Totally OT question about Marine band radios for boats

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Congratulations, DoN! That's on my (interminable) list of things to do.

Pete Keillor

You better spell it 'Amateur Radio' when you take the test. :)

Sigh..I always get that wrong, even before the stroke. I murdered "cause de celebri" the other day as well.

Gunner

[ ... ]

Thanks. it was on my similar list -- until last hamfest I won a nice little Yeasu 2-meter handheld as a door prize, so I suddenly needed a ticket to be able to use it for anything other than listening. :-) That moved it up in priority. I started taking the practice test for Technician, and found it pretty easy (and learned things from the ones I got wrong), so I tried the General, and after a little while decided that it was also a doable thing, so I tried the Extra, and while I was less certain about it, I felt that I had a very good chance for anything but a particularly bad (for me) clustering of the 35 questions from the

474 question pool. :-) As it worked out, I got an unusually easy one there -- no sweat at all. I expect that I got some wrong, but got enough right to get the license. I almost feel guilty with that easy a test. :-)

Go to hamfests with a higher admission cost. This one had a $10.00 one instead of the usual $5.00 cost, so the door prizes were better.

Now -- I have to worry about buying more things at hamfests, the things which I have been skipping because I could not use them fully without a ticket. (I wanted a particular good receiver, but most of them came attached to transmitters, and I didn't want the chance of accidentally hitting the wrong button and breaking the law. :-)

Now I need to learn code to use some of the bands properly.

Enjoy, DoN.

you don't need to *spell* it at all when taking the test. You fill out a form with personal information (address, and similar things, and a FRN if you have one, or a SSN if you don't yet have one (I had one from preparing to apply for licenses for a pair of handhelds which turned out to have license-free channels).

Then, in the tests, you have to be able to print your name, sign your name, and check boxes corresponding to the correct answers. (A little bit of calculating, especially in the Extra class test) and you are given a single sheet of scratch paper in case you need it for your calculations. With a good scientific calculator, I found that I did not need the scratch paper for anything -- even in the more difficult "Extra" tests.

They wanted #2 pencils with an eraser (I needed to use the eraser once -- when I checked a box on a line for the previous question. :-)

For those with a good feel for electronics calculations, and reasonable feeling for safety wiring, it is pretty easy. Take practice exams and learn from what you get wrong.

But if you don't have that knowledge, get the books and study for the test -- and check how you are doing with the practice ones. (The questions on the practice exams are from the same pool that the real exam uses, so if you can pass several of the practice exams at a given level, you are pretty likely to do well in the real one. I wound up taking more practice runs than I probably needed, simply filling in the time while waiting for the nearest scheduled exam to come around. I wanted to be sure that I was fresh on it. Some questions are from small groups, so you see them frequently. And I discovered that at least some which felt very familiar had the answers in a different order (same wording, just a different multiple guess letter), so memorizing the right letter is probably not a good idea. Learn to eliminate the obviously wrong answers (they call them "distractors"), and select among the remaining ones. I'm glad tha I saw most of those before the real exam, just so I did not break out laughing at some of the suggestions. :-)

Good Luck, DoN.

I rarely see it spelled correctly on Usenet. :)

Quite often I see it spelled 'Armature Radio'.

The local Amateur Radio club has classes, and a couple hams tried to talk me into ATV. It would have been interesting in the '60s, but after being an engineer at three TV stations it just doesn't interest me. I was part of the group that built our high school's 2 meter repeater in the late '60s, and I'm not interested in putting up large antennas in the lightning belt.

I congratulate you on your new call, but after almost 50 years of working with RF I've lost interest in ham radio. Running a 5 MW EIRP station with a 1749' AAT antenna kind of spoils you. :-)

I rarely see it spelled correctly on Usenet. :)

Quite often I see it spelled 'Armature Radio'.

Just how HUGE is our boat? How are you going to fit the Marine Band on it?

That's a lot of polished brass......

ROFLMAO!!

Indeed!

Gunner

Why would anyone hire someone who can't spell?

He's only taking the female members...

[ ... ]

And I was not implying that *you* di dnot have the knowledge, but other read these too. :-)

Thanks! I've been attending hamfests for decades, but without a strong interest in getting my own ticket -- until now. Another thing to play with.

The part which I will probably play with the most is experimenting with spread spectrum, which I've discovered is within the allowed ham experimental range.

I can undestand burning out on a subjet after a number of years. About the only work I did with RF was in an experiment with meteor bounce communications -- plus generating a large cloud of ions for a longer-term bounce. (And mostly I helped set up the antenna towers at that one site, and helped run the chart recorders and receivers. There was another part of the experiment which was trying digital packet communications via the bounces and the ion clouds. This was back in

1963 as close as I remember it. (Also the closest that I got with any kind of space work. :-)

But I got to spend time watching jet fighters taking off into the dawn one after the the other, and returning rather later and lighter. Watching those things getting just a little off the ground and then standing on their tail and climbing was impressive. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

I know you weren't. :)

I have a Harris Hybrid high band VHF that was retuned for two meters. It's a heavy mobile, with a rackmount power supply. I was considering adding a MPU and a pair of DDS chips to make it tune the entire two meter band, instead of four rock bound channels.

I have some E.F. Johnson & Midland UHF mobile radios that could be put on 432. The Johnson use a power varactor after the High band VHF output stage to triple the frequency. Crystal controlled. The Midland are synthesized, but little information is available on programming them for 432.

I worked around airfields, but only saw copters with student pilots who came quite close to putting the blades through the window of the tower while I was repairing equipment in the control room.

Why not? everbudies got spill chucker.

You'd be surprised by the crap people offer on job applications & in their resumes. A lot of small businesses, and ISO-9001 jobs require hand written reports.

How else can you call for the Pizza Boat?

"Michael A. Terrell" on Wed, 17 Jul 2013

23:37:56 -0400 typed >> >> >Storm>> >>

Lot of documentation comes with three copies, and must be handwritten - as there is not a program to fill them out. "Scrap tags" come to mind - documentation to go on file as to why the company only had 1217 parts in this lot, rather than the 1250 schedule.

-- pyotr filipivich "With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.ca on Wed, 17 Jul 2013 23:31:18 -0400 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

He' re into eh States, that's Emanual Labor. "Des the one in charge of spill chucking.

-- pyotr filipivich "With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."