I’m sure there’s HAM guys here on FR. Questions I have:
Are logs of on-air contacts kept?
Do most new licensees have an initial flourish of activity?
Does anyone have noted radio contact with her?
Are HAM ops generally big or small government types?
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...... just hams
Logs are not required, but many hams do keep logs. Newer digital systems and software-defined radios sometimes keep these logs automatically.
However, she has a Technician’s License, which is the entry-level ticket and she is restricted to a few bands. Most local communications takes place on the VHF band (usually 144 MHz-148 MHz) and the UHF 420-450 MHz). There is a lesser used band at 222 MHz - 225 MHz that she could use, but the radios that operate in this band are more rare.
These VHF and UHF bands do not propagate much over the horizon, so they work either radio-to-radio over a few miles separation or they talk to a repeater (like a cell tower) that is usually 1000’ in the air co-located on a commercial tower.
Normal chit-chat (”Rag-chewing”) on VHF/UHF is rarely logged because you are usually talking with known club members who own and maintain the repeater. Several times a year, there are contests where operations compete to make as many connections as possible in a fixed period of time, and logging is necessary, but newbies rarely participate in these contests.
A newer generation of digital radios is emerging and are inexpensive. Some of them automatically broadcast your callsign and it appears on the receiver’s radio display.
BTW, her look-ups are now at 130, up from 50 this morning.
The FCC may have a recording of her, but that would be a guess.
If she and her hubby wanted to go radio-to-radio from their cars, they could buy a simple 25-40 watt rig for under $300 each and use a roof-mounted magnetic base antenna about 24” tall.
There are more advanced communication schemes that I have skipped over (Motorola DMR, ICOM D-Star, Yaesu Fusion, etc.), but they take a lot of knowledge or assistance to set up properly.
The morse code stuff and the shortwave radios that communicate around the world are not really available until a Technician licensee upgrades their license to “General Class”, which does require knowledge of electronic circuits, antenna theory and other aspects of radio propagation and the FCC rules.
To ballpark the “big” or “small” size of the hobby, I have spent about $2000 on equipment and can cover almost every band with my General Class license. If I went nuts and bought the best equipment available, I would have a hard time spending more than $20,000.
Although Art Bell, a ham operator of Coast-to-Coast AM fame, has an antenna farm that rivals the NSA...
https://www.smeter.net/w6obb/antenna-farm.php
Hope this helps...
No lawful requirement to do so, but most do for contacts on HF radio (not on VHF/UHF--which is where she's authorized to operate per her license class)
Do most new licensees have an initial flourish of activity?
"Most"? If they have a radio, then yes. Sometimes people get the license and never use it because, with the exception of Chinese handheld radios, the equipment can be a bit expensive.
Does anyone have noted radio contact with her?
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Are HAM ops generally big or small government types?
Yes. (in other words, both)
Did Nellie take a test to get her license?
Yes, but it's a pretty simple test all in all.
If she says so, when and where?
It would have been administered by a volunteer examiner someplace (they have test sessions all over the place)
Can that be corroborated? If she didn’t sit for a test and pass, was a license ginned up for her? If so, by whom and why?
The test is not difficult. The question banks are publicly available. Further, if a person fails the test, they can re-take it the same day.
Particularly for the technician class, they try to make it really, really, really easy for somebody.
Modern digital rigs can log contacts automaticly
HAM is the peoples radio wave but yes the Government monitors it,
Canada is very lax on enforcement. SA even more so.
Iraq and Iran come into my part of Tx on the Grayline at Sunrise and Sunset.
When the sun is setting there and rising here E and F fields act kike A waveguide in the upper atmosphere
http://spacew.com/www/realtime.php
Are logs of on-air contacts kept?
Most do just for points / credit.
Do most new licensees have an initial flourish of activity?
Often, since you’re getting into a new hobby.
Does anyone have noted radio contact with her?
No ideas.
Are HAM ops generally big or small government types?
Tends toward conservative both young and old.