ham radio licenses

Congratulations, Dave! I'm looking at the same thing myself, and you're a good role model. :-) Many years ago (13 years of age) I was a ham, but after high school I led too nomadic a lifestyle to maintain the hobby and my license (my highest rating Advanced Class) expired. A few years ago I got the idea of getting back into it and bought an HF rig off eBay, the system I could never afford as a teenager: a Drake R4B/T4XB combination. Unfortunately, the rig looked like it had lived in someone's carport for ten years - one of the few times I've been screwed on eBay - and after some initial work troubleshooting it, I got distracted by other things and it got stacked in a corner behind a DEC something-or-other. So the other day some random neural firing led me to a new bout of nostalgia, and I wandered onto eBay to see if the old Motorola HT220 was still around. I used to work on those back in the late 1970s and thought they were too cool for words. Of course, I could never afford to acquire one and modify it for ham operation (I still had the Advanced Class back then). My 'new' HT220 - already modified for and checked out on 2m - should arrive at the end of the week. Then I need to pick up some crystals, a battery - and a license! Oh, and I started working on the Drake again. I learned that my 'good' scope (HP 1701A) is no longer good, having lost deflection left of center. I pulled out my 'old' scope and learned that my signal generator has a messed up front panel interface - it does what I tell it to but doesn't display the result. So I guess I have to fix some tools. <sigh> ________________________________________ From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire [mcguire at neurotica.com] Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2011 5:25 PM To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: OT: ham radio licenses I had a ham license (coded Tech class, KA2UZK) from 1984 to 1994, and was quite active on VHF FM and HF CW during that time. I've missed it quite a bit over the years and have always intended to relicense, but the piles of rules changes gave me pause, as rote memorization isn't really my strong suit. Well, the recent discussion of ham radio licensing motivated me to finally get off my butt and do it. I studied off-and-on for a few days to assimilate the new rules & regs, and registered for the VE test given at the hamfest in Hagerstown, MD on April 31st. I sat for all three exams...Element 2 (Technician class), Element 3 (General class) and Element 4 (Extra class). I am very proud to report that I passed them all the first time through! And, I don't mind saying, the Extra exam made my head hurt. The FCC processed my paperwork very quickly, and on May 5th I was granted an Extra-class license and assigned call sign AK4HZ. Of I'm still in West Virginia handling family business, while all of my ham gear is in Florida, but my mother (who is house-sitting for me in Florida) was able to ship two of my HTs up here so I'd have something at least. When I have access to my HF gear (Yaesu FT-ONE and FT-920, Heath HW-7, HW-8, and HW-9 QRP rigs, and Heath SB-101) I hope to try out some of the neat new(ish) stuff like PSK31 that came up while I was away. High-tech stuff aside, I'm sure to do some plain old SSB and CW on the HF bands. Anyway, enough of my blather, I'm just proud to have accomplished that and wanted to tell everyone. I'm hoping to catch some of you on the air! -Dave 73's DE AK4HZ -- Dave McGuire Port Charlotte, FL