💾 Archived View for gemini.djph.net › users › ke8pfu captured on 2020-09-24 at 00:55:11. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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Writing this little capsule to blog (I guess) about my experiences in amateur (aka 'ham') radio. Since one of the big tenants of amateur radio is "no commercial stuff", and the internet is rather inundated with "commercialism"; this seems a better fit overall.
Obviously "the internet" is rather more ubiquitous, so there is a duplicate site over here:
Unlike a lot of ham operators who have stories like "yeah I was goofing around with radio as a young teenager.", my start in it is CONSIDERABLY more recent (2020-08-23 --> I really started considering it about 4 weeks ago). Mostly it comes out of goofing around with Arduinos, and a bit of looking into SDR -- talking about it in several "general purpose" IRC channels led me into running into a few hams who basically started egging me on to just get my ticket.
So, ordered the books (Technician and General, as the "Extra" class renewed the testing requirements on 2020-07-01; and thanks to the current pandemic, shipping is fun(tm). Hurry it up amazon!); and received them on 2020-08-06.
About the same time, WL1B out of the Anchorage VEC popped into one of the IRC channels I frequent looking for someone to help his group with a small program to help generate the batch files for the FCC's automated filing system. Offer to take the "old college try", as neither Python nor graphical interfaces are really my thing.
If you'd like to take the application for a spin, you can find it
As i'm working on the program (and, honestly, it's come out pretty well), WL1B says that with the lockdowns and such, the VEC is looking into ways they can perform testing via teleconference applications (such as Zoom / Jitsi / Google Meet / etc.)
Sure, I'll help out -- so we schedule to meet up with two other examiners, W5AD and KN4EWI (rule is 3 examiners to oversee the tests) on the evening of 2020-08-19. Miraculously I pass both the Technician and General tests (quite solidly on the Technician, decent-ish on the General); at which time they announce that not only did I help prove this could work in the future, but oh yeah this was a real test, and they're submitting the results to the FCC.
So, now I've got my General license. Well played guys.
Now that I am licensed, my next steps are to study for the "Extra" license (hurry it up amazon!), and also add a Morse Code certificate. Not that it means much in the US (Morse hasn't been a part of the tests in several years), but it's been something that I've been interested in on and off for a long while, and now that I have the ham license, it'll give me the ability to practice / keep using morse code.