Grex Radio Conference

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Grex Radio Item 20: Convince me
Entered by arson666 on Thu Oct 21 20:27:38 UTC 1999:

I've been considering getting a license and all cuz this stuf sounds kewl,
butit doesn't sound all that fun/easy learning everything 4 a license, some1
convince me.

8 responses total.

#1 of 8 by scott on Thu Oct 21 20:54:21 1999:

Ummmm....

I take the philosophy "always a student", something I learned studying martial
arts.  Sound stodgy enough for you?  ;)

Seriously, if you have the time you could do it; I can't say that any of what
you learn will help you.  But I've found that learning things somehow helps
me anyway.  Keeps the brain working, dontchaknow.

Besides, if was easy why bother?  These days I'll try almost anything, since
the couple times I've jumped into deep water (figuratively) I did OK..

#2 of 8 by omni on Fri Oct 22 07:23:37 1999:

  1. You'll be doing something less than 1% of this country has done.

  2. You'll be able to help out in disasters. Your radio will become
a vital need if a tornado decides to take out the phone system. You can also
learn to spot tornados, severe thunderstorms anparticipate in helping your
community remain a safe place to live. Don't believe hams actually help in
severe weather? Spend a summer in Oklahoma or Texas. They do a lot of spotting
there.

  3. You'll make new friends

  4. You'll talk with people in other countries who share your love of radio
and experimentation.

  5. And the best reason is: You'll be able to rescue old and obsolete
equipment from the scrap pile and put in in your basement. Of course you won't
be able to fix it, but you can tell your wife that it has many parts which
may come in handy in the future. (You can use this for almost anything
electronic).

#3 of 8 by gull on Sun Oct 24 03:05:46 1999:

Speaking of which, I just talked to a guy on a sailboat near Norfolk,
Virginia, on 20 meters. I was using a Heathkit HW-101.  Had a long and very
nice chat with him about the history and future of amateur radio and the
Internet, and what delevopments in both say about society.

Normally our radio club has a solid state rig, but it was sent to AES for
preventative maintenance, and when it came back the VFO promptly lost its
ability to maintain PLL lock, and it had to be sent back to them.  I suspect
they're currently using it as a doorstop in their warehouse, because it's
been there a while.  At any rate, we have the HW-101 on loan from a club
member, and it's kind of nice to use a no-frills radio for a change. 
Incidentally, if any of you have a manual for this radio, we need the
tune-up instructions.  I've been tuning it basically like I did my TR-4 (dip
the plate current, peak the output power, re-dip the plate) but I'd like the
'official' method.  Been getting good audio reports, I must say -- I think
it's the uncomplicated audio path.  No speech processing or any of that
nonsense.

#4 of 8 by rcurl on Mon Oct 25 04:48:15 1999:

I never try to convince people to do things they obviously don't want
to do, unless it will save their life. This won't. I have the impression
that arson666 doesn't really want to go to much trouble for a license,
so I'd recommend he look into something else.

#5 of 8 by n8nxf on Mon Oct 25 11:35:47 1999:

I got into it because I always liked tinkering with electronics.  I wanted
to help out with disasters and such but you'll need to take more classes and
get a skywarn number.  To advance you will have to become more proficient
at sending morse code.  I find it difficult learning something that only
0.1%, or less, of the population can understand.  However, there is a
no-code license if you are happy with line-of-sight communications above
30 MHz. The only real advantage I can see to Amateur Radio is that you are
not dependent on infrastructute like you are with a telephone, cell phone,
internet communications, pagers, etc.

#6 of 8 by goose on Mon Oct 25 17:13:25 1999:

I hope you get your license, but if you *really* think that it's a lot of
work, go get a SSB CB radio and tune up Ch 38 on the LSB.

#7 of 8 by n8nxf on Tue Oct 26 10:35:36 1999:

Or, if you want to talk with friends less than 2 miles away, a couple of those
Family Radios that operate around 460 Mhz.  If you want to do long distance
voice communications, get on the internet with your choice of chat programs.

#8 of 8 by danr on Tue Sep 10 23:43:28 2002:

I'd like to encourage anyone with an interest to find an amateur radio 
class. It's not that hard, especially now that you don't have to learn 
the code to get a license.

ARROW is sponsoring classes that start on Sept. 24, 2002. See our 
website at http://www.hvcn.org/info/arrow for more information.

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