Grandpa Patch turning into a HAM?

Just arrived and still in the plastic, for the moment.

HAMRadioTechnicianManual_01 by Grandpa Patch, on Flickr

 

@Grandpa Patch - I cannot "like" this enough. Outstanding and bravo. Oh, and, go ahead and contact your credit card and start the process for a credit limit increase.

It's a great skill and tool to have in your back pocket. We also have dozens if not hundreds of threads on what you can/should get first as a Tech.

Again, good job and I hope to be saying "Welcome" soon!

 

Better order up the General and Extra manuals while you are still enthusiastic.

Be nice to hear you on the air.

 

Go fer it O.M., 73's Marv KD1OWA.

 

Yeah, I got to get my finger out also. I want to take the Extra exam 14 January which is the next time it is offered in this area.

 

Just finished finding a local club (1hr away) while searching ARRL.org for clubs and testing locations. Of course, my wife is all over me about this. She thought I gave up on this idea years ago when the morse code was pissing me off. Now that I know that the Morse code has been dropped from the exam, my interest has been renewed. Plus, I've learned that ARRL.org has a Morse code practice session transmissions for learning purposes. That will be a lot easier than staring at dots AND it gives me a reason to get a radio sooner so I can start listening to things and get a good idea of how transmissions are done live, and not just the 'book version'.

 

Turing into a ham is one thing - become an OF is altogether different.

 

Good for you Grandpa!

Years ago when I took my first test I attended a class held over 2 nights. Passed just fine. Had to take the Morse test twice before passing.
When I upgraded to general I used different online tools. Practice exams are key.
Did the same for extra. It was more difficult though.

Be warned! It's very addictive!
You think your wife's all over you now. Just wait. I visited a friend today to pick up another baofeng I ordered. No way I was having it shipped to my home address.

Do I have to many radios? No. Do I need more radios? Definitely!

 

Jest like firearms. Can one person have too many? Free practice exams on ARRL website. Tech thru extra.

 

I've started thinning out my collection of boatanchors: I always liked the Swan rigs, but now that Svetlana has closed down, I just traded my KWM-2A for a Class-D AM transmitter.

Those of us who cut our teeth on hollow-state are getting to be like the ghost riders in the sky ...

William Warren

 

Well the first and closest club I found had three members at their last meeting and don't seem to be doing much of anything. I have not received a response from them yet. I found another club that is the same distance, more members, much more activity and FREE exams. I have scheduled my Technician and General test for Jan 26, 2019. I will see how things go. I just finished reading the Technician License Manual (front to back, minus the Q&A) and am now going through the Q&A. I am going from each Q&A to the appropriate section and highlighting the necessary information. Then I will start from the front again

 

I can only listen at this point, as I am still a month away from taking my tests and then will still have to wait for processing. This was on my Amazon list and showed up as a Lightning Sale for $40USD, so I didn't pass it up.

BaofengBF-F8HP_05 by Grandpa Patch, on Flickr

BaofengBF-F8HP_04 by Grandpa Patch, on Flickr

BaofengBF-F8HP_03 by Grandpa Patch, on Flickr

BaofengBF-F8HP_02 by Grandpa Patch, on Flickr

BaofengBF-F8HP_01 by Grandpa Patch, on Flickr

 

ProgCable by Grandpa Patch, on Flickr

Programming cable arrived today! I use a Chromebook (Android), so I have to wait for the wife to give me some free time on her laptop to download and screw around with Chirp. She has the weekend off, so that may not happen this weekend and I'm scheduled out of the house the first part of next week. Maybe I can get to it by Thursday or Friday...? No hurries, It's not like the radio is going anywhere. I'm in listen mode only at this point so I can take my time. I can read the manual (do guys still read manuals for things?), which is something I hardly ever do and frequently have to deal with the wife over my shoulder as I put together kids toys.

 

Nice Grandpa. I just picked up another baofeng two weeks ago. UV 82 this time. Figured I better before the feds crackdown.

I also used chirp to program it. Dreaded the idea of researching and entering all the frequencies, offsets, tones, ECT that I wanted. Figured there had to be a way to copy and paste from databases. Searched around online and found out that chirp is setup to do that.


Check out all 3 options. Import from data, query data and import from stock.

It helped me tremendously.

And remember to keep a copy of the USB cable driver. Couldn't find mine. Took way too much brain damage trying to figure that one out.