HAM Radio Call Sign Check-In Thread
- Thread starter warriorlabs
- Start date
Enthusiast I
Enthusiast I
- 434
- First Name
- Dave
- Last Name
- Graupmann
- Member #
14307
- Ham/GMRS Callsign
- KD9HMA
Member III
KJ4TOZ here. I've been looking at vanity calls but haven't made the jump yet. It's a mouthful in a pileup!
I've noticed some people were saying they'd upgrade if they had a buddy or maybe you're not as excited about the other facets of Amateur radio as you feel you should be. I was the same way for 5 years but I'll give you some ideas that helped me.
Firstly, JOIN YOUR LOCAL CLUB. They will encourage you, invite you over to check out their gear and let you operate their stuff most of the time. I have great Elmers here and try to hang out with them when I can to keep on learning.
Next, join the 100 Watts and a Wire podcast group on Facebook. It's operators of all levels of skill and knowledge that honestly WANT you to enjoy the hobby. It was a big factor for pushing me to upgrade as well and still motivates me to jump on the air when I can.
Lastly, VHF/UHF rover. We can get to grid squares that a lot of people can't. A simple 3-4 element yagi from somewhere high and 6' over top of your vehicle and 50w can get you some good contacts during a contest. One of our local guys does this almost exclusively with a nice portable, rotatable antenna stack off the hitch of his S10 pickup. Run 50-75W and let the big gun with the dual 14 element base station and 200W do the hard work for you!
Hope this helps!
Terry KJ4TOZ
I've noticed some people were saying they'd upgrade if they had a buddy or maybe you're not as excited about the other facets of Amateur radio as you feel you should be. I was the same way for 5 years but I'll give you some ideas that helped me.
Firstly, JOIN YOUR LOCAL CLUB. They will encourage you, invite you over to check out their gear and let you operate their stuff most of the time. I have great Elmers here and try to hang out with them when I can to keep on learning.
Next, join the 100 Watts and a Wire podcast group on Facebook. It's operators of all levels of skill and knowledge that honestly WANT you to enjoy the hobby. It was a big factor for pushing me to upgrade as well and still motivates me to jump on the air when I can.
Lastly, VHF/UHF rover. We can get to grid squares that a lot of people can't. A simple 3-4 element yagi from somewhere high and 6' over top of your vehicle and 50w can get you some good contacts during a contest. One of our local guys does this almost exclusively with a nice portable, rotatable antenna stack off the hitch of his S10 pickup. Run 50-75W and let the big gun with the dual 14 element base station and 200W do the hard work for you!
Hope this helps!
Terry KJ4TOZ
I'm interested in going through the process/ can you point me in the right direction?
Sent from my iPhone using OB Talk
I used this www.hamstudy.org to study and it was awesome. For the Technician license I went thru every question (hide the distractors, button on upper right). I then went thru the flash cards completely. I then took a couple of different practice tests spaced out here and there. It's only 35 questions and pretty darn easy. I passed that and they asked me if I wanted to take the General test for free. I did...didn't pass. Oh well. But I found the testing location on www.arrl.org site. Pretty easy. Good luck!
