well I passed both the Technician and General exams. I kind of wished that I would have studied for the Extra... but I didn't want to put the cart before the horse so I played it safe. (Not real sure how I feel about that at the monument, but anyway... but it got me the HF freqs that I wanted so that is/was the primary target there.) They said that it would most likely be the end of the week before I am in the FCC database. Gotta start looking at radios with a more serious eye now. I know I'll have to start in at the shallow end of the (money) pool but I lest I get to get in! I feel like a kid at Christmas!

TxHunter · Post by **TxHunter** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 3:08 pm

Congratulations , maybe we'll catch you on the bands sometime .

KB5AMX
Mike

Idahoser · Post by **Idahoser** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 6:40 pm

Congratulations! There's not much you're missing out on that an extra gets. I did it at the same time as general but it was a surprise I passed. I had in mind to get my upgraded call sign quick and get the license plate. Since then I've almost regretted asking for the change in call sign, seems a lot of folks keep their original. And I'm reconsidering the license plate too, not sure I want people looking me up that easy.

bsaride · Post by **bsaride** » Sat Aug 13, 2011 6:48 pm

Outstanding!

Finally got my silent key elmers wife (good friend) to take the hunter safety course today.
(couldn't turn her into a lever gunner (yet)

I will likely get my extra and VE classification in late October.

Check out local ham clubs and see if there is any of them that have used equipment,
good way to get started and radios are usually preprogrammed.

Jay
KI6WZU

the telegraphist · Post by **the telegraphist** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 6:40 am

Not a ham, but was a pro at sea years ago. QRA? QSA? QRK? QTH? morse was my bag in them days. 25/50 WPM was the norm. Tho commercially to most coast stations 25WPM was the norm, unless working the Russian stations, then the sky was sorta the limit, those guys could talk real fast in morse. We used to take it down straight onto a typewriter, them was the days. Then radio telex came in, that was another great experience. But it was just the beginning of the end for us. Then satcom came in and we were out of a job, sad, but thats progress. Any you guys out there worked KOK or KPH, KFS WSL or the coastguard stations at NMA NMN etc? I worked at GKL for a while the busiest coast station in the world (Portisheadradio) fond memories of an era long past now.

mklwhite · Post by **mklwhite** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 12:53 pm

bsaride wrote: Check out local ham clubs and see if there is any of them that have used equipment,
good way to get started and radios are usually preprogrammed.

We've only got one club near by that I know of (within 30 miles) and that was the group that gave me the exam. After I passed the general they told me I was given a 6 month free membership with the club and their repeaters and phone patch! (The repeaters are free to any, but they ask for a low fee if you live around here and use them quite a bit.) I hope to be able to get in good with these guys and start learning.
It's kind of funny I got started looking at amateur radio as a way to get into the 2m/70cm side of things and have a bit more of a civil conversation than those I heard going on when I hooked up my CB. But the deeper into reading about it I got the neater parts of it sounded. More fun stuff to be able to play with and try to build. Now I'm looking at some of the little cw radios they have out there that campers/hikers sometimes use. Looks like loads of fun stuff to learn about.

Idahoser wrote:Congratulations! There's not much you're missing out on that an extra gets. I did it at the same time as general but it was a surprise I passed. I had in mind to get my upgraded call sign quick and get the license plate. Since then I've almost regretted asking for the change in call sign, seems a lot of folks keep their original. And I'm reconsidering the license plate too, not sure I want people looking me up that easy.

I have thought about the Extra license, one of the guys at the club said that I shouldn't have any problem with it the way I went through the others. But other than a feather in my cap... well I'm not sure why I would. The jump from Tech to General is a huge one. All sorts of possibilities and frequencies open up.. the step from General to Extra though, not so much. Not sure what I think about it right now.

I've also thought about the license plate thing too. One one hand I would really like one, on the other... well you bring up a good point about the privacy issue. I guess I'll need to think about that too.

vancelw · Post by **vancelw** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 3:20 pm

mklwhite wrote:
Idahoser wrote:And I'm reconsidering the license plate too, not sure I want people looking me up that easy.
I've also thought about the license plate thing too. One one hand I would really like one, on the other... well you bring up a good point about the privacy issue. I guess I'll need to think about that too.

That's exactly why I haven't had a call sign license plate in 10 years or more since I sold my old truck. Once you give out your call sign, any body and everybody knows who you are and where you live.
Google is your friend- ans sometimes your enemy.

Idahoser · Post by **Idahoser** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 3:42 pm

it's also why I don't paste my callsign all over the forums either, not that I wouldn't give it over PM.

a357lever · Post by **a357lever** » Sun Aug 14, 2011 7:54 pm

yea since 1985 I agree get the gordon west book or contact W5YI group on the internet and find a club in the area thats close, its easier than ever. When I got my ticket it was for extra class it took five written tests and three CW last one at 20 wpm! now I think there is three classes. Not too hard now, but great emergency communications and some fun. enjoy

Mike S. · Post by **Mike S.** » Sun Aug 21, 2011 1:16 pm

mklwhite wrote:Well I passed both the Technician and General exams. I kind of wished that I would have studied for the Extra... but I didn't want to put the cart before the horse so I played it safe. (Not real sure how I feel about that at the monument, but anyway... but it got me the HF freqs that I wanted so that is/was the primary target there.) They said that it would most likely be the end of the week before I am in the FCC database. Gotta start looking at radios with a more serious eye now. I know I'll have to start in at the shallow end of the (money) pool but I lest I get to get in! I feel like a kid at Christmas!

Hey congratulations....thats way cool! Hope to work you on the air one day....if you hear KB0VXN, make sure you give me a call! I'm mostly on HF CW and the FM sats these days.

Mike

Rexster · Post by **Rexster** » Thu Aug 25, 2011 5:52 pm

My wife is a ham with a Rossi '92 and a Marlin 1894CSS.

When I am off the clock, the last thing I want to do is mess with radios, as I wear a badge, and my life is ruled by a radio 40+ hours a week. I may get into this ham thing a bit after I retire.