Welcome to the world of Amateur Radio, now what?
I thought that I was really happy with my 2 meter hand held transceiver, which I manually programmed to work on a few local repeaters. It wasn't until a friend invited me up to the wireless room at the Queen Mary (W6RO) that I realized that HF was the coolest thing since sliced bread. I studied for my General and passed my test in less than two months and then set my goal to pass my Amateur Extra class by my next birthday. Amazingly, I found a Volunteer Examiner team that conducted the test on my birthday and within days I was granted the status of Amateur Extra.
This is what I will be discussing in this blog, as well as various product reviews, resources for learning more about Amateur Radio as well as tips that you can use to improve your radio skills.
I am relatively new to Amateur Radio but I have been involved with radio most of my life. So much so that my friends say that my voice fades when we drive through a tunnel. Seriously, in 1963, when I was 7 years old, I visited radio station KRLA on an outing with my Cub Scout pack. From that day I thought that working in a radio station would really be fun. When I grew up, I went to Long Beach City College to study Radio/TV production and have worked in some capacity in the industry from 1976 to 2011.
It was not until 2006 that I decided to get my Technician's Amateur license. I studied all the material to pass my test but really didn't have a clue as to all of the cool stuff that I could do until many years later.
I thought that I was really happy with my 2 meter hand held transceiver, which I manually programmed to work on a few local repeaters. It wasn't until a friend invited me up to the wireless room at the Queen Mary (W6RO) that I realized that HF was the coolest thing since sliced bread. I studied for my General and passed my test in less than two months and then set my goal to pass my Amateur Extra class by my next birthday. Amazingly, I found a Volunteer Examiner team that conducted the test on my birthday and within days I was granted the status of Amateur Extra.
So far I have made contact with other ham radio operators around the world from my home station using a simple HF 100 watt radio. I have also seen the same radio send 5 or 10 watt digital communication on the 20 meter band half way around the world.
In the blogs to come I will be writing about some of the new dual bands radios from China and how to have fun with JT-65 digital communications.
If this is the sort of stuff that interests you I hope you will come back.
Johnny Taylor W7EAH was my Elmer back in the 70's. Elmers are sooo important, I urge everyone getting started in this hobby to find one! I recently wrote a blog about my elmer.
ReplyDeletehttp://k7tpd.yolasite.com/morse-code-blog/my-elmer-johnny-taylor-w7eah
Good luck, 73 Tom K7TPD