Posted on 01/05/2021 11:16:13 AM PST by Red Badger
Yes, COVID is complicating conducting exams. Where they used to test as many people as showed up, now it’s very tightly scheduled. It is offered online, but it very complicated to actually do.
Sitting for my technician exam on the 16th. Going to go for General right after.
N4BFD
If you have an iPhone you can download them. They are going to cost a couple of dollars.
When you look at the questions and you KNOW the right answer, you can remember a phrase or part of the answer. Then when you see it again, you will recognize it.
When I took the test there were a series of questions of what you could do on 6 meters ( I think). Probably three or four questions out of the pool. I remember the proper answers to the questions were all negative. I told myself, “You cant do ANYHTING on 6m” to remind me to answer in the negative when it came up on a question. Most of the questions were on the test.
Spending the few bucks on practice tests saved me a ton of time. Its not cheating to know the answers—they WANT you to know the right answers. Its not “school.”
Thank you, sir!
I have an Amateur-Extra license. Don’t get much time to use it except for occasional VFH/UHF HT stuff. I bought a RigPi and a Yaesu 991, but haven’t had much chance to set it up.
Yup! Just finished a spiral cut ham while tuning the radio! Loved it!
Suggest What?
de KD3NN
Got it. Thanks.
My first ICOM was an ICOM735, a beautiful thing.
I regularly worked Japan on 40meters at night from El Paso using a simple inverted vee.
My favorite band is 160 meters, and I have the room for a full 160 inverted vee here :-)
I like 160 as there is no skip zone...most antennas are low to the ground, skyburners... that’s fine on 160 at night...straight up and straight down and at all angles..
Used to work Art Bell sometimes at night from New Mexico to Pahrump NV using 100watts...he had a loop and a killowatt...would get on after the show...
LOL! Nice job! There are always alternative methods to getting the job done!!
I have an app on the iPhone called HamStudy. If searching in the App Store, it’s a blue icon with an antenna (shaped like a capital A in it). I like it. You can study for all three exams. Take multiple practice tests and even select specific areas of study. It’s basically all the current test questions and answers. They even explain answers as to the why or what of something. Nice app. Free at least to the technician level.
HOA's are always a problem. (Unless you have a friendly board). Some sort of a wire antenna maybe like a center fed 1/2 wave dipole fed using 50 ohm coax such as RG-8U. At 28.400 Mhz (center of the 28.3-28.5 Mhz band) the antenna works out to be only 16.47 feet long. Length of the antenna in feet is equal to 468 divided by the operating frequency in Mhz. Always good to check the SWR (standing wave ratio) with an antenna analyzer.
Please add me. Thx.
My Grandfather was an Operator back in the early 1900’s. I have a few of His Letters from/to His other Operator Friends and a few of His Antenna Drawings He tried. Also an old picture of His Hardware Setup. We just moved so I don’t know exactly where the envelope is but I will start searching for it. They lived in Marietta, OH and I’m told that He Received one of the first SOS Transmissions from the Titanic and passed the info on but nobody would believe Him that it was sinking.
I was only a few months old (Born in 07/61) when He Passed away so I never got to know Him. It would have been really cool if He had lived a decade or so longer because I would have been all over learning about Amateur Radio.
I’ll post pictures of the stuff when I find it.
You can use a loop antenna. HOA’s and Ham Radio folks have been tilting for a while. I thought I heard that this has been settled in favor of the Hams.
https://www.dxengineering.com/search/part-type/limited-space-small-loop-antennas
These should pass muster, and you can dress them up with ridiculous fabric covers or something.
I kept my advanced class ticket as that now eliminated ticket is the only one that is proof you know Morse at at least 13 wpm.
The secret to excellent amateur radio communications has always been an excellent antenna resonant on the frequency intended to be used. Many of the best antennas are homemade, with wire. There are reams of information on the Internet to guide you in building a great antenna.
The antenna is more important than the radio.
Some very low power transmitters have “worked the world” with a great antenna.
Ham radio operators take advantage of bouncing radio signals off the ionosphere with several “hops” often able to communicate to the other side of the world.
One ham I know used to talk to stations in Australia from his moving truck while stuck in traffic, driving home from work in Houston, Texas.
You do not have to spend a fortune on equipment.
Amateur radio has always been an “experimenters” hobby.
Many great ideas have been turned into fine operating stations. There are many in the hobby always telling someone else, “Oh, that will NEVER work.”
A lot of those critics have been proven dead wrong !
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