RadioBanter - View Single Post

December 7th 03, 06:58 PM

wrote:

Hello,
I live in the woods on a farm and in the summer I am out riding my
horses, etc. But this time of year it gets pretty boring.

Hi George

There are at this time, three different classes of Hams. Technician,
General, and Extra. Technician has only a written test, and gets you
access to the rf world above 50 mHz. This is mostly local stuff. The low
end of the access is the 6 meter band, which is around 50 mHz (the meter
designation is the wavelength of the signal) Here there is the
possibility of long distance comms, but 6 meters is kind of erratic, and
more suited for specialty stuff, since good conditions don't happen
regularly.

General glass licenses require a Morse code test in addition to a
written test. Here you get access to portions of 1.8 to 30 mHz. If you
are in an isolated area, this will be more to your liking, as you can
now get worldwide access. Different bands have different signal
propagation, but 20 and 40 meters (14 and 7 mHz) are good dx bands, and
80 meters (3.8 mHz) are local during the day, and open up at night,
especially in the winter 160 meters (1.8 mHz) is an interesting band if
you have room for the antenna. Antennas get longer as the frequency
decreases.

The Extra license requires yet another test, and you then can have
access to some more segments of the bands.

I would recommend getting a General license first, and you can work
your way up if you like, although many are happy with that.

note:

I have simplified some of the details, such as propagation and exact
frequencies for the bands. You'll see that as you learn, but right now I
don't want to flood you with too much.

At some point in the future, the Morse code test is possibly going to
go away. But it may take years for that to happen, and you'll miss out
on the fun. The requirement is not too hard, except for people like me
that have some bad hearing problems, (but I still did it) so don't miss
out on the fun. A Morse code trainer such as NuMorse (do a web search)
is a great help.

More info can be had at http://www.arrl.org

Go for it! - Mike KB3EIA -