Original Post: December 12, 2012 KC9WZF
I am seriously looking into building one of these J-Pole Antenna’s so that I can hook a Handheld (HT) radio into it. I may look around a bit for some better plans but this video kind of explains how to go about building one! It really does not look too hard!
Original Post: December 11, 2012 KC9WZF
Well the last couple days and evenings have been pretty exciting for me as I venture into the world of Ham Radio! As I’ve said before, I’m making new friends and acquaintances and I don’t even have a radio yet. Well, I have a way to communicate but it is not your conventional Amateur Radio set up. I’m using a program called EchoLink and it is a pretty amazing little piece of software if you ask me! Anyway some of my local club members were on the radios the other night and I was only listening in from a website called radioreference.com and heard one of my fellow classmates that took the Amateur Radio course with me. Now I believe he has a radio already so this was easy for him.. So I was waiting so I could be verified with my EchoLink program so I could talk also. You see, you have to have an Amateur Radio license or “ticket” as they call it to use EchoLink and I had not received my physical piece of paper license yet to send to them as proof of who I was. Well, come to find out there was a couple more ways that I could utilize to become verified and I took advantage of that. Anyway, so after I heard all my fellow club members talking Sunday evening, I set up EchoLink on my iPhone (yes there is an app for that). It took me a while to get it figured out to the point that I could use it and was not afraid to use it. So there was fortunately a way that I could test my audio (incoming and outgoing) out so I made sure I had that set up properly. So after getting this set up, I was a bit skeptical about connecting anywhere but soon gave in and figured, what the heck… I gotta just do it if I’m gonna learn anything. So I looked around a bit and noticed there were all kinds of people, links and repeaters on this thing so I just chose one.. I think it was in Germany or something like that. I just connected but did not talk but good thing because they were talking a 100 miles a minute in German.. LOL! Well, I disconnected and tried a couple more and did the same thing but did not hear anything from those. I decided then to look for something local and found a repeater out of Anderson, Indiana and when I connected the fella on the other end knew I had connected and was asking if someone connected through EchoLink… I was a bit scared to say anything but after he called out about three times I piped up with my newly assigned call sign.. and walla! Instant conversation that probably lasted a half hour! This gave me an incredible boost of confidence and excitement to really stick with this amateur Radio stuff! Thanks Tony, for my very first contact and experience on EchoLink! I look forward to talking with you again! So, now I have been trying to get EchoLink working on my laptop in Windows 7 and Linux… I have a dual boot system and I can run either/or operating system. So far the program runs well on both operating systems but on Windows 7 I’m having some mic issues.. I’m cutting out! I have not tried talking to anyone yet through my Linux, however I have run a test and the audio sounded real good. So, to make sure my iPhone would connect again, I wanted to test it out with a local club member, Ben – KC9QEW so I connected to his link in EchoLink and we were having a great conversation on Monday evening and as usual, I got pretty windy and we talked for some time and then Dave broke in and there again, another new friend and contact! I can see I am going to have fun with this hobby! We talked for while and then it was time to go! I seem to learn a lot from these guys each time I talk to someone! Thanks guys for the learning experience! I know I’m going to make some mistakes along the way but hey, you can’t make mistakes if you don’t at least try.. right?! So talk with you guys again soon! 73s, Tim – KC9WZF
I’d like to explain something here: The next few posts are backup posts from my original site which crashed. This site looks almost identical to the original site! With that said, I am also posting the original date along with the backup post!
Original Post: December 8, 2012 KC9WZF
Hello and welcome to my new site I’ve created for the sole purpose of HAM/Amateur Radio. I have just recently became a licensed HAM operator by gaining my Technician Class license. My hope is to be able to add some really great information here as time goes on! If you would like to see how I got started in Amateur Radio, please see the “About KC9WZF” link at the top of this website. Hope to talk with you soon on the air!
73s, KC9WZF – (Tim)
