March 29, 2007
Another case for the ham license...
A tornado just rolled through west OKC/Yukon. My most honoralbe and esteemed ham newbie lives in the affected neighborhood. All the phone lines and cell towers are down, but he was able to establish communications with everyone in his ham 'group' on the first attempt.
Food for thought, folks.
Food for thought, folks.
Labels: HAM-tastic
// posted by wayne @ 3/29/2007 05:22:00 PM 
March 28, 2007
I'm gonna be a HAM!
Some of you may already think this to be the case, but I'm going to make it official. After much prodding, encouragement and a blatant display of super-sweet, ultra-geeky communications gear by one of my most honorable and esteemed newb's, I am going to take, and pass, my FCC amateur radio operator test. In fact, I just finished about 9 practice tests--it took that many for me to ace one. I am averaging between 85 and 95 percent on each of the practice tests depending on the amount of frequency related questions they ask. I still haven't memorized all the bands, but I'm getting there.
"Why", you may ask, would anyone want to be a ham in this day and age of instant interweb gratification? Simple: it is beyond cool. It almost seems strange to say a technology as old as radio is cool, but to me, it is. Think about this: if you're power goes out, your interwebs are gone. BUT...if you are a licensed ham, you just grab the battery-powered transciever and you are good to go! I can't believe more people aren't interested in amateur radio. You may have to humor me a bit, but I find the ability to use a transmitter, perhaps even a home-brew rig, to bounce a high-frequency signal off the ionosphere to another continent pretty flippin' cool. I know, I know, you're internet connection will allow you to communicate with that same country, but that's like frozen lasagna. Sure, it's still fat noodles, tomato sauce, beef, sausage, cheeses, herbs and spices, but is it really lasagna?
In reality, and quite by accident, this all started about 20 years ago. My junior year in high-school I opted to attend Mid America vo-tech (in good ol' Wayne, OK) at the absolute last minute. I was trying to be placed in a class with one of my best buds, but due to the last-minute nature of my decision, our principal ended up calling the admissions people instead of me filling out the correct paperwork. Net result? Our buddy Mr. West enrolled me in the wrong class! Instead of attending basic electrical whatever with Billy Huffman, I started communication electronics--which was supposed to teach us how to service and install VHF/UHF communications gear. What it actually taught me was basic electricity and electronics accentuated with the many different ways one can cause a capacitor to detonate. I also remember our freakishly eccentric instructor had a pretty nice radio shack set up in the parts room and, on occasion, if we finished a module early, he would let us chat with the other hams in the area. In any event, I barely scraped through that class, but it was interesting enough that I decided to try avionics in the military when I signed up for Uncle Sugar's canoe club--and loved it. Too bad Uncle Sugar was the one signing the checks or I might still be working on aircraft.
Until now, the only thing that has been any kind of deterrent towards getting my license was the 5wpm Morse code test, but now that the FCC has dropped that requirement (and the novice class license) I am officially out of excuses. And the cost? A whopping $14 application fee! Considering the license is valid for 10 years, that comes to about a buck-forty a year and in my book, that's a bargain.
"Why", you may ask, would anyone want to be a ham in this day and age of instant interweb gratification? Simple: it is beyond cool. It almost seems strange to say a technology as old as radio is cool, but to me, it is. Think about this: if you're power goes out, your interwebs are gone. BUT...if you are a licensed ham, you just grab the battery-powered transciever and you are good to go! I can't believe more people aren't interested in amateur radio. You may have to humor me a bit, but I find the ability to use a transmitter, perhaps even a home-brew rig, to bounce a high-frequency signal off the ionosphere to another continent pretty flippin' cool. I know, I know, you're internet connection will allow you to communicate with that same country, but that's like frozen lasagna. Sure, it's still fat noodles, tomato sauce, beef, sausage, cheeses, herbs and spices, but is it really lasagna?
In reality, and quite by accident, this all started about 20 years ago. My junior year in high-school I opted to attend Mid America vo-tech (in good ol' Wayne, OK) at the absolute last minute. I was trying to be placed in a class with one of my best buds, but due to the last-minute nature of my decision, our principal ended up calling the admissions people instead of me filling out the correct paperwork. Net result? Our buddy Mr. West enrolled me in the wrong class! Instead of attending basic electrical whatever with Billy Huffman, I started communication electronics--which was supposed to teach us how to service and install VHF/UHF communications gear. What it actually taught me was basic electricity and electronics accentuated with the many different ways one can cause a capacitor to detonate. I also remember our freakishly eccentric instructor had a pretty nice radio shack set up in the parts room and, on occasion, if we finished a module early, he would let us chat with the other hams in the area. In any event, I barely scraped through that class, but it was interesting enough that I decided to try avionics in the military when I signed up for Uncle Sugar's canoe club--and loved it. Too bad Uncle Sugar was the one signing the checks or I might still be working on aircraft.
Until now, the only thing that has been any kind of deterrent towards getting my license was the 5wpm Morse code test, but now that the FCC has dropped that requirement (and the novice class license) I am officially out of excuses. And the cost? A whopping $14 application fee! Considering the license is valid for 10 years, that comes to about a buck-forty a year and in my book, that's a bargain.
Labels: HAM-tastic
// posted by wayne @ 3/28/2007 03:34:00 AM
