ARRL Field Day 2008

Note: I was really going a little nuts with CW when I wrote my last post. It can be very frustrating.

I was at the field day for Foot Hills Amateur Radio Society. I worked the GET-ON-THE-AIR (GOTA) station. With my lousy hearing, I think the station captain Ron was getting a bit frustrated with me. But I made about 30 contacts over the 3 hours or so I worked the station over the 2 days.

I was even doing some supervision by the end of Saturday.

Saturday evening from about 7PM until about 10PM I logged at the HF station. I was the control operator while a 17YO girl was operating. During contests being a woman or tuning your radio so you sound like a woman is an advantage. The guys want to talk to a woman and the tones of the female voice cuts through the static much better. So she made a whole lot of contacts during her time on the radio.

I joked. I was the most inexperienced control operator supervising an unlicensed station operator.

Overall it was fun. Breaking down was tiring. But exercise is supposed to be a good thing. It was cool finding out how the big antenna are taken down.

Overall, I will be at field day next year. I hope to supervise the GOTA station next year.

Why?

I am sitting at my desk tonight trying to listen to morse code. Then I thought WHY? I blog I twitter I IM, I use the slayer app on facebook. Do I really need another semi-anonymous method of communication? Klingon might be more popular with people my age.

The only real open forums of communication in Ham radio are though nets and contests. I am never going to contest. I watched it. I'd rather read a book sit in a coffee shop noticing women I'll never get to date. I now I'm a computer nerd, but I know which form of silicon I prefer. I'm participating in field to to experience contesting. So other than an hour at field day at the end of the month, I'm never going to do it.

I have all the rights and priviledges allowed an Amateur by the FCC. I will never have the space for a proper antenna, so other than my little dual band radio, I have all the equipment I can validly make use of. I'm a 5 Watt 144M/440M kind of guy.

One thing I will pursue is the electronics side of things. Electronics, making bread and women are the things at the top of my list to understand. I've always been intrigued by how someone know how to slap the components on an electronic board.

I've never successfully made bread. Bread machines don't count. Hell, is there any guy who understands women?

My dad recently called me a serial hobbyist. So something else will pop up on the horizon, I'm sure.

I Earned My Amateur Extra

I did it. I crammed well. I spent the entire week studying. http://www.hamtestonline.com is the ticket. It so worth the $50. I spent 34 hours on hamtestonline and about another 8 hours reading.

I missed one on my General and 6 on my Extra.

Now that I've passed the tests, it is time to go back and learn the materials. I am very good with practical application, and can explain what I am doing. But to test on an entire subject when I don't use the knowledgeand never memorize all the formulas, makes me a bad tester. So I spent the week learning the 1200 questions for the 2 tests. The full weekend and from 8PM till 1:30 AM just about each night.

I can now slowly read the ARRL general and extra license guide. I've also got the ARRL 2008 handbook. I am just glad that book comes with a cd of the book in pdf form. I would nst carry a monster like that in my backpack.

Since past the ability to use my FT-60 for emergencies, and thing else I learn is for nerdy fun. Ham today is about esoteric knowledge and talking to people you'll probably never meet. Like most social networks :D But you never get hot chicks on your friend page. So HAM is about esoteric language. Sort of like learning Klingon or having the map to middle earth memorized better than your local town. I am learning morse code. I even went to a 2 hour lecture about it yesterday.

The speaker was Dave Wolfe. If you ever have a chance to hear him speak go. Even the inside jokes he does in the code isn't bad. His presence is excellent. I did not realize the talk had gone on for so long until I looked at a clock and realized it had gone for an hour and a half at that point.

Well 73.

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