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Ham Radio

Postby Bobby » Tue Aug 25, 2009 6:47 pm

OK - its time for a Ham Radio thread. All hams welcome.

I am ND2O. I was first licensed in 1962 as WB2CRV and kept that callsign until the mid 80's. Extra.

I was in high school when I first got my ticket. I built a lot of homebrew gear back then - low band transmitters, VHF converters, keyers, etc.. Mostly a 40m CW nut. Also was in a VHF club and did a lot of VHF contesting.

I eventually moved up to a Drake C-line (mid 70s) and a SB-200 linear with triband beam and was active until about 1982. Then we moved, and the bug had gone past me, later to be replaced by the Internet and email.

Why am I starting this thread if I am not active? Well, just to know other muvipix hams, but perhaps to re-kindle my interest - who knows?

QRZ?
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Re: Ham Radio

Postby Chuck Engels » Tue Aug 25, 2009 8:34 pm

Cool idea for a topic Bobby.

I never wanted to take the time to learn Morse Code which was required for a Ham license.
Other than that the hobby always fascinated me.
Instead I went the CB route in the mid 70's with the rest of the population.

The difference is that I stuck with it till we moved to Minneapolis in 1986.
Prior to that I was running a Cobra 148 GTL with a 100 watt kicker.
I could talk on sideband all over the world. I had QSL cards from as far away as South Africa.
I had a very nice 4 element beam horizontal antenna and we lived right next to a fairly large lake.
Many hours were spent waiting for the skip to roll in so we could talk to people in Tennessee or the UK.
Never knew where it would be coming from and that made it even more interesting.

My wife's cousin is still a very big Ham operator, K9UQF in Illinois.
The Ham operators are still very busy these days, even with the internet.
Her cousin is a member of various organizations and runs a weather station besides.
http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/wxpage.cgi?call=k9uqf-2
He is a member of the Homeland Security Region 10 Communications team,
Member of the County Emergency Management team, ARES, APRS and Life Member of ARRL.
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Re: Ham Radio

Postby Steve Grisetti » Wed Aug 26, 2009 7:49 am

Amazingly, this topic just came up the other night, as my wife and I were taking our evening walk. Jeanne's dad was big-time ham back in the 70s. Had a whole basement full of radio equipment CQ cards and home-made circuitry.

Now he hosts a forum and web site for boxer owners. (The dogs, not the pugilists.) It seems to scratch a similar itch.
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Re: Ham Radio

Postby Bobby » Wed Aug 26, 2009 11:48 am

So I guess that with the exception of the two guys around here who will respond to anything, there aren't too many active hams. I guess I shouldn't talk, not being active myself!

Come on, there must some hams out there?
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Re: Ham Radio

Postby Peru » Wed Aug 26, 2009 12:38 pm

Bobby wrote:So I guess that with the exception of the two guys around here who will respond to anything, there aren't too many active hams. I guess I shouldn't talk, not being active myself!

Come on, there must some hams out there?


My brother, N2DUI out of Florida.
(I didn't do well trying to leard Morse Code. I could send ok, but was too slow receiving.)
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Re: Ham Radio

Postby Bob » Wed Aug 26, 2009 1:14 pm

Just wanted to point out that Morse code is no longer a requirement. If you still want a license, go for it.
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Re: Ham Radio

Postby ed » Wed Aug 26, 2009 1:38 pm

Ham radio always reminds me of apocalipse novels. I just finished re-reading "Alas, Babylon", and of course a ham radio featured in the story. One of my friends dad had a huge ham radio tower when I was a kid. I always thougth it was cool.
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Re: Ham Radio

Postby stanatou » Wed Aug 26, 2009 2:59 pm

While I'm not a ham radio operator myself I do use the wi-fi transmitter on our neighbor's radio tower. Does that count? :-D Our chuch music director is also a very active ham radio user.

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Re: Ham Radio

Postby Dave McElderry » Wed Aug 26, 2009 4:09 pm

Bobby, since this thread hasn't exactly taken off, I'll toss in my experience with ham radio. I originally posted this back in 2004 on the Adobe PrEl forum, in a thread that got completely off topic.

When I was a youngster I grew up down the street from a friend who had Muscular Dystrophy. Confined to a wheelchair, Al put his overly high IQ into mentally challenging activities, including becoming one of the youngest people in the country at that time to qualify for one of the higher class Amateur Radio licenses. I don't remember any more which it was. I used to sit with him for hours while he worked the world. Sometimes he would let me talk, too, which was legal so long as he was right there. Voice was fascinating, but it was really fun to watch him operate the "bug", on which he had incredible code speed. Al died at the age of 16 of a respiratory infection that his MD kept him from fighting off. Since then I've know a few amateurs, but have never gotten into it myself. That was 35 - 40 years ago, but his call is still as clear in my mind today as it was then - WA8QWK "William Able Eight Queen William King."
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Re: Ham Radio

Postby Bobby » Wed Aug 26, 2009 5:09 pm

Thanks for all the stories, especially yours dave. I remember doing some work with the organization I believe they called HamiHams that was for handicapped ham radio operators.

Well, it doesn't seem like there are any hams out there - too bad - my idea to forge some common ground will flame out :( :( :( :!: :angry3: :crybaby: img0250 img0257 img0406 img0440
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Re: Ham Radio

Postby Peru » Wed Aug 26, 2009 8:00 pm

Bob wrote:Just wanted to point out that Morse code is no longer a requirement. If you still want a license, go for it.


Ah, but the "purists" wouldn't respect you as much.
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Re: Ham Radio

Postby Peru » Wed Aug 26, 2009 8:10 pm

Bobby wrote:Well, it doesn't seem like there are any hams out there - too bad - my idea to forge some common ground will flame out


If it's any consolation, I do have a General Radiotelephone License. It used to be a First Class license back when I passed the tests in high school in 1975, but they had merged the first and second class a while back so now it's a "General License".

I forgot about it, as I haven't used it since working at my college radio station.
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Re: Ham Radio

Postby mark hansen » Wed Aug 26, 2009 9:29 pm

I would have thought on a video forum, there would be lots of hams... :-D but I guess your not looking for that kind.

I remember in high school I went to a party and the big brother of the person I knew had a machine that would type (teletype???) and as I recall he said it was run over his ham radio set up. don't remember much more than that.

When I was in the AF, I knew a man from MARS that worked radios. It was fun to hear his stories about talking to people all over the world, but I only got into CB radios back then.
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Re: Ham Radio

Postby Ron Hunter » Thu Aug 27, 2009 10:58 am

I have been considering getting into ham radio. I am an electrical engineer and I need to know more about RF, so I recently joined ARRL and now crawl through QST magazine each month. I had hoped that this would lead me to educational RF projects and perhaps a ham license, but the magazine seems to indicate that most hams now just buy their equipment off the shelf. I get the impression that the only homebrew equipment people use nowadays are the antennas; everything else is precision manufactured in a factory and controlled by a computer. I'll probably buy one or two ARRL books for my needs and move on from there.

Full disclosure here...the ham radio club in my area meets at a senior center, so that is a turnoff for me. No offense implied to anyone! :-D
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Re: Ham Radio

Postby Clayton » Thu Aug 27, 2009 11:33 am

mark hansen wrote:When I was in the AF, I knew a man from MARS that worked radios.


Whoa! :alien:
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