Well, that last post was a long one and we have a few different paths forward from here. I am going to try to make the posts shorter for one thing. And I think I will explore the hardware aspect first and then go back to other stuff.
So, the next installment will be on my mobile setup and it’s evolution over the last past 10 months. I think it’s stable for now. At least until I have a lot more coin (as if…) so as to go HF mobile. That’s not high on my list, but it’s there. Even in the busy Baltimore/DC corridor, the repeaters are sometimes silent or boring and I wish for HF at least to listen to.
Friday, October 18, 2013
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Back To It
I can’t believe it’s been 4 months since I wrote the last post. Most of it has to do with that old “out of sight, out of mind” thing. I started this on Blogger and it’s not somewhere I go often. I have now migrated this series to WordPress on my personal site. I like that better because I know I have a copy of my writing and more control over its utilization. Rather than get into a huge technical Thing, I just made this a special category of my reading blog (so long neglected its embarrassing). The working theory is that having an integrated blog, I can write on a number of topics and sort them easily, depending on my mood.
So, I will pick up the narrative from where I left off, but in somewhat less excruciating detail at least until I get more current.
So to finish up the June narrative, I started putting together a home station (a “shack” in the vernacular). The plan was an HF radio and a multi-band antenna. Low drag, not too expensive or unsightly as the wife was still not sure about all this.
After a suitable amount of research I settled on a Yaesu FT-840 transceiver. It’s an older model, but not out of date and does 160m to 10m at 100W. The reviews on eHam were pretty positive and it’s clear that with proper care, it’s a fine starter rig. So I snagged on off of eBay used out of IL, I think. Ran about $386 shipped. It came pretty quick and was double boxed and had no suffered any ill effects from it’s travel.
OK, back to that, well, it seems you only need a couple items, but…you also need a 12V power supply, and coax to connect you to the antenna. And an antenna tuner since a multiband antenna may not be resonant where you want it. That means you need a coax jumper by the way. Also, you need to have a way to get the said coax out of the house to the antenna. MFJ makes these nice patch panels that slips into the window. You connect the feedline to the inside port and the run to the antenna to the outside port. Quite handy and it allows you to try out amateur radio without drilling large holes in your walls. Oh, and that means another little piece of patch coax to go from the tuner to the panel.
You also need to ground your shack. That means an 8′ copper grounding rod pounded into the dirt outside your window. BUT, that ground may not be at the same ground potential as your AC ground. Bad news. The difference runs through you when you touch a (mains grounded) chassis and the radio at the same time. Also if there is a wiring fault in the house, that will be line voltage.
So…you have to run a heavy copper wire from that ground rod to the ground rod at your service entrance (in my case, the other side of the house) and we are talking roughly a $1/foot these days. There are areas to skimp, and hams are notorious for skimping, this isn’t the place. Get the real grounding rod, not the crap MFJ sells, go to Lowes/Home Depot and get not less than 6 gauge wire. It doesn’t have to be buried to perform it’s function, but the exposed wire could potentially be carrying hefty current (see above). I had to run mine around the front of the house, so I “buried” it under the brick garden border, quick, easy and safe.
Oh, and on safety, that antenna? The big LIGHTNING ROD? Yeah, that one. You need to put a lightning arrestor connector on the outside of the window panel where the feedline goes in and run the ground wire down to your ground (which should be right there). Let’s not fool ourselves, that’s not going to protect you in the case of a direct hit. But, it will work for near misses. Remember, the surface of the Earth is large and your antenna is small, but near misses will still induce big current. Also, when the insurance company’s fire investigator is poking through the wreckage of your house after that direct hit, you can point to that device as doing your do diligence and it will keep them from weaseling out of paying your claim.
OK, let’s recap my “basic” starter HF station:
You could skip the patch panel (and one coax patch cable) and probably the tuner as well and save about $100, since I got the tuner used on eBay. You’d be hard pressed to find a multi-band antenna that’s worth owning for less and the GAP. You could buy/build a dipole for say, 40 meters (and get 15m for free it’s an odd harmonic), and one for 20 meters, though, if you aren’t too worried about efficiency, the 40m dipole will likely be just fine on 20m too. That would save you about $300, but presupposes you have a way to hand the dipoles and the wherewithal to do it. Suppose you do and you’re feeling lucky and skip the lightning protector too, you are down to $639.
If you have your shack on the same side of the house as the service entrance and you place the antenna closer to the house, you could shave another $50-$75 off that figure.
So, that gives you an idea where the hobby starts cost-wise and an example of a full working setup. With the GAP I can in fact “work the world”, if they have a 1.5kw linear a 90′ tower. It’s not that bad, if the bad is open I can do pretty well. So far I haven’t worked anyone in the Far East, but I have the SE Pacific, Africa, European Russia. It’s a good starter antenna as it also does all the bands of interest though it’s not very efficient on 80m (5-10%) and not usable on 160m.
My long term plan is that this is my “reference” antenna as I build out the others I plan to have. Since this is essentially unity gain, any other single band antenna should be noticeably better in gain and noise, especially on the lower bands.
So, I will pick up the narrative from where I left off, but in somewhat less excruciating detail at least until I get more current.
So to finish up the June narrative, I started putting together a home station (a “shack” in the vernacular). The plan was an HF radio and a multi-band antenna. Low drag, not too expensive or unsightly as the wife was still not sure about all this.
After a suitable amount of research I settled on a Yaesu FT-840 transceiver. It’s an older model, but not out of date and does 160m to 10m at 100W. The reviews on eHam were pretty positive and it’s clear that with proper care, it’s a fine starter rig. So I snagged on off of eBay used out of IL, I think. Ran about $386 shipped. It came pretty quick and was double boxed and had no suffered any ill effects from it’s travel.
OK, back to that, well, it seems you only need a couple items, but…you also need a 12V power supply, and coax to connect you to the antenna. And an antenna tuner since a multiband antenna may not be resonant where you want it. That means you need a coax jumper by the way. Also, you need to have a way to get the said coax out of the house to the antenna. MFJ makes these nice patch panels that slips into the window. You connect the feedline to the inside port and the run to the antenna to the outside port. Quite handy and it allows you to try out amateur radio without drilling large holes in your walls. Oh, and that means another little piece of patch coax to go from the tuner to the panel.
You also need to ground your shack. That means an 8′ copper grounding rod pounded into the dirt outside your window. BUT, that ground may not be at the same ground potential as your AC ground. Bad news. The difference runs through you when you touch a (mains grounded) chassis and the radio at the same time. Also if there is a wiring fault in the house, that will be line voltage.
So…you have to run a heavy copper wire from that ground rod to the ground rod at your service entrance (in my case, the other side of the house) and we are talking roughly a $1/foot these days. There are areas to skimp, and hams are notorious for skimping, this isn’t the place. Get the real grounding rod, not the crap MFJ sells, go to Lowes/Home Depot and get not less than 6 gauge wire. It doesn’t have to be buried to perform it’s function, but the exposed wire could potentially be carrying hefty current (see above). I had to run mine around the front of the house, so I “buried” it under the brick garden border, quick, easy and safe.
Oh, and on safety, that antenna? The big LIGHTNING ROD? Yeah, that one. You need to put a lightning arrestor connector on the outside of the window panel where the feedline goes in and run the ground wire down to your ground (which should be right there). Let’s not fool ourselves, that’s not going to protect you in the case of a direct hit. But, it will work for near misses. Remember, the surface of the Earth is large and your antenna is small, but near misses will still induce big current. Also, when the insurance company’s fire investigator is poking through the wreckage of your house after that direct hit, you can point to that device as doing your do diligence and it will keep them from weaseling out of paying your claim.
OK, let’s recap my “basic” starter HF station:
FT-840 Transceiver
|
386
|
Antenna Tuner
|
35
|
2 Patch Coax Cables
|
10
|
12V 20A Power Supply
|
85
|
8′ Ground Rod
|
13
|
80′ 6 gauge wire
|
80
|
1 Patch Panel
|
60
|
1 Lightning Arrestor
|
25
|
75′ RG-8X Coax
|
50
|
GAP Challenger DX Antenna
|
325
|
Total
|
1069
|
You could skip the patch panel (and one coax patch cable) and probably the tuner as well and save about $100, since I got the tuner used on eBay. You’d be hard pressed to find a multi-band antenna that’s worth owning for less and the GAP. You could buy/build a dipole for say, 40 meters (and get 15m for free it’s an odd harmonic), and one for 20 meters, though, if you aren’t too worried about efficiency, the 40m dipole will likely be just fine on 20m too. That would save you about $300, but presupposes you have a way to hand the dipoles and the wherewithal to do it. Suppose you do and you’re feeling lucky and skip the lightning protector too, you are down to $639.
If you have your shack on the same side of the house as the service entrance and you place the antenna closer to the house, you could shave another $50-$75 off that figure.
So, that gives you an idea where the hobby starts cost-wise and an example of a full working setup. With the GAP I can in fact “work the world”, if they have a 1.5kw linear a 90′ tower. It’s not that bad, if the bad is open I can do pretty well. So far I haven’t worked anyone in the Far East, but I have the SE Pacific, Africa, European Russia. It’s a good starter antenna as it also does all the bands of interest though it’s not very efficient on 80m (5-10%) and not usable on 160m.
My long term plan is that this is my “reference” antenna as I build out the others I plan to have. Since this is essentially unity gain, any other single band antenna should be noticeably better in gain and noise, especially on the lower bands.
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Finishing the Triple Crown
I want to move on to more interesting material in this blog. But, my CDO nature (it's like OCD, but with the words in the right order) won't let me do that until I recount the Extra class preparation and exam. Need to have closure and all that.
The General class preparation went well, so I used the same model to study for the Extra class exam: acquire an older test manual, study the question pool and take eHam.net practice tests until I consistently scored 90+%.
I won't go through the process in detail, just offer some observations. First of all, the FCC expects a much deeper theoretical understanding of radio in the Amateur Extra class operators. So the exam consists of 50 questions instead of the 35 for the prior classes. And it's out of a pool of about 750 total questions. Mastery is still the fairly low 74%, so basically you have 13 questions to give and still pass.
This guided my initial study since some of the theory is pretty math intensive and I refused to memorize all the band frequencies as I would learn them well enough as I operate. I was prepared to go with the 50/50 guess on these questions and assume that I had the rest of the material down to the point where the result would not be in doubt.
As it turns out, I got a lucky break on the question pool and didn't get any questions whose math I had not mastered. In addition, the questions on operating practice that I drew were not on frequencies. Yay me.
By this time (March), my employer had delivered my PC at work and gave me enough access to actually work. So this prep cycle took a bit longer. In fact, it took exactly a month so the Maryland Mobileers Tuesday evening exam was the logical choice.
I was very relaxed for this as I had been scoring well on the practice exams and having been through the process twice recently, I felt very ready.
As I mentioned already, I caught a nice break on the questions and once again only missed one question. the grader was impressed, but then he was watching a guy take an hour to fail to pass the Tech exam...so in that context I must look like a genius or something. When the truth is I can just accumulate trivia easily. I'm not misguided enough to think I know anything about Amateur Radio yet. Now it's time to get an HF rig and learn how to operate.
I didn't upgrade my call when I passed the General since I didn't see the point. But I would for the Extra. I hadn't done much more than check into the nets on my local repeater, so there won't be the problem of people knowing you by an older call sign.
The General class preparation went well, so I used the same model to study for the Extra class exam: acquire an older test manual, study the question pool and take eHam.net practice tests until I consistently scored 90+%.
I won't go through the process in detail, just offer some observations. First of all, the FCC expects a much deeper theoretical understanding of radio in the Amateur Extra class operators. So the exam consists of 50 questions instead of the 35 for the prior classes. And it's out of a pool of about 750 total questions. Mastery is still the fairly low 74%, so basically you have 13 questions to give and still pass.
This guided my initial study since some of the theory is pretty math intensive and I refused to memorize all the band frequencies as I would learn them well enough as I operate. I was prepared to go with the 50/50 guess on these questions and assume that I had the rest of the material down to the point where the result would not be in doubt.
As it turns out, I got a lucky break on the question pool and didn't get any questions whose math I had not mastered. In addition, the questions on operating practice that I drew were not on frequencies. Yay me.
By this time (March), my employer had delivered my PC at work and gave me enough access to actually work. So this prep cycle took a bit longer. In fact, it took exactly a month so the Maryland Mobileers Tuesday evening exam was the logical choice.
I was very relaxed for this as I had been scoring well on the practice exams and having been through the process twice recently, I felt very ready.
As I mentioned already, I caught a nice break on the questions and once again only missed one question. the grader was impressed, but then he was watching a guy take an hour to fail to pass the Tech exam...so in that context I must look like a genius or something. When the truth is I can just accumulate trivia easily. I'm not misguided enough to think I know anything about Amateur Radio yet. Now it's time to get an HF rig and learn how to operate.
I didn't upgrade my call when I passed the General since I didn't see the point. But I would for the Extra. I hadn't done much more than check into the nets on my local repeater, so there won't be the problem of people knowing you by an older call sign.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
On to the General
The General Class is much the same material as the Technician Class, but covered in more depth. For this endeavor I picked up a used copy of ARRL's General Class 2007-2011 for $5 off eBay. As I've mentioned, the VECs maintain the question pools for the exams. They refresh the pools on a rotating 4 year basis. They drop questions about out of date stuff and add questions about new stuff or things that have become more popular as well as the usual corrections, etc. This means the ARRL publishes a new edition every 4 years. Therefore, not only are these books not worth a whole lot if you pass your test (the ARRL Handbook for Radio Communications is a far better and more complete reference), there are also not worth as much if you take too long. As a result used copies are pretty cheap on eBay, yay me.
On the downside I couldn't rely on the copy of the question pool in the back of the book and didn't trust the references to specific question groups in the text itself, but that seemed no big deal for saving $30. I went to the ARRL website and downloaded a copy of the General Class question pool. Then I neatly formatted and highlighted the document and printed it out (nice to have a duplex color laser printer at home). So I would go through the manual for a section and then study the questions in my exam booklet. That worked great. By the time I made it through the manual, I had actually gone through the exam questions 3-4 times. Then I went back to eHam and started working on practice tests. Anytime I missed something, I looked it up and figured out the correct answer.
Using this method I was ready for my upgrade exam in 2 weeks. I should note that this segment of time also corresponds to the point where I was employed as a developer, but my PC had not been delivered and my permissions not yet granted. So, basically, I spent 2 weeks sitting in a cube, 8 hours a day, with no PC, no outside equipment allowed either. So I studied the material they gave me and then I studied for the exam. It would probably have taken 4 weeks to prepare if that hadn't worked out like that.
In any case, fortified with an understanding of what to expect at the exam, I went to the Maryland Mobileers exam session at the previous unknown (to me) National Electronics Museum near BWI. As an aside, if you get a chance, check it out, it's a lot better than you might expect. Their hours are quite limited, but it's worth the $5 or whatever they charge.
The Maryland Mobileers (seriously, who came up with that catchy title?) hold their exams on the last Tuesday of the month so I went after work. A rainy and very windy night. In one of the meeting rooms at the museum, they hold classes and on the other side of the building they hold exams in the library. A small but quite interesting library focused heavily, as you might imagine, on electronics and the associated sciences.
It reminded me of many many hours of my youth spent in libraries and therefore a pleasant and relaxing environment for the test. The VE team from the Maryland Mobileers is a bit more laid back than the AARC team, but it's still well within the realm of appropriately proctored.
Again, I was the first person done and had the review my work for a while to not be "that guy". So I turned in after maybe 15 minutes and was told to wander the museum while it gets graded. The grading process is fairly involved so it takes time. Therefore it was at least 20 minutes before someone came to find me.
Long story short, the examiner told me I had scored very well indeed and did I want to take the Extra exam while I was there... I knew they wouldn't show me the exam results, so I asked him how well do I do and he said I had missed one. Apparently, from the way he was acting, that didn't happen too often. Of course while he was thinking it was rare indeed, I was wracking my brain to figure out which one it might have been. It's not some kind of intellectual conceit, it's become a game and as an old min-maxer, I had to max it.
In any case, that wasn't answerable, they only grade an answer sheet and while I could dig backwards, it wasn't going to be allowed even if I were inclined. I declined the Extra test attempt. I hadn't even cracked that book, though I had formatted up the question pool in preparation to study. But, as I mentioned, grading is pretty labor intensive, the same amount pass or fail. So I didn't want to burden them with a shot in the dark.
In fact, at least 2 people failed their tests that night. Hard to imagine. If this is something you want to do, and the material is available online for free, why can't you at least pass?
On the downside I couldn't rely on the copy of the question pool in the back of the book and didn't trust the references to specific question groups in the text itself, but that seemed no big deal for saving $30. I went to the ARRL website and downloaded a copy of the General Class question pool. Then I neatly formatted and highlighted the document and printed it out (nice to have a duplex color laser printer at home). So I would go through the manual for a section and then study the questions in my exam booklet. That worked great. By the time I made it through the manual, I had actually gone through the exam questions 3-4 times. Then I went back to eHam and started working on practice tests. Anytime I missed something, I looked it up and figured out the correct answer.
Using this method I was ready for my upgrade exam in 2 weeks. I should note that this segment of time also corresponds to the point where I was employed as a developer, but my PC had not been delivered and my permissions not yet granted. So, basically, I spent 2 weeks sitting in a cube, 8 hours a day, with no PC, no outside equipment allowed either. So I studied the material they gave me and then I studied for the exam. It would probably have taken 4 weeks to prepare if that hadn't worked out like that.
In any case, fortified with an understanding of what to expect at the exam, I went to the Maryland Mobileers exam session at the previous unknown (to me) National Electronics Museum near BWI. As an aside, if you get a chance, check it out, it's a lot better than you might expect. Their hours are quite limited, but it's worth the $5 or whatever they charge.
The Maryland Mobileers (seriously, who came up with that catchy title?) hold their exams on the last Tuesday of the month so I went after work. A rainy and very windy night. In one of the meeting rooms at the museum, they hold classes and on the other side of the building they hold exams in the library. A small but quite interesting library focused heavily, as you might imagine, on electronics and the associated sciences.
It reminded me of many many hours of my youth spent in libraries and therefore a pleasant and relaxing environment for the test. The VE team from the Maryland Mobileers is a bit more laid back than the AARC team, but it's still well within the realm of appropriately proctored.
Again, I was the first person done and had the review my work for a while to not be "that guy". So I turned in after maybe 15 minutes and was told to wander the museum while it gets graded. The grading process is fairly involved so it takes time. Therefore it was at least 20 minutes before someone came to find me.
Long story short, the examiner told me I had scored very well indeed and did I want to take the Extra exam while I was there... I knew they wouldn't show me the exam results, so I asked him how well do I do and he said I had missed one. Apparently, from the way he was acting, that didn't happen too often. Of course while he was thinking it was rare indeed, I was wracking my brain to figure out which one it might have been. It's not some kind of intellectual conceit, it's become a game and as an old min-maxer, I had to max it.
In any case, that wasn't answerable, they only grade an answer sheet and while I could dig backwards, it wasn't going to be allowed even if I were inclined. I declined the Extra test attempt. I hadn't even cracked that book, though I had formatted up the question pool in preparation to study. But, as I mentioned, grading is pretty labor intensive, the same amount pass or fail. So I didn't want to burden them with a shot in the dark.
In fact, at least 2 people failed their tests that night. Hard to imagine. If this is something you want to do, and the material is available online for free, why can't you at least pass?
Friday, May 31, 2013
The Dark Secret of Amateur Radio
The dark secret of amateur radio is that it’s just like any other hobby: more expensive than it looks. And when I say that, I don’t mean it has to be *expensive*. After all, expensive, like rich, is a moving target. The more money you have the more money rich means. But, like any engaging hobby, it will take all of you disposable income, maybe more if you aren't disciplined...
My reentry into the hobby came via a $35 Bao-Feng HT. A pretty minimal investment to be sure, but a gateway drug just the same. The repeater I wanted to listen to wasn’t reachable at my home or on my commute with the crappy rubber duck antenna that comes with the radio. Also, of course, the truck is a Faraday cage and any antenna inside is doomed no matter what the quality. So the next item was a $19.95 unity gain mag mount with the appropriate male SMA connector (the Chinese radio makers felt it necessary to be backwards from the Japanese radios).
That was much better, I could at least listen to my net of choice, but it was noisy and a bit of a chore to connect the radio each day. Next was a $9.95 programming cable. Calling the Bao-Feng hard to program via the keyboard is a laughable understatement.
I’d walk you through an example, but my therapist warns against it. The software was at least free though it was no charmer to install either. The USB drivers for the cable were a bit picky (and they have to be installed separately for each port you plug it into).
The HT came with an ear-piece/PTT mike setup that is usable, so that’s good. I decided I needed a better walking around antenna and so added a $12.95 rubber duckie that’s a little over 2dB gain for 2m and closer to 3dB on 440MHz. The final (so far) piece to the HT is a “battery eliminator”. For somewhere around $5 there is a plastic block that simulates the battery and has a 12V accessory plug wired to it for use in the car.
I think that is the limit to the commercially available accessories for this radio. However, I am already amassing parts for a screw on Yagi antenna for reading the satellite downlink signals. This project it probably in the $5 range and is held up more by time than anything else.
So, let’s recap:
Approximately a 40% efficiency (cost of the radio divided by the total cost). As we’ll see later, this is a great number and the HT stands up as a great value even totally pimped out.
My reentry into the hobby came via a $35 Bao-Feng HT. A pretty minimal investment to be sure, but a gateway drug just the same. The repeater I wanted to listen to wasn’t reachable at my home or on my commute with the crappy rubber duck antenna that comes with the radio. Also, of course, the truck is a Faraday cage and any antenna inside is doomed no matter what the quality. So the next item was a $19.95 unity gain mag mount with the appropriate male SMA connector (the Chinese radio makers felt it necessary to be backwards from the Japanese radios).
That was much better, I could at least listen to my net of choice, but it was noisy and a bit of a chore to connect the radio each day. Next was a $9.95 programming cable. Calling the Bao-Feng hard to program via the keyboard is a laughable understatement.
I’d walk you through an example, but my therapist warns against it. The software was at least free though it was no charmer to install either. The USB drivers for the cable were a bit picky (and they have to be installed separately for each port you plug it into).
The HT came with an ear-piece/PTT mike setup that is usable, so that’s good. I decided I needed a better walking around antenna and so added a $12.95 rubber duckie that’s a little over 2dB gain for 2m and closer to 3dB on 440MHz. The final (so far) piece to the HT is a “battery eliminator”. For somewhere around $5 there is a plastic block that simulates the battery and has a 12V accessory plug wired to it for use in the car.
I think that is the limit to the commercially available accessories for this radio. However, I am already amassing parts for a screw on Yagi antenna for reading the satellite downlink signals. This project it probably in the $5 range and is held up more by time than anything else.
So, let’s recap:
| HT | $35.00 |
| Antenna | $20.00 |
| Cable | $10.00 |
| Antenna | $13.00 |
| Battery | $5.00 |
| Yagi Parts | $5.00 |
| Total | $88.00 |
Approximately a 40% efficiency (cost of the radio divided by the total cost). As we’ll see later, this is a great number and the HT stands up as a great value even totally pimped out.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Getting the Technician Class License Part 2
I felt I was ready, it was time to find an exam. As I mentioned before, the exams are now administered by the amateur radio community through VECs (Voluntary Examination Coordinators) and most clubs had an accredited VE team. In fact, the Laurel (MD) club is the major VEC for the mid-Atlantic area and I could get to no less than 3 regularly scheduled monthly exam sessions within 20 miles of my house. In addition, exams are held at almost all the hamfests of which there are one or two a month within reasonable driving distance. So finding an exam was really about figuring out who had them this weekend and/or how far I felt like driving.
As it turns out, it was AARC's (Anne Arundel Radio Club) weekend for exams. That was cool since it was at AARC that I studied for and got my Novice license 30 years ago. I had no idea what to expect, it had been so long and all of my preparation has to this point been in isolation. How many people would show up for a monthly exam? Was amateur radio still that popular?
As it turned out, there were about a dozen people testing that day including an older gentleman who was blind. The testing team didn't miss a beat in setting up for him and also accommodating a visiting VE team from a neighboring club that was about to start up testing and wanted to observe.
They did testing in batches of 6 as that was what the big table could accommodate with the testers stationed around it. Since I was early (i.e., on time) I got into the first batch. One or two others were testing for Tech in my batch and one was going for Extra.
You are supposed to have an hour to complete the exam. For Tech and General classes the exams are 35 questions, for Extra it's 50. Mastery is a ridiculously low 74%. That means I can miss 8 and still pass. That doesn't sound like much but remember the exam covers A LOT of ground in terms of subject matter.
By the end of the test I felt like I might have over-prepared. I finished in something like 12 minutes; no one else was close. I hate being "that guy". You know the one you wish you had a voodoo doll of in Chem 101 when he blew out of the exam in less than half the allotted time and looked happy. Might even have been sober. So I went through and checked every answer carefully after all, it's easy to get out of sequence on the answer sheet, so it was good to check. By the time I was done the young guy taking the Extra had finished, so I felt I could turn it in at this point.
They tried to make it dramatic, but I knew I had passed, the only question was the score. For some reason, the FCC doesn't want them to tell you specifics of the results of the test, so all I got out of the tester was that I had missed "a couple". I was in fact a little disappointed. It was not initially my intention to roof the exam, but it really was rather easy. So then it became a competitive thing. There was, in fact, a flaw in my preparation since there were 2 or 3 questions that I don't remember seeing before. If I am studying carefully, my (short term) memory is close to photographic, so I missing something somewhere. I would have to correct that for the General exam...
Anyway, it took close to 3 hours end to end, but I had my Technician license, finally. Well, I would as soon as my call sign appeared in the FCC online database, generally 2-3 days.
As it turns out it took them most of the week to get around to uploading the test data, so it wasn't until Friday that it appeared: KB3ZYJ. Kind of a nutty sequence, but by that time I decided that I needed at least to get my General upgrade because it allows access to HF bands I really wanted to get into. Whenever you upgrade, you can request a new call sign. You could also pay extra and get a "vanity" call sign if one you like is available. I am not into vanity, especially the paying part. I just wanted something memorable and easy for the other guys to get out of a pileup. Well, we'll see what the upgrade brings.
As it turns out, it was AARC's (Anne Arundel Radio Club) weekend for exams. That was cool since it was at AARC that I studied for and got my Novice license 30 years ago. I had no idea what to expect, it had been so long and all of my preparation has to this point been in isolation. How many people would show up for a monthly exam? Was amateur radio still that popular?
As it turned out, there were about a dozen people testing that day including an older gentleman who was blind. The testing team didn't miss a beat in setting up for him and also accommodating a visiting VE team from a neighboring club that was about to start up testing and wanted to observe.
They did testing in batches of 6 as that was what the big table could accommodate with the testers stationed around it. Since I was early (i.e., on time) I got into the first batch. One or two others were testing for Tech in my batch and one was going for Extra.
You are supposed to have an hour to complete the exam. For Tech and General classes the exams are 35 questions, for Extra it's 50. Mastery is a ridiculously low 74%. That means I can miss 8 and still pass. That doesn't sound like much but remember the exam covers A LOT of ground in terms of subject matter.
By the end of the test I felt like I might have over-prepared. I finished in something like 12 minutes; no one else was close. I hate being "that guy". You know the one you wish you had a voodoo doll of in Chem 101 when he blew out of the exam in less than half the allotted time and looked happy. Might even have been sober. So I went through and checked every answer carefully after all, it's easy to get out of sequence on the answer sheet, so it was good to check. By the time I was done the young guy taking the Extra had finished, so I felt I could turn it in at this point.
They tried to make it dramatic, but I knew I had passed, the only question was the score. For some reason, the FCC doesn't want them to tell you specifics of the results of the test, so all I got out of the tester was that I had missed "a couple". I was in fact a little disappointed. It was not initially my intention to roof the exam, but it really was rather easy. So then it became a competitive thing. There was, in fact, a flaw in my preparation since there were 2 or 3 questions that I don't remember seeing before. If I am studying carefully, my (short term) memory is close to photographic, so I missing something somewhere. I would have to correct that for the General exam...
Anyway, it took close to 3 hours end to end, but I had my Technician license, finally. Well, I would as soon as my call sign appeared in the FCC online database, generally 2-3 days.
As it turns out it took them most of the week to get around to uploading the test data, so it wasn't until Friday that it appeared: KB3ZYJ. Kind of a nutty sequence, but by that time I decided that I needed at least to get my General upgrade because it allows access to HF bands I really wanted to get into. Whenever you upgrade, you can request a new call sign. You could also pay extra and get a "vanity" call sign if one you like is available. I am not into vanity, especially the paying part. I just wanted something memorable and easy for the other guys to get out of a pileup. Well, we'll see what the upgrade brings.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Interlude I
I'll have these interludes occasionally here on the blog where I attend to matters that aren't about amateur radio directly. Basically, meta posts.
I'll "try" to keep the posts to around 500 words. I hate blogs whose entries are too short (less than 200-250 words), you just get into the mindset for the blog and it's over. I tend to read those guys once a week (if they posts semi-daily). But I sometimes get wordy and I think that long chunks of prose will scare away the casual reader. So that's my target.
Also, I will give the call sign of folks (if they have one) to get you into the radio milieu. For most people the call sign becomes a part of their identity. I could do a whole post just on the interesting psychological implications there, maybe someother time... Anyway, in a real sense their call sign is a part of their identity and I will quote it when it's known to me.
Likewise you'll get tidbits of electronics and radio terminology thrown at you. I'll endeavour to define it the first time, after that, you're on your own. Amateur radio has a larger than usual Thieve's Cant or Inside Baseball terminology. No doubt this is from its intersection of technical material and radio history. This can be intimidating to the neophyte but, unfailingly (so far), every ham I have met will fail to comment if you missed a term or misused one. Everyone is very easy going.
I'll "try" to keep the posts to around 500 words. I hate blogs whose entries are too short (less than 200-250 words), you just get into the mindset for the blog and it's over. I tend to read those guys once a week (if they posts semi-daily). But I sometimes get wordy and I think that long chunks of prose will scare away the casual reader. So that's my target.
Also, I will give the call sign of folks (if they have one) to get you into the radio milieu. For most people the call sign becomes a part of their identity. I could do a whole post just on the interesting psychological implications there, maybe someother time... Anyway, in a real sense their call sign is a part of their identity and I will quote it when it's known to me.
Likewise you'll get tidbits of electronics and radio terminology thrown at you. I'll endeavour to define it the first time, after that, you're on your own. Amateur radio has a larger than usual Thieve's Cant or Inside Baseball terminology. No doubt this is from its intersection of technical material and radio history. This can be intimidating to the neophyte but, unfailingly (so far), every ham I have met will fail to comment if you missed a term or misused one. Everyone is very easy going.
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