I have wanted to get into ham radio for years, I'm not sure exactly when I started thinking about it. When I was about 16 years old I started messing around with CB radio and I'd often hear hams on CB talking about what ham radio was like.
I've always liked radio communication - it has a kind of simplicity that cell phones and the Internet do not. If someone wants to call you, they just do - there isn't any ringing or vibrating; no high-pitched themes from movies or TV series will play - you'll just hear the person calling your name or call sign and you'll go on from there. It's possible to talk to someone over ham radio without relying on communications infrastructure like we do for telephone, cell phones, Etc. Plus, don't ask me why, but talking on a radio is cool, dammit!
In December of 2002 my girlfriend Michelle Herd wanted to get me some ham radio equipment for Christmas. After searching the web for quite a while she decided that she would have to let me in on my gift-to-come so that I'd get something I wanted. This got me jump started and I began actually studying for my technition license (the first license you can obtain as a ham radio operator) and surfing the web with the hopes of making a good first purchase of a ham radio.
I found a few good sites to get me started, including the American Radio Relay League, the Courage handi-ham System (amateur radio and Technology for people with disabilities), and countless personal ham radio pages which provided tidbits of info (which I kind of averaged together).
First I downloaded the technition question pool (the list of questions which your exam is made up of) and started looking them over. I decided that I would like more of a "comprehensive walk-through" since i was so new to ham radio, so I began looking at what kinds of study materials I could get my hands on.
The two guides I heard about over and over were ARRL's Now You're Talking and the Gordon West line of books, videos, and audio tapes. In an effort to get started as soon as possible (true to my instant gratification nature) I paid a visit to the local ham store and purchased "No Code Technician Theory Course on Audio Cassettes " for $19.95. I was immediately struck by Gordon's ..... enthusiasm - you can listen to an audio sample of another one of Gordon's tapes if you'd like to get an idea of what I'm talking about.
I listened to Gordon's tapes all the way through, and I'd say he covers the material pretty well. He does not spend as much time on theory as it turns out "Now You're Talking" does; his tapes are more of a speed course through the question pool material (although he does spend a decent amount of time pushing morris code and his code-learning tapes). Also, the tapes are meant as a compliment to Gordon's printed text book.
I wanted to get my hands on "now you're talking" to see what that would bring to the table. Although Handi-hams offers now you're talking and other tapes I chose to order a copy from Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic because I'm already a member (and didn't want to wait for the Handi-hams sign up and validation process).
"Now You're Talking" has one chapter for each section of questions in the question pool (complete with a list of which questions you should look over after reading a particular chapter). For me, "Now You're Talking" was much more comprehensive, but part of that could have been due to the fact that I did not have the Gordon West text book to accompany his tapes. All and all I got good use out of both study materials - If I had to pick just one for a new ham, I would choose the "Now You're Talking" book though.
While studying for my Technician exam, I was also looking around for which radio might be most accessible to me, and do the things I wanted (which was to get the most out of the frequencies I'd be able to use as a technician operator). I finally (with a hint to Icom's accessibility on the Handi-ham web site) chose the Icom IC-T90 try-band handheld. A nice accessibility feature is the radio's ability to announce what frequency I'm tuned to via morris code. Check out my ic-t90 page for more info (especially blind operation of the radio). I also found more T-90 info on universal-radio.com, where I was initially going to purchase the radio (again, instant gratification). Keeping in line with the initial Christmas gift concept, Michelle and I agreed to purchase the radio at the local ham store in a day or two. in the mean time, I read the IC-T90's manual (you can click
to render the PDF in HTML, although it takes a while). Another good source of information about blind-accessible ham gear was the blind hams mailing list.Although I didn't yet have a radio, I of course wanted to listen to some transmission's - one of the coolest things I found are recordings of the Loma Prieta Earthquake - you can hear ham operators calling in damage reports and get an idea of how ham radio can be of help in disaster situations. Very cool!
Once I got my early Christmas present (the Icom IC-T90) I began listening to local frequencies to get an idea of how communications (QSOs) sounded. I studied for about one week more in preparation for my technician exam. I was down to a sub-list of questions that I didn't automatically know the answer to; I really wanted to get on the air (and to not have to wait for a future testing date in January).
On Thursday, December 19th, 2002, I passed my exam (33/35 correct). The examiner (Terry, ki0re) did a great job of reading the exam to me and marking my desired answers (thanks Terry).
What's next??? I'm checking the qrz.com new hams page or the FCC license search page to see whether my license has Ben entered into the FCC database and I've been issued a call sign. This is supposed to take 1-2 weeks -- stay tuned... ;)
........ It's here! late evening on December 23rd, I
checked the FCC license search page and got a match on "fetch,
ivan"
Issued today, my call sign is KC0OSK.
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Friday, March 05, 2010
