So about 8 weeks ago a friend asked me to help him get a ham license and the station setup. All my station was still packed away when I moved 11 years ago. Of course I had to bone up on stuff to teach him. I upgraded and he got his new Extra ticket.

I hung my homebrew Off Center Fed Dipole in the attic about 30 feet above the basement floor for 40-20-10-6 meters. It plays real nice there, considering.

Now yesterday I hooked my transciever to my radio and installed Ham Radio Deluxe for logging and rig control. It also can control a rotator, a remote radio, shows DX Clustier, Greyline, bearing and distance to operator’s station, etc, etc, etc. Waaaaay took much to figure out in one evening.

I like this because I have to think. When I am building stuff it is more manual skills.

73 OM and XYL

n3xge

I have no idea what yo just said.

Dave, that make you an Extra as well?

For me it was always the wave-length stuff that kept me from getting my No-Code Tech. My dad has his Tech, but trying to get that I realized one thing… I’m just glad us engineers & conductors don’t have to learn morse code. Never was any good at learning another language.

I still think about it from time to time, but with five kids, large scale trains, railway archeology its hard enough to find money for the hobby I already have: computers! My current build is already pushing 1500 and I haven’t even started on the water-cooling loop yet.

My hat’s off to you for learning morse code.

J.D., the FCC dropped the Morse Code requirement a few years back, a bad move some think. But it has attracted more folks to the hobby.

Steve, the guy I taught is a retired Mustang Squid, so there may be hope for you too.

yep there are some out there that don’t like the No Code Generals like me… whatever

since dropping the code requirement, the # of operators has grown each year (but there appears to be a resurgence in folks learning and using CW!). I finally got my ticket about 2 years ago, need to get the Extra upgrade and learn Morse (I’m working on it with the Koch Method).

I sold most of my Fn3 gear to start-up in Ham, and considered selling off the rest to buy a nice desktop Xceiver-till my son began begging me for a train in the yard.

The test are easy and just like GRR you learn more by doing than studying for a test! I’ve always been a radio junkie and I’m constantly amazed what a radio wave will do!

I really dig the Digital Modes and spend most of my time in the truck on our 2m repeater! It’s lots of fun (nerds unite)

de K4CDN

this is my little shack in a box

(http://www.fotolode.com/images/SCWolverine/Ham/usb.jpg)

my local ele co-op came out and planted some poles for me the other day. Will be installing a 160m Full Wave Loop pretty soon.

(http://www.fotolode.com/images/SCWolverine/Ham/alpha.jpg)

David Hill said:

J.D., the FCC dropped the Morse Code requirement a few years back, a bad move some think. But it has attracted more folks to the hobby.

Steve, the guy I taught is a retired Mustang Squid, so there may be hope for you too.

I learned Morse Code at 5 wpm when I was 15 or so, enough to get my FCC RT permit. I surprised the skiivie wavers at how much I remembered when they used flashing light.

I think its all gone now, though.

Well, I do remember A, O, S, and V, but that is it.

One of my Assistant Scoutmasters had a HAM “Walkie-Talkie” with him in the Sierra Nevadas on a 50 Miler. We tried it out on top of a ridge and got someone in Windswept Junctions, South Africa, I think. We couldn’t raise anyone else. Not much help if we had an emergency.

(https://ff.duckduckgo.com/favicon.ico))+wikipedia)(https://www.google.com/favicon.ico))&partner=fastestfox)

Is that your ‘shack’ behind the pole Cale. hi-hi The thing is now all one needs is a computer connected to a radio to send code from the keyboard and read it on the monitor.

yep the other side of the barn is my shop/shack. the programs like HRD and FLDigi/Digipan do all the work for you. I esp like PSK31 and Olivia-almost a guaranteed contact!

Texting is much easier. lol

Hey Shawn, how do you think texting was developed? A lot of cell phone stuff started with ham radio. Kewl, huh. ROTFLOL, etc.

Cale, as I mentioned I just installed HRD. It will take a bit of getting used to even just for logging and rig control. 73

Texting is easier and relies on a very fragile network (ex Boston Marathon Cell Shutdown).

Texting OTA (over the air) with no connection to anything ‘network’ is a pretty amazing feat (although very elementary in what you’re actually doing). Howabout texting to Japan utilizing 1/2 of 1 watt from your Iphone/Android? Sure you may not have friends in Japan, but it can be done. Can do around the town too on VHF/UHF with same equip. (it’s radio nerd stuff and not for everyone)

HRD is said to be Very Bloated and Excessive, but most users find the parts they like and use them! Since I have no ‘net’ in the shack, and my rig isn’t set up for CAT I use FLDigi via a Signalink with Great Results! I’m such a sporadic user I’m just logging in QRZ for now. Maybe one day I’ll get a rig down here in the house and a few min each day to operate

Or if I could snag a late model Base Station, I could always work remote from the house to the Shack/Barn via Wireless N or maybe fiber from here to there. Then I would def need a CAT controlled rig and a few other minor toys. Would work, and be a timesaver for sure!

Hobbies,what fun!

David Hill said:

Hey Shawn, how do you think texting was developed? A lot of cell phone stuff started with ham radio. Kewl, huh. ROTFLOL, etc.

You got that right. Back in the early 80’s My BIL and I were networking Trash-80s via a radio link on 11 meters over about 2 miles. Little did we know we had invented wireless networking. We just thought it was cool.

I got my 5WPM Novice a long time ago, then upgraded to Tech for 2 Meters. That became Tech+ when they dropped the code for Novice. I really haven’t been paying attention to the requirements, but I should at least upgrade to General. The sun spots are on the way up and DX is getting better, but this cycle is not supposed to be that great. I haven’t warmed the finals on any of my rigs in a long time. Was listening a bit last winter and almost got the bug again. I’m only a few QSL cards short of DXCC on 10 Meter phone in the Novice/Tech band.

My hardware is ancient compared to what you guys are talking about.

73 de W1KBW

-.-. --.-

David H. Glad to see you back at it again. I had got my novice lic. while in last yr,. in high school. Boy was it hard to get my Class A lic. due to had to go to San Fran to take the test that was around 80 miles from here.

Course I flunk my Code test and had to do it over again… But finely after a yr. got my class A and sure can tell a lot of stories about it.

Got in trouble talking to a Russian ham that was not aloud in the early 50ths. But sure did a lot of DX’ing

Started out with a home built 12 watt rig w/ a BC348 rec. for a few yr’s. and then accessed a BC610 from the Excess Gov stuff and built a pi net work for the filtering sys… Sure was nice to idle at 750 watt or more to use on 40 and 75M with a inverted “V” ant.

Some guys got 1,000 watt out of them with an ant. tuner that mine didn’t work very well on 10 or 20 M.

Anyway, nice to see other hobbys and we got rid of my stuff about the time computer came in.

73’s from old K6WGZ

Steve Featherkile said:

David Hill said:

J.D., the FCC dropped the Morse Code requirement a few years back, a bad move some think. But it has attracted more folks to the hobby.

Steve, the guy I taught is a retired Mustang Squid, so there may be hope for you too.

I learned Morse Code at 5 wpm when I was 15 or so, enough to get my FCC RT permit. I surprised the skiivie wavers at how much I remembered when they used flashing light.

I think its all gone now, though.

Well, I do remember A, O, S, and V, but that is it.

One of my Assistant Scoutmasters had a HAM “Walkie-Talkie” with him in the Sierra Nevadas on a 50 Miler. We tried it out on top of a ridge and got someone in Windswept Junctions, South Africa, I think. We couldn’t raise anyone else. Not much help if we had an emergency.

(https://ff.duckduckgo.com/favicon.ico))+wikipedia)(https://www.google.com/favicon.ico))&partner=fastestfox)…

sS Steve, how did you forget the “E” one dot… lol. that was the easys for me…

In tho days not easy to get local help, but with skip, you could tell you problem in the other side of the world if they speck the same tong or get past the “E” code. lol

Noel Wilson said:

David H. Glad to see you back at it again. I had got my novice lic. while in last yr,. in high school. Boy was it hard to get my Class A lic. due to had to go to San Fran to take the test that was around 80 miles from here.

Course I flunk my Code test and had to do it over again… But finely after a yr. got my class A and sure can tell a lot of stories about it.

Got in trouble talking to a Russian ham that was not aloud in the early 50ths. But sure did a lot of DX’ing

Started out with a home built 12 watt rig w/ a BC348 rec. for a few yr’s. and then accessed a BC610 from the Excess Gov stuff and built a pi net work for the filtering sys… Sure was nice to idle at 750 watt or more to use on 40 and 75M with a inverted “V” ant.

Some guys got 1,000 watt out of them with an ant. tuner that mine didn’t work very well on 10 or 20 M.

Anyway, nice to see other hobbys and we got rid of my stuff about the time computer came in.

73’s from old K6WGZ

Fine business, O.M. I am mostly an appliance operator. I have been sloughing through some basic electronics books. Most of it is waaaay over my head. I like the ham radio and electronics as it challenges my head at least as much as the model building challenges my building skills.

Glad to see so many hams amoung RR’ers. I was a ham long before getting into the garden thing but I have been dormant for a few years. My wife and I both got our licenses, her a tech+ and myself a Gen before they dropped the code. We had moved to the middle of nowhere in the Colorado Mtns and couldn’t get a phone. Now, in New Mexico, we only use 2 mtrs when we caravan back to our place in CO. You guys talking about it has gotten me excited again!

Just ringing in … W1TUW … not especially active, but could be if there was more than signal propigation to talk about …

Matthew (OV)

Matthew, maybe we should setup a model RR tech net call in, frequency, time and day. ???

Noel Wilson said:

Steve Featherkile said:

I learned Morse Code at 5 wpm when I was 15 or so, enough to get my FCC RT permit. I surprised the skiivie wavers at how much I remembered when they used flashing light.

I think its all gone now, though.

Well, I do remember A, O, S, and V, but that is it.

One of my Assistant Scoutmasters had a HAM “Walkie-Talkie” with him in the Sierra Nevadas on a 50 Miler. We tried it out on top of a ridge and got someone in Windswept Junctions, South Africa, I think. We couldn’t raise anyone else. Not much help if we had an emergency.

(https://ff.duckduckgo.com/favicon.ico))+wikipedia)(https://www.google.com/favicon.ico))&partner=fastestfox)…

sS Steve, how did you forget the “E” one dot… lol. that was the easys for me…

In tho days not easy to get local help, but with skip, you could tell you problem in the other side of the world if they speck the same tong or get past the “E” code. lol

Must be oldtimer’s disease. I spoze I could 'member the rest if’n I put my mind to it, but then I’d have to find my mind, first.

(https://ff.duckduckgo.com/favicon.ico))+wikipedia)(https://www.google.com/favicon.ico))&partner=fastestfox)

Steve…F. That ok That about it for us … One dot. lol Our mind left yr’s ago after we hit 70. Now if using short distance comm. on the trains and to the Ho train building, we use radio shack walk talkies on 27 m. and shoot skip- to our stuff about 300 or 400 ft away… hehehe… That about all our 1/2 watt will do. We bad.