Amateur Radio, Part II
June 22nd, 2008
Well, I couldn’t stand it. After getting the technician license, I started studying for the general and extra exams. These aren’t too bad, a bit more math, more obscure radio trivia, but nothing insurmountable. Insurmountable enough I took both exams on the same night, passed both. I don’t recall how many I missed on General, but I missed 3 on the Extra test, good enough to become an Amateur Extra and get a new callsign! KE5TZB is now history, and I’m now AE5HJ.
I’ve gotten a Comet M-24s antenna for the Yaesu VX-7R HT. Much improved operation in the car! I also got a handheld speaker/mic for it. I wasn’t sure I would like operating a handheld device like that, but it is really nice in the car. I just wish it had frequency up/down controls.
The Gigaparts guys are great! Shipped my order the same day, no problems at all. If you’re in Huntsville, AL, run by their store.
June 23rd, 2008 at 5:28 pm
dude, thats just uber old skool geeky coolness..
i’ve always wanted to know that type of stuff but never had the math (used to but after calc 2 at the umn my brain refuses to do anything above pre-calc… hehe)
on a side note, i’ve always wanted to run my own pirate radio station as a teenager/young adult but realized that on my parents farm, i’d only have a max of 3-4 listeners including myself. hehe..
June 27th, 2008 at 5:38 am
Do you do a lot of talking to people with it?
June 27th, 2008 at 7:25 am
More than I really expected. The radio I have (Yeasu vx-7r) covers the 70cm, 1.25m, 2m, and 6m bands. 6m is more or less out, since the external antenna isn’t designed for those frequencies.
In the Jackson, MS area, there are several “nets” - a loose term for “bunch of people tuned in to the same frequency / repeater at the same time”. A couple of them are associated with emergency services, so those are interesting to hop on. There is an 8AM weekday net, just a group of people chatting about whatever. Since I’m usually running into the office, I don’t normally get to hear much of that one.
Since getting the external antenna, it has opened the morning and afternoon drive conversations. Many amateurs operate mobile stations from their car - this time can be quite active. (Looking for donations to the Yeasu 857 fund!)
The range of some of these radios is quite amazing. I’ve heard people on the local repeater from Texas and Arkansas. In the HF bands, worldwide communication is possible, even on low-power equipment.
Augmenting this capability is a couple of VoIP implementations. One repeater around here is connected to EchoLink, a network of internet-connected repeaters. This system allows an amateur to seize the repeater, then connect it to another EchoLink repeater. This link transmits the amateur’s signal to the other repeater for broadcast. Even with a simple HT, EchoLink allows worldwide communication. (Which reminds me, I need to get Allen on that…)