Good afternoon, mostly a lurker to the list here :) I got licensed (KD2ACB) a few weeks ago at the Hamfest outside Poughkeepsie.
I decided to get licensed on a Wednesday, the Hamfest was a few days away on Sunday. With a little engineering and electrical experience and some memorization, I was able to pass the technician exam with ease (34/35) with a little studying each evening, going through flashcards. Here are the best resources I found.. - http://www.hamexam.org - Sign up and start studying, it'll ensure you see every question from each question pool and provide awesome statistics (% seen, % right, % wrong) and it will keep drilling you with the questions you get wrong. - http://www.hamwhisperer.com/p/ham-courses.html - Stuck on a specific topic? Check out this guy... He has ~10 minute videos for each section on YouTube with clear explanations and quizzes at the end. These were tremendously helpful when I was trying to cram the entire ~390 question pool in my head in just a few days. I'll be starting to study for my General class license shortly and possibly my Extra if I think I can handle it. I'm just now starting to shop for HF gear. I picked up a Yaesu VX-6R HT at the Hamfest. I bought a nice 2m antenna (that just sits on my desk) and I can hit every repeater I've found locally (what's a repeater you ask? Give this a read: http://www.hamuniverse.com/repeater.html). I also joined the Mt. Beacon Amateur Radio Club (http://wr2abb.org/) and have participated in their on air meetings every Monday at 8pm on their repeater. They also have an in-person meeting on May 10th at the Poughkeepsie Galleria Community Room (near the food court). I'll be attending and everyone is welcome. It starts at 7pm. This isn't the only club in the area, Google around and you'll find more. A membership to the American Radio Relay League (http://www.arrl.org/) was also a recommended given after I got licensed. If you sign up with the code 'B1', you get a free book (I snagged one on some classic antenna designs). You also get a subscription to their monthly magazine which has been a decent read. Lastly, a copy of the The ARRL Operating Manual (http://www.amazon.com/ARRL-Operating-Manual-Radio-Amateurs/dp/0872591093/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1304785240&sr=8-1) has been nice to have on hand. It covers a lot of basics, etiquette, and other nice to know information that you may be afraid to ask or can't find much on Google about... Anyway, I hope the above is useful! I'm still figuring out what HF rig I want to invest in, lot's of neat hardware out there (especially the software defined radios)... Definitely looking forward to working with packet radio as well. And if you don't get a hardware radio right away, you can sign up with EchoLink (http://www.echolink.org/) and use your Android, iOS device, Windows, OSX, or Linux (under Wine) to communicate with other hams and to get on repeaters all over the world. It's free and will get you on the air ASAP (you do need to send a scan of your FCC license when it shows up in the mail). Good luck on the exam and once you have your call sign and a radio, hop on 146.970 (PL 100) and say hello! There's activity almost every night around 7:30pm and always on Monday night at 8pm. You're also likely in range of a repeater in this network: http://www.hamrepeater.net/kq2h/ which ultimately takes you to the top of the Empire State Building (you can access this repeater system via EchoLink as well) - there's activity almost all day long and they've got a 10m link in there so you'll catch folks from all of the world chiming in when the conditions are right. Cheers, -Matt Williams @mwilliams _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium Jun 1 - Zimbra Jul 6 - Jul 2011 Aug 3 - Scala - 100th MHVLUG meeting
