Why Ham Radio?

I got my Technician class back in August 2004.  My uncle had his tech class and told me I should get it.  He wasn't much of an elmer, and I really didn't understand what the hobby was.  Nonetheless, I took his advice blindly and bought a study guide at my local Rat Shack (Radio Shack) and tried that summer.  Yeah, I didn't get very far. 
Fast-forward 13 years later, and I was sitting on the bench at my consulting firm.  "Sitting on the bench" means you're between projects and waiting for your next assignment.  Given that this was during the 2001 recession, there were a lot of folks on the bench, and whereas typically one's on the bench for a week or two, one or two months was not uncommon at this time (Three months and you're probably one or two days away from getting let go.).


I still didn't know what Ham Radio was but given the free-time, I started reading up on it and found a free study guide to pass my Technician class.  I spent about 4 weeks and took the exam.  I was pretty stoked.  I woke up early in the morning to make the 2.5 hour drive to Wilkes Barre, PA.  I took the exam and passed.  To celebrate, I drove from Wilkes Barre to Newcastle, DE to the nearest HRO dealer.  Not only was it the nearest, it was the cheapest, since Delaware doesn't charge sales tax.  As a treat for passing, I purchased a Yaesu VX-5R, and I was on the air with the local repeaters.

No Contacts To This Date...
So to this date, I've never made a single contact.  Back when I purchased the Yaesu HT, I was scanning a lot of the frequencies and listening in on the repeaters.  I quickly became aware that I wasn't really interested in talking on the repeaters.  Local Rag Chewing just didn't appeal to me.  That's when I realized I needed to get my General ticket to try HF.  Six years later, and I finally got my General.

Why Still Interested?
I'm a tinkerer by nature.  I love to fix, build and dabble with things.  From my teen years building and customizing paintball guns to building golf clubs during my freetime, I like to do things myself.  Ham Radio is a tinkerer's playground.  From antennas, transceivers, and radio accessories to stinkin' coax cables, you can building virtually anything.

I'm also burnt out from my other hobby, photography.  I've been doing photography, since college when I was a staff photographer for my campus.  Lately, I've not had the drive to pick-up a camera or even check any of the photography forums.  Sad, too, since I just acquired a new camera.  For instance, I came back from an overseas wedding a few weeks back, and I took less than 10 pictures.  I just didn't care.

So, I guess I'll try Ham Radio for a bit.  I figure by having a blog, maybe I'm putting more skin into this hobby.

Now that I've got my General, my first goal is to get equipment.  I haven't had any radio equipment since 2006.  I've just acquired a Yaesu FT-857d, an MFJ-941e, and a power supply.  Now I'll need to build an antenna; hopefully be on the air and make my very first contact.  73 de KB3LLE

Finally a General Amateur Radio Operator

So on 6/27/2010, I finally took my general licensing exam and passed at Georgia Tech.  It only took 6 years to get it.  I had a small two week lull in life and decided to give this test another shot.  About every other year, I'd give it another shot at trying to pass this exam.  I guess this time I got lucky.



How I Passed
Actually, I took it more seriously along with more resources.  I had already purchased the ARRL General Class book and had already gone through it a couple of times.  For some reason, it just wasn't stickin'.  N8KBR had a great nutshell version in PDF format, along with some other resources on the internet.  This was a lifesaver.  The way it was worded, it just started to make sense.  Lessons Learned?  Use as many resources as possible.  I took the reviews I saw on Amazon as gospel that the ARRL book was the way for me to learn and pass.  In the end, use every resource possible to pass.

When I didn't understand terms in the book or the PDFs, I started Googling or Wiki'ing.  For instance, if I didn't understand ARRL's explanation of inductance, I found a college website or Wikipedia for their explanation.  Like I said, I took it more seriously to study, so I put more effort into it.

Finally, I just started going through practice exams to get used to types of questions.

Why This Time?
Funny how I decided to get back into Ham Radio.  I sold my only transceiver, a Yaesu VX-2r, back in 2006, so I haven't done much since.  Sadly, to this date, I've never made a contact...that's for another story.  Well, recently my wife and I were looking into discontinuing our cable service.  We were watching less and less TV and wanted to look into getting the local channels through the air waves.  Based on our location, www.antennaweb.org mentioned that we should get most of the local channels in HD through a Yagi antenna.  That's when I got the ham radio bug.  Why?  I wanted to see if I could build my own HD antenna instead of purchasing one.  The thought of building an antenna started getting me thinking about Ham Radio, and here I am now with a General Ticket.  More to come...