Monthly Archive for October, 2005

Another “how did I get into that” article. Might be helpful for someone else…

The amateur radio hobby consists of more than just communicating, it embraces the idea of electronic & technology experimentation as well as “hacking”, which I define as “figuring out how something works, and then making it do something completely different” (some may disagree).

I played with walkie-talkies (in amateur circles they are known as “handie-talkies” or HT’s) & CB’s when I was younger. And then we got a scanner, and I programmed it with every possible frequency that we could pick up. And worked with my Dad on our “deep fringe area” TV antenna setup, since we were out in the sticks. But didn’t know anyone into amateur radio. My parents & grandparents did talk about how they listened to shortwave before they had television.

Another hobby of mine was weather. I loved to read about it, watch it, predict it with my Mamma (she was very interested in it too). I had wanted to get a degree in Meteorology, but ended up going with Computer Science. So I decided to just be an amateur meterologist. And part of that was to volunteer to help the National Weather Service as a Storm Spotter. I have taken several SkyWarn trainging classes to become a certified basic/advanced storm spotter. SkyWarn networks (the group of volunteers reporting in a given area or county) use amateur radio to communicate. So this is what finally made me decide to get my ham radio license (known as a “ticket”). (Ham Radio = Amateur Radio, enthusiasts are often called “hams”.)

So I passed my No-Code Technician test and received the call-sign KD5FWK. Later on, I passed my General, Advanced, & Extra tests. A Morse code test was included in there, but was not too bad. I kind of enjoy it. Recent changes have trimmed the classes down to 3, but still include a code test. Being an Extra Class operator allows me to communicate on all amateur radio bands.

Amateur radio operators are usually active in the community with emergency communications, traffic passing, storm reporting, etc. I have taken a few classes to be certified in StarFlight landing zone preparation. And have a certificate in Level 1 Amateur Radio Emergency Communications. Am a member of ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service). And I check-in as often as I can on the Central Texas Traffic Net.

A few of the radios & accessories that I have are:

Yaesu VX-5R : my favorite radio, it is a very small HT, tx on 70cm/2m/6m + wide-receive, barometric pressure & temp monitor, ARTS, computer programmable, user-friendly display with icons & name tags.

Radio Shack HTX10 10M Mobile Transceiver : have this one set to be mobile from car to car

Uniden CB : CB’s are good for getting traffic info from the truckers far up the road, since they are using the max legal transmit limit, uh, yeah right. You can also monitor channel 9 and respond when someone needs help.

Uniden BearTracker BCT7 : nice mobile scanner.

Hallicrafters S-118 : this is an antique that I am using as a shortwave receiver

Alinco DJ-S11T : very small 2M HT .

SWR meters

Morse keyer I built to use with the RS HTX10

sloper antenna for the shortwave set

hustler 10M mast w/ mobile mount

larsen 10M whip w/ mag-mount

MFJ tri-band mobile antenna w/ mag-mount for use with the HT

Radio Shack short wave spool antenna for wide band receive on the HT

tri-band duck for HT (in addition to the stock duck with the removable 6m tip)

What I would really like: Yaesu FT-897D (multiband, multimode portable transceiver).

And now that we have a nice new big house and a nice big yard, I should be able to play around alot with antennas. I would also like to get more into packet and other digital modes, and maybe some QRP.

Here’s where to look for more information about getting started in ham radio:

ARRL – Welcome to Amateur Radio!

Radio Shack : I used their study guides and morse code tapes