Eight years later…
For the past five or so years, I’ve done almost no amateur radio activity. I’ve let my memberships to organizations lapse, I’ve failled to renew my call sign domain name (N3VAR.com) website + email address, and I’ve only turned on my radios a handful of times. The gear has been sitting in closets, waiting for the time that my interest drifted back. Looking back on this lapse, I think the primary reason was the state of the hobby. I wanted the hobby to be more software and less hardware, but with SDR being fairly new and the hobby having deep…
Three years later…
It’s been almost three years since I passed my Extra Class license test and the last time I picked up an amateur radio was when I experimented with satellite DXing in early 2018. This week, I pulled out my Kenwood TH-D74a and Kenwood TH-D72a handhelds to re-familiarize myself with the hobby. The first step – charging old batteries and updating firmware. The second step – attempting to re-learn archaic user interfaces and menus on these two Kenwood handhelds. Right now, the Kenwood TH-D72a, my primary satellite DXing radio (due to the fact that it’s full duplex) either has a physically…
Extra Class License : Test Passed!
This afternoon, I took the Element 4 exam and passed! I now have an Extra Class License (well, officially…just temporary operating privileges with a CSCE until the FCC processes the paperwork). I have been in non-stop study mode on these three radio license exams (Technician, General, and Extra) since August. The past four months have been dominated by studying and test-taking and my free time has pretty much been dedicated to this one set of activities. I’ve had to study radio more than I’ve been able to participate in radio. As excited as I am about passing the Extra license…
VHF/UHF Whip Antenna Testing
I had some time this weekend to do side-by-side receive testing of a variety of VHF/UHF whip antennas using my Kenwood TH-D74a. For signal strength testing, I used three WX channels within range of my house in Oceanside. NOTE: This is receive testing only. I did not test transmit, although I plan to do that later on. Transmit testing requires another person at a distance to help with the testing results. The antennas I tested: Diamond SRH320A Tri-Band Whip Antenna [SCORE: 21] Comet SMA-24 HT Whip Antenna [SCORE: 21] Nagoya NA-771 Whip Antenna [SCORE: 19-21] Hypario HPA-701 Whip Antenna (Nagoya) [SCORE: 18] Kenwood TH-D74…
I have an antenna problem…
…and I mean that in both meanings of the phase – attempting to solve the problem and buying too many. One problem has led to the other. My desire to find a great antenna for use with my handheld transceiver and others for use with my QRP transceiver has led to buying more antennas than I should have, some of which are going to be clearly inferior to the others. I feel like I have the right transceivers for my needs, so the collecting part of the hobby seems to be antennas. I suspect I will end up with just…
Fun with APRS
One of the features of the Kenwood TH-D74 handheld transceiver is APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System). I was able to spend some time last weekend learning more about APRS and I have been having fun with this over the past week. It would be great to see more traffic on APRS, especially considering that I am a large city. I am late to the hobby and suspect that peak APRS was probably some number of years ago.
General Class License : Test Passed!
This morning, I took the Element 3 exam and passed! I now have a General Class License (well, officially…just temporary operating privileges with a CSCE until the FCC processes the paperwork). I’ve been thinking about doing this on and off for over 25 years and I finally made the time. It’s been just over a month since I started studying for the license upgrade from Technician to General. I passed the Element 2 exam for the Technician Class License on September 2nd, 2017. I learned a lot for both tests, some of which I will probably never use in the…
My first contact
I made my first contact today! I still just have my Technician License, so that means mostly VHF/UHF transmission. I was using the W7LI repeater on Mt. Hebo today while I was in Oceanside, Oregon. I tried several times the day before, but no one was listening on the repeater. This repeater is just over 19 miles from my location and the person who responded was quite a distance aways on the opposite side of the repeater and across the mountains. The contact was made using my Kenwood TH-D74 with a Diamond SRH320A whip antenna. It’s great to know that…
N3VAR is granted
I received an email from the FCC today – my vanity call sign request for N3VAR has been granted. If you haven’t figured it out already, my call sign is my first name backwards (R A V E N becomes N Ǝ V A R). I’ve been holding off on transmitting since I received my Technician license (my test was on September 2nd, 2017, and my license was granted on September 11th, 2017), as I wanted to use my new call sign for contacts. The timing to wait wasn’t a big deal, as I was in Europe for most of that time…