I just thought I’d throw that out there for those that were confused or misdirected…

Before I had even taken my ham license test, I was given an old Icom radio to muck about with. As it turned out I found a fairly busy repeater in the East Bay (K6POU) that was quite fun to listen to. It continues to be the busiest repeater, on a regular basis, that I’ve found. As the group that hangs out on the repeater is a fairly loose bunch they end up chatting about a lot of different topics. More than a few times I found those topics and questions right up my alley, and was wanting to respond.

Unfortunately I wasn’t licensed, so I couldn’t. It was suggested to me by a friend that I should get on anyways, after all “what’s the big deal?”. Well it sorta is a big deal; it is illegal to transmit on (almost) all frequencies without a license (be it your own or a companies you work for). Being realistic, the FCC isn’t going to bust down your door if you do, in all likelihood you could do it dozens of times and the FCC/Cops aren’t going to do squat about it. So why don’t you do it?

People know. Even listening to the radio for only a week or so, I had started to recognize all the regular voices on the repeater. These people on the repeater are there every day and most definitely know everyone else’s voice. If you get on, they will know instantly that you are new. Especially if you are new to amateur radio, you’ll give yourself away with incorrect procedure. Most importantly, everyone expects a callsign, if you don’t give one – they’ll ask.

If you lie yourself a callsign, you better get real lucky. The instant you give your call on a repeater like K6POU which is busy, a half dozen people will have looked you up. If you gave a call that isn’t in the system, they are going to know. If you gave a real callsign of someone else, you better hope it isn’t someone they know. Remember, the hams are a fairly small and friendly group – they’ve QSL’d people across the entire world (shortwave FTW). It is entirely possible that at least one person on the repeater has talked to the callsign you’re stealing.

If you do get lucky, then you better hope that any of the people you talk to don’t decide to send you a QSL card. The cards are, many times, done via the internet. I know if I got a QSL card from someone I never talked to, I’d write back asking them what was up. Of course the jig would be up for you, the callsign stealer.

In the end, you’ll get found out and instantly earn yourself a blackmark. You’re now a repeater pariah. Again, they’ll recognize your voice if you get back on. So even if you go legit and try to come back, they’ll probably remember. They won’t talk to you and probably run you off the repeater. How do I know? I asked the guys on K6POU the first night I got on. I explained to them my dilemma of wanting to get on but not having a license and they explained to me (very kindly) what has happened to others. Oh, and the first night I got on, they ran my call and couldn’t find me in their regular databases. I had to explain that I was only in the FCC’s at that point. Just to show that people WILL run any and every call that comes on the air.

If you want to get on the radio: Get a license. The test takes less than an hour and only costs $15. You could cram for it and potentially have your very own call in a week (depending on FCC speed). Hams really are a friendly group and so far everyone I’ve talked to has been very nice. They only ask that you follow the rules. It might seem a little complicated to the uninitiated but it really isn’t that hard. Any ham will be happy to help you get going, or direct you to someone that can help you.

As you can see on the aforementioned link, there are a number of repeaters in the California/Nevada area that allow easy communication between the Bay Area (where Jon is) and Tahoe (where John is). If you use the Interactive Coverage Map, you can see the various paths, and repeaters, even see how the coverage works.

One interesting thing we noticed was Jon was able to hear me much better on the South Lake repeater (#8) versus the North Lake repeater (#23), however he came in slightly scratchier on #8. When we turned on the Paths on the interactive coverage map, I realized that the path the signal took might have been a strong contributor.
To reach Jon at station 11, we either go 8 –> 16 –> 11 or 8 –> 18 –> 11, whereas with 23, we have to go 23 –> 18–> 8 –> 16 –> 11 or 23 –> 18 –> 11.

Regardless, it worked and worked well. I was very impressed with the signal from INSIDE my office, specifically, from my desk via handheld.

Last but not least, this was my first Ham radio transmission. Didn’t hear anyone else on the line, so hopefully no one else had to put up with our idiocy.

I found out very quickly that the FCC system was down every night from 12:00 am to 02:00 am (Or 2100 to 2300 PST). Last night at just after 2300 I decided to login, and voila! KJ6FQN was listed in the system. I quickly and nervously got out my radio, tuned into the local repeater, and introduced myself. It didn’t work initially, seems I had forgotten the PL code setting, I got that fixed, and tried again. A minute later, response! My first contact!

Oh, it was quite exciting. Even though it was late at night within a few minutes there were a few other people commenting in and out. I had been listening to this particular repeater for several weeks and it was nice to finally be able to interact with the people. There were more than a few times over the last few weeks that I really wanted to break in and put my 2 cents worth, but couldn’t because I didn’t have a license. Regardless, I spent about an hour online which went much faster than I expected, which was quite troubling since I was supposed to be asleep by then. The group was very nice and complimented me on my ease of radio’ing (it is nice to make the newbie feel like he’s not an idiot and doing it all wrong), they also said I had social skills (Editor’s note – obviously they don’t know him very well).

Just for the record, us IT people don’t like people to think we have social skills. In fact we prefer it if you think we are terribly anti-social, and too abrasive to even deal with in the first place. That way you’re less likely to ask for a “favor”.

After doing this research, and remembering about my previous ham desires, I decided I would go ahead and get licensed. I bought the ARRL Ham Radio License Manual (Technician) and read that. I have to say, I recommend the book. It provides all the information you need in a clear and logical fashion, along with why you should care. It even has a bonus section on what to look for when buying your first radio (in case you don’t know anyone to help you with that). That was just over a month ago. On Friday, I went to the monthly meeting of my local amateur radio club and tested for the Technician level (which is the entry level certification).

I’m pleased to announce that I passed and am now officially a ham. On Saturday morning, John attended a local testing session in his area and also passed. Not only did he pass, he 100%’d the test, just to show me up. Unfortunately it takes about a week to get our assigned call signs, so I can’t transmit yet. I am looking forward to exploring the spectrums a bit, especially since I bought myself a shiny new radio (which I’ll be covering in a later post).

Until then, 73

Also, if you are curious as to why an Amateur radio operator is refereed to as a “ham”, you can thank Wikipedia and their article on the Etymology of ham radio. Personally I like the “Ham-fisted” story.