[TriLUG] Ham Operator Survey

[al johson]

Tanner, I'd be happy to help with this.

I taught half of the last ham class the Cary Amateur Radio Club had, from
which everyone passed their first license exam except for just one kid who
wouldn't study.

Actually, it's pretty easy to study for your first ham license on your own
(if you're interested in wi-fi you just need the first license!!). There are
license tutorials online which allow you to practice taking the FCC test
over and over again at no cost.

   But although you can easily do this, it is advisable to have a few
classes to answer any questions which you may have about the hobby and also
to explain what it is you're learning, and why. Hams have a strict set of
rules which you must follow while on the air (for example, no cursing while
on the air--if you get caught you can lose your license). (Incidentally,
there women who also have their licenses which we call "yl's". Lots of
children also have their amateur radio licenses as well so you don't have to
be a genius to get them.) You also need someone to tell you when and where
you can take the FCC exam. There are local clubs which offer monthly exams,
and just about any hamfest offers them as well (there are only two local
hamfests left in this calendar year: Cary's July 19th and JARS (in Benson)
in November.
    There is probably enough time to prepare to take the exam at Cary if you
start working on it soon. Search Google.com for these words and you should
be able to find what you need to start: "amateur +radio +FCC +licence +exam
(+practice ,or +tutorial, or +study, etc.) There is also a 20 dollar book
which you can buy from the ARRL (search google for "ARRL +books") called
"Now You're Talking". Make sure you are studying for the NEW exam because
they are going to change the question and answer pools after July 1st.  Make
sure the date of the test you practice on has the right date (July 1st or
later)! If you're brilliant, you could try to make one of the tests which
will be given before July 1st. But you'd better take it before July 1st!!
And if you fail it, you will start almost from the beginning again. If you
have any other questions, email me alfjon at mindspring.com or Tanner. ---73,
Al Johnson.
==========================

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tanner Lovelace" <lovelace at trilug.org>
To: <trilug at trilug.org>
Sent: Friday, June 06, 2003 11:55 AM
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] Ham Operator Survey


> On Tue, 2003-06-03 at 11:18, Tanner Lovelace wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I'm kind of curious as to how many ham radio operators we have in
> > TriLUG.  I'd like to take an informal survey.  If you have a ham
> > radio license, could you e-mail me directly (off-list) with your
> > callsign and what license you have (tech, general, extra, etc..)?
> > I'll gather the results and post the summary if people are interested.
>
> Hi folks,
>
> I got some interesting responses back from my query.  It looks
> like we have at least 11 licensed ham radio operators in the group.
> They would be the following:
>
>
>  Name              Callsign          License Class
>  ----------------- ---------         --------------
>  Tanner Lovelace   KB4TYE            Extra
>  Al Johnson        KQ4FP             Extra
>  Errol Casey       KD4IHW            Extra
>  Dr. David Johnson WA4NID            Extra
>  Ronald H. Evans   K4KTB             Extra
>  William Schulz    NU9Z              Extra
>  Neil Little       WA4AZL            Advanced
>  Kevin Otte        N8VNR             General
>  Jim Thompson      KI4AIV            Technician
>  Mark Turner       N4JMT             Technician
>  Scott Morris      KG4ZYA            Technician
>
>
> We also have around 10 people who expressed interest in learning
> more about ham radio (and how to use linux with it, of course :-).
> That's almost enough to put together a license class.  So, would
> anyone be interested in doing that?  If so, would a weekend class
> be better or would a couple of hours some evening for several weeks
> be preferable to people?  As usual, please e-mail me *off-list*
> to respond to that.
>
> Cheers,
> Tanner
> --
> Tanner Lovelace |  lovelace(at)trilug.org  | http://www.trilug.org/
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