It's official...

Technician Class KD8PFB is now on the air. Thanks for the encouragement, y'all. Now if I can just figure how to turn this damn radio on...

Congratulations Rubber Duck....give me a 10-4-Roger...over and out


Have fun and be polite.

JEV said:

Technician Class KD8PFB is now on the air. Thanks for the encouragement, y'all.

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CONGRATULATIONS! now we need to come up with a good set of phonetics for "PFB!"

JEV said:

Now if I can just figure how to turn this damn radio on...

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Gently move the off/on switch to the on position.

jim slagle said:

Gently move the off/on switch to the on position.

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Get a flash light he blew a fuse

SO
Hangin around the airport waiting for his next flight , This fellow happens upon a vending machine labeled "Chit Chat $.50"
Having never seeing anything like this before, he looked around and saw that no one was specificily watchin' him, so in he pops 4 bits.
The machine, reminicent of a county fair fortune telling Gypsy, slowly moans to life and ask him to enter his IQ.
Whoa thinks the guy, Whos gonna know better, he enters 175, whearas the machine begins to chatter on about apogees perogees, thermal dynamics, and other big words for half an hour. Then just like it started is slowly moaned down to a stop.

PFN thinks the guy, He shoves in another four bits, and at the appropriate time, shares his IQ of 95. After receiving this info the machine begins to share opinions regarding cost of insurance, trouble with raising teenagers, and how high taxes are... in another 30 min, it again winds down.

Well, I got time for one more round thinks he, and two more quarters activates the lamps again, this time, just for fun, IQ of 45, to which the machine responds...."10 - 4, Good buddy...Whats yer handle..."

(and old CB joke, I couldn't resist after Galvy's fun with JEV.)

Congratulations JEV.

I'm still trailing miles behind you. My study material did arrive on Monday. I've had a chance to flick through it but that's all. Things are pretty busy here at the moment.

Keep us informed of your first sorties on to the air waves.

I got mine over a year ago, finally got a radio a few months ago and have yet to speak to a soul on the damn thing. KF5DBR

RedRocker said:

I got mine over a year ago, finally got a radio a few months ago and have yet to speak to a soul on the damn thing. KF5DBR

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What kind of radio did you get?

Yaesu FT60R. A guy I work with got me started with all this, but I think I lack
having enough entheusiasm to get very far in to it.

I looked at that radio today because I was not getting any chatter on the 2m radio I bought off Craig's list. I talked to a fellow ham, and he said in our area there is not much chatter on 2m, but there's a lot on 70cm (430mhz). As he was describing the radio to me in the store, there was a lot of chatter going on, just as he said. They had it on sale for $174 + tx, but I hesitated spending the bucks.

When I got home I looked around online and found a ADI 70cm radio just like my 2m, and the outfit has it for $50 brand new in the box, plus $10.67 for shipping. I already have a Diamond antenna that will work on either radio. So I ordered it and should get it next week sometime from the left coast.

There's a lot of chatter going on around here in the DFW area, there's a repeater
on every pole I think. I thought it might be useful when I'm Jeeping, but none of my
buddies have one, so far it just sits.

RedRocker said:

Yaesu FT60R. A guy I work with got me started with all this, but I think I lack
having enough entheusiasm to get very far in to it.

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i use mine in my snow trac all the time great security blanket when i'm out in the middle of no where and i can use the phone patch to call home and say i'm ok up here there are no cell towers out of town as far as chatter i talk with guys regularly in texas i will get some irlp info for you and once you get on to irlp it will open up a whole new world kind of like a radio version of ff

JEV said:

I looked at that radio today because I was not getting any chatter on the 2m radio I bought off Craig's list. I talked to a fellow ham, and he said in our area there is not much chatter on 2m, but there's a lot on 70cm (430mhz). As he was describing the radio to me in the store, there was a lot of chatter going on, just as he said. They had it on sale for $174 + tx, but I hesitated spending the bucks.

When I got home I looked around online and found a ADI 70cm radio just like my 2m, and the outfit has it for $50 brand new in the box, plus $10.67 for shipping. I already have a Diamond antenna that will work on either radio. So I ordered it and should get it next week sometime from the left coast.

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Jev where are is your qth you need to get hooked up with irlp

RedRocker said:

There's a lot of chatter going on around here in the DFW area, there's a repeater
on every pole I think. I thought it might be useful when I'm Jeeping, but none of my
buddies have one, so far it just sits.

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Just out of curiosity, did any of the volunteer exam coordinators invite you to a meeting of their local club? The guys who did my exam didn't even introduce themselves, and never said anything about coming to a meeting. Actually, they acted very aloof and I was glad to just get the heck out of there. Reminded me of the old timer fly fishing elitists who look down their nose at anyone coming into the hobby, like it's their personal turf. Makes it tough to recruit newbies into the hobby when the old timers are not very welcoming. They seem to forget they had a first day themselves. I met a ham today at the electronics store who is e-mailing a schedule of meeting dates for his club in the adjoining county. He said the club in my county flat out doesn't want any more members, especially newbies. No wonder I got such a warm welcome.

JEV, yes, my buddy is one and he's been helpful, I just haven't made much effort so the holdup is on my end. I need to get off my butt and dive in.
dds, bring it on, thanks.