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HAM Operators


Chief Rick

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What is the basic license for a HAM operator?

 

I have a testing facility fairly close to the house (2 1/2 hours) but I need to know what I should be studying.

 

Found this site with study manuals.

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Go to arrl.org

 

This is the home page for the amature radio relay league and will answer all your questions.

 

Good luck. 

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Contact the club that is holding the class. Many clubs have study groups to assist you in successfully passing the required exams. They may also be able to set you up with an Elmer (mentor) that can answer questions. The exams are multiple choice and the pool of questions is available for study. Be sure if you buy any study guides that they are current. The FCC updated the question pool for the Technician class this summer.

 

Hams are a lot like Cowboy shooters in that they are friendly and want to see their hobby continue to grow so they will go out of their way to help you get started. For Amateur Radio our national voice is the ARRL or Amateur Radio Relay League.

 

There are fewer license classes than when I got my first license. Back then there were five licenses plus Morse Code requirements. Now there are only three. (Technician, General and Extra). each successive license class gives you access to more of the RF spectrum set aside for Amateur Radio. There is no longer a requirement to learn Morse code but despite that there are a lot of Hams that still take the time to learn and use Morse Code on a regular basis.

 

Ham radio is a very diverse hobby that allows people to pick and choose the areas that interest them. Few people know that there are well over 100 satellites currently in orbit that are available for use by Ham radio operators. Many were designed and built by volunteer hams.  

 

Ham Radio is also an excellent way to give back to your community and help others in need. Amateur Radio operators prepare for and coordinate disaster response efforts via two organizations.  Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) and Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES)

 

Ham radio operators that volunteer as part ARES are like the boy scouts in that they prepare for and practice operating during man-made and natural disasters. They have back up power sources and portable antennas that can be set up quickly to provide essential communications for first responders at the federal, state, and local levels to coordinate relief efforts. They also relay short health and welfare messages so that loved ones can let each other know that they are OK.

 

I am not as active as I used to be but I was always amazed at the number of people that thought we were had special cell phones or were using satellite phones when in reality most of us was using transceivers and antennas that I we built ourselves. Even today most people would be shocked to learn that most police, fire and medical personnel cannot talk to one another directly because their radios are not compatible with one another. Cell phones are mostly useless because the cell sites are either off line or overwhelmed by the shear volume of people trying to make a call. Members of ARES learn radio discipline as part of their training so that communications are handled as efficiently as possible.

 

After Katrina even the Army and National Guard took notice at how efficient Ham radio operators are at communication when just about every other method is either off line or unusable because they are overloaded with traffic. Hams set up emergency repeaters for local communication as well as HF networks to get vital communication into and out of the disaster area.

 

There is also SkyWarn which works with the national weather service to spot and track severe weather including tornados. You don't have to be a licensed Ham to be a member of SkyWarn.
 

 

 

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6 hours ago, Putnam Under said:

The basic license is the Technician License. I highly recommend this website, HamTestOnline.

https://www.hamradiolicenseexam.com

 

If  you need any more help, feel free to contact me.

Good place to start.

Have held mine since high school.

73's

OLG

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Where I used to see a lot of Hams was long distance bike events. Volunteers would park their cars along the route and if there was a problem anywhere they would report it.  I did the bike mechanic volunteer role once and got to talk with a few.

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35 minutes ago, Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 said:

Where I used to see a lot of Hams was long distance bike events. Volunteers would park their cars along the route and if there was a problem anywhere they would report it.  I did the bike mechanic volunteer role once and got to talk with a few.

 

Without the volunteer work of Hams many of events would not have a safety net.

 

I worked the Death Valley to Mt Whitney Bike race a few times. I have also worked fun runs, parades, long distance equine rides, desert endurance races and other events where the organizers liked having the ability to easily summon support where it was needed.

 

I used to be active in the Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS). My call was NNN0BOU and I worked out of the NAS Whidbey Island Station NNN0NUW.  I have made a few thousand phone patches and relayed thousands more MARS Grams while I was there. 

 

Probably the highlite as a Ham operator was working a Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment (SAREX) event with the middle schools in Oak Harbor WA. We set 3 records with the shuttle Columbia that day. Most kids to ever talk to the Space Shuttle during one event, closest to the horizon contact, and most orbits contacted. Our success was in no small part to USN Capt Charles Brady. He was an Oak Harbor native and was passionate about amateur radio. He pulled a lot of strings to get the event coordinated as Oak Harbor Wa was considered too far north in latitude for a successful SAREX event. He gifted all the Hams that made it possible a STS-78 mission patch that he carried on board the Columbia and a letter of appreciation signed by all the crew.

 

I have also made a contact with a Cosmonaut on MIR. I have his QSL card here somewhere.

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You've gotten much sound advice already, can't add but very little:
Study for General and Tech both, when you sit for your exam you'll test for the Technician ... but take the General IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARD WHILE YOUR SEAT IS STILL WARM!

There is an IMMENSE overlap between the Tech and General exams.

I took both mine at one sitting but decided not to go for the Extra, and a good thing.

I went home and pulled up some practice test of Extra Class and realized in very short order ... I would've crashed and burned big time.

Far better to leave testing with a feeling of triumph!

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Sedalia Dave - thank you for operating the MARS station. 

 

I was a young electronics technician in the early '90s and ran the Navy side from my deployed ships. 

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As mentioned above, HamTestOnline is a very good source. I took the technician and general at the same time. I took the extra a year later. As Sedalia Dave says, there are many areas of interest for ham operators. I prefer DXing, which is contacting other ham operators in a specific segment of interest, such as contacting all fifty states, contacting 12 provinces of Canada, 8 call areas of Australia, at least 50 European countries, contacting at least 100 countries, etc. And this can be done via different bands, via Morse code, and via digital modes. Some people with specialized programs and equipment can bounce signals off of the moon to reach out long distance, called EME. So far, I have managed to talk to 160 countries.

 

There have been no ARES groups in my area, but a new one is forming. I was just contacted, wanting me to join the group. I'll probably drop by and see how they are coming along.

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Most of the phone patches were Navy and Coast guard ships doing drug ops in the Caribbean and ships in the central Pacific returning from or deploying to the Persian Gulf. 20 meters was good most days to both areas.  Pacific North West to the Persian Gulf was not easy, However New England could work the Persian Gulf almost every day 

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