General Class License

Hey, check it out, I just passed my General Class radio ham exam! Just like last time, the test popped up too quickly for me to study properly so I've been cramming the 484 multiple choice questions in the question pool for the last week and it went pretty well. I think I got 30 out of 35 right (I needed at least 26). I had been practicing on my iPhone using AA9PW's online practice exams and it had been going pretty well. It was a surprise to note that the answers weren't in the same order in the real exam as they are online. I also took the Extra Class exam, but I hadn't studied for that at all and failed miserably with a 25 out of 50.

I still have no idea why I took the test. With the new license I can operate at different frequencies that can travel further, but I don't have a radio that can transmit at those frequencies and I don't plan on getting one. I have enjoyed learning all the stuff though. I already bought the Extra Class book so I guess at some point I'll try and pass that, but not this year. I have until 2011 when the question pool will change and my current book will be out of date. Extra is as high as it goes. It's like being a frickin' black belt in radio geekery. Bad Ass!

Long distance contact

Today I went hiking with my wife around chain lakes in Yosemite. It was a tough hike, but once we had a nice dinner at 9,500ft I turned on my radio to see what we could hear. After some scanning I picked up some folks having a QSO in Monterey (150 miles away!). After they were done I called CQ and had a nice conversation with them. Sadly I didn't write down their call signs, or manage to work out how my signal was getting to them, My guess is that I was Loma Pioneer Repeater Club since I was on 442.900 + PL162.2 that matches their repeater network. It was very reassuring to know that even out there we could contact people if we had any kind of emergency.

My First Contact KG6VMX

Tonight I attended my first ever local ham club meeting (LPARC). It wasn't where they said it would be! I got off the highway behind a car with a vanity plate that looked like a call sign and had extra antennas on the top so I figured I was going in the right direction. However this car pulled over in to the school and not the fire station where the meeting was. So I drove another few miles to the fire station, only to find a nice note telling me the meeting was at the school! Oh well, it was a nice meeting and I got to show my radio to folks and ask why I couldn't hit the repeater. Seems I had everything set up, the positive offset and the tone frequency, what I had neglected to do was actually turn on the repeater tone!

With this new found knowledge and my repeater tone turned on I got home and called CQ and someone answered! My first ever ham radio contact was with Bill (KG6VMX) who it just so happened had been at the meeting that evening.

I added it to my QSO Map.

Joined the ARRL

I joined the ARRL. Because my employer matches charitable donations over $50 I joined for 3 years so that my deductible amount was $66 so that they could match it. After a few emails I think it actually happened. There's a lot to read in QRZ magazine which I now get every month and I tend to always learn something from it so I'm enjoying it a lot. Plus it amuses my wife to see pictures of people on extreme DXpeditions. I like that the ARRL is looking out for ham frequencies and keeping ontop of the political side of things.

My First Radio

My First Ham radio arrived today!

After consulting with my Uncle G4HON, I was advised that ICOM HT's are the bees knees so I ordered this as soon as I got back from vacation. I found the best price online at GigaParts, it was about $280 shipped, far more than the original budget of around $100 for a police scanner!

Now I need to wait for it to charge and to read the manual a lot and work out how to use the darn thing.

I already found a list of local repeaters so I can program those into the memory settings.

Got my license today

I just noticed on the fcc site that my license was issued today!

Say hello to KI6QNY what an awful call sign, I'm going to have to do something about that. I checked out the available call signs and like the look of K8ARK since it has my initials and of the available ARK's this was in West Virginia (good mountain biking) rather than New York (likely someone else will want it there more than West Virginia). It would have been better to have K6ARK, then my region number would be accurate, but you can't have everything.

I am a radio ham! (Why?)

Today I passed my technician class license exam! I had been studying for about 2 months I think and I barely squeaked through passing by the bare minimum if I remember rightly. I had planned to study properly, learn it all inside out and then take the test. But my vacation was coming up and I'd be seeing my Uncle Chris (G4HON) and figured it'd be neat if I had passed by then. I started on plan B and studied the question pool and took the test.

Why I became a ham:

I live close to the highway, right where all the cars crash. Recently there was a motorcycle accident and the hillside caught fire and the CDF helicopter came to dump some water. It was reported in the newspaper the next day. What they didn't say in the newspaper, but someone did in the comments below, was that they also found a marijuana growing operation right there and there was lots of chatter about it on the police frequencies. This made me start thinking I'd like a police scanner. I posted at working asking for recommendations. Someone replied and told me that for a similar price to a police scanner I could just get a Ham Radio Handheld Transceiver (HT) and then I could transmit too. That appealed to me a lot since I love the idea of self sufficiency and helping out (I'm first aid/CPR certified, I volunteer with my employer's Emergency Response Team and my wife is a certified EMT). That's how it all started.