Becoming a Ham

While I was at the maker faire, the ARRL guys convinced me that I should get an amateur radio license. When an emergency hits, it will be working. Cell service is taken down and used for emergency use only. Land line can be knocked out for a few days. But amateur radio will be available. I looked into it and found it was a simple read a book and pass a 35 question multiple choice test. I'll have my technician amateur radio license this Saturday I hope.

As opposed to when I took my solaris and cisco ccnp tests, the FCC publishes the questions. One of the books I bought are all the questions with explanations. I read the book in a day and I am getting only 1-3 questions wrong on the 6-8 practice tests I take each day. So I will pass. But to be sure, I am going to the 8AM test in Cupertino. If I fail, I'll head to the Redwood city location for the 10:30 this Saturday. Wish me luck. I'll post my call sign and the repeaters I'll lurk on when I get it next week.

I have the radio already. A Yaesu FT-60R. No, I am not transmitting. I've been listening to a palo alto repeater, 145.230, N6NFI.

The have been some conversations I've want to put my 2 cents in and just am not allowed yet.

As a side note, I am typing this out on a ASUS eee 900. Yes, for the $550, there are more powerful machines. But for blogging, twittering, checking email, google reader, reading PDFs, this is a great small lite machine. I do wish the battery has more umph. It is only supposed to last 2 hours. This I will keep in the backpack.