Tag: Ham Radio

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family focus Life life styles

Ham again

Batman says:

Today Peach and I finally did it, we passed our test for General ham operators. We have been steadily plodding (means moving forward, slow but steadily) for a couple months as we study. We found out that we seem to study better together as opposed to each trying to alone. We picked times when we could sit together and put the flash cards up on the tv (mirrored on Apple TV is the technical term I do believe) and answered them together, did the same with practice exams, then we took practice exams separately. Seemed to work really well for us as the last few days it all clicked and we started getting passing scores in 99% of the practice exams.

So today at 1300hrs, at the local county EOC, 4 volunteer testers gave our tests, we thanked them when we were done and walked out of there upgraded.

Only one thing left to do and that’s maybe study and take the amateur extra exam…. maybe after a few days break eh Peach?

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family Life life styles

Upgrade

Batman says:

Peach and I have decided to upgrade our ham licenses from Technician to General, which will like I explained in an earlier post, allow us more frequencies to converse on when we pass the test. “There’s a Test?? You know I stink at tests!!” to which Peach does as she always does, rolls her eyes and tells me to be serious, which kinda leads to the reason for this post (the test part not the me trying to be serious, which if you ask Peach, I rarely am).

I have often wondered what twisted personalities develop questions for Ham tests, I mean, if you look at them on the face they are a mixed jumble of technical jargon that the normal person has no clue what the meaning is (I’ll give a few examples in a bit). Now before all you Ham enthusiasts get all uppity, finish reading. There are two types of Ham operators, generally, I believe (leaving out the preppers, not because they don’t count but, because they mostly are using Ham for preparation for society collapse, good on ya for being prepared.) My two types are people that just want to turn on a radio, find some people talking and have a fun conversation, making new “contacts” and hopefully lifelong friendships. The other type also enjoys the same things, but these are the technical ones, the ones that desire to use computers, tinker with new equipment, find new ways to do things, which generally improves Ham radio for most others (except when it comes to tests).

The first user type is a young child or adult introduced to Ham at school or by a friend of the family or at a field day etc. They become excited to talk to people around the world (yes it’s possible to do) and enjoy doing so. This type does not care how the radio works, does not care how many volts equal a millivolt, kilovolt, volt cola or whatever. They just want to be able to talk and make friends. They will probably never open a radio up to fix a bad diode or bulb, won’t build or adjust antennas, will buy what’s best and use it based on what’s in the instruction manual. They want to know the rules, so they can follow them and be good Ham operators, and generally are happy with the knowledge they have.

Type two, the tinkerers, question everything, look for ways to talk farther, improve speed, make antennas easier to adjust (tune). These are the people that over the years, have improved Ham radio two-fold over what it was capable of doing in the early days, and they continue to question and try and improve each time they have a moment.

I believe both types have their place and both add something to Ham radio, and now the reason for the ramble:

Who writes these tests? I mean seriously??!! Why does a person need to know how many nanofarad’s equal a picofarad just to talk on a radio to someone?? Why do I care how the efficiency of a RF power amplifier is determined? Answer is “I don’t” except to upgrade my license, based on God knows who’s idea of what knowledge I need to be licensed to talk on Ham radio legally. This is where the two sides butt heads, the one side could care less, the other thinks everyone should know.

It’s my blog post (when Peach lets me call it that) so I’m gonna go out on a limb, why not make the test relevant to what you can and cannot do? Questions about the rules, would in my humble opinion, better serve the Ham community and teach what’s proper. By all means, if your type 2 then go forth and prosper, keep up the good work, but that’s no reason to expect the average person to learn how to calculate how long a wire antenna needs to be to be resonant on 80 meters (use the online calculators out there it’s easier).

Peach and I will wade through the technical crap that we will never use, and we will pass our tests (confidence is key) even though we believe it’s not relevant to why we are doing it. It has gotten “easier”, they took out the Morse code requirement (CW) which is weird because it would actually be relevant to a lot of people.

Anyways, I have to go learn what a discriminator, a mixer and other things I will never use are, the test is next month and my mind doesn’t like being crammed with useless knowledge, even if I only have to retain it till I pass the test.

Y’all take care

The pic above is all Peach and I use to talk on the air, it’s all we need.

Oh, when you write to give me heck, please use decent language, sometimes little kids read these posts to

73 y’all

Categories
life styles

Ham (again)

Batman says:

Sooo again on the subject of ham radio operators, which Peach and I both are. Last time I posted about this was about how some hams have no (or little) in the way of manners when it comes to usage. Let me see if I can expound a bit but first let me explain who can do what on a ham radio.

There are three ‘classes’ of operators (the novice class for the most part doesn’t exist anymore)

The hierarchy goes like this from highest to lowest (in the range of frequencies you can legally use)

Amateur Extra

General

Technician

Now Peach and I are Technician class operators (studying to move to General) and as such we are extremely limited on what frequencies we can talk on (although there are proposals to open more up to technicians). We spend 98% of the time on what it known as 2 meter, sometimes we are on ‘simplex’ but it’s mainly line-of-sight so it’s use is limited.

2 meter however, if used through a repeater, can be used to talk all over town and to some extent, neighboring towns. Repeaters, basically take your signal and rebroadcast it so it can be heard farther (in a nutshell) I’m sure the technical geeks will pitch a fit and say it’s more complicated than that…don’t care really…it’s a signal booster, basically. Repeaters are put up by amateur radio clubs mainly, and sometimes by individuals, to be used freely by all (in most areas), and here lies the ‘rub’ so to speak.

Members, not all mind you, but certain few, seem to always be on the repeater, and when I say always, I’m talking pretty much 24/7. If they are not talking to each other, when they hear someone talking they find it necessary to get in on the conversation. Hams are generally social, so at most times this isn’t an issue, but when it’s obviously two family members conversing, the urge to butt in should probably be suppressed. It takes time for some hams to feel comfortable with their new skill set and they are mostly comfortable conversing with close friends or family, not strangers (in my line of work I speak on a radio all the time and for years it was able to be heard on scanners so myself it doesn’t bother).

We as hams are always trying to get more people to become hams, and join the thousands of others around the world. But here lately, the rudeness, the ‘taking over of the repeaters, has tainted some from wanting to participate. This type of usage is not what was intended I’m sure, and I hope for the sake of good radio it doesn’t last.

This type of behavior on basically the only frequency Peach and I can use is to be honest, the only reason we are trying to upgrade to General class. There we have many more ‘bands’ and frequencies to choose from if we need to do more than say ‘hello and I Love’ you to each other.

Now this sounds like I’m unsociable, and that’s not the case at all. I do like talking to others on the radio, I listen to the higher bands I’m not allowed to transmit on all the time, wishing I could talk to that guy in New Zealand or lady in Europe. But there are times I would like to say hi to Peach, see if she needs anything from town while I’m there, without being interrupted by the repeater hogs with hellos and who are you’s, don’t think I’ve ever heard you on here before and such, and if you are an unfamiliar female voice, it’s 50 times worse. Have some decency and radio etiquette at times and met some new voices talk to who they are comfortable with, and eventually they will expand their pool of contacts to maybe include even you.

Anyways, rant over, one day soon we will upgrade and be able to find a frequency where we can talk about the grocery list in peace…. I hope anyways