[Leaplist] John Simpson

[John Simpson]

On 2008-02-06, at 1838, Andy Lino wrote:
>
> Please email me about the Ham Radio club.
>
> I tried to e-mail you at the address on the card you gave me on  
> Saturday. The e-mail address on the card bounced 3 times.

yeah... hotmail has a bad habit of allowing spammers to use their  
network, and the spammers end up automatically blacklisting hotmail's  
servers. see http://www.dont-spam.us/ for more info about my automatic  
blacklist.

i'm not sure exactly what information you need, but here's the basics-  
and i'm doing this over the list in case anybody else is curious.

the local ham radio club's web page is http://www.oarc.org/

the hamcation (which is THIS WEEKEND, it opens tomorrow at noon) is http://www.hamcation.com/

the ARRL (amateur radio relay league) is a national organization which  
supports the interests of amateur radio operators, primarily within  
the US but also around the world. http://www.arrl.org/

getting an amateur radio license gives you the legal right to transmit  
on the amateur frequency covered by your license. there are currently  
three classes of license: "technician" covers all amateur frequencies  
at and above 50MHz, "general" covers these and most of the HF bands  
(the ones which will actually carry a signal around the world), and  
"amateur extra" (or just "extra") covers all amateur frequencies.

the process of getting a license involves taking a multiple-choice  
test. the tech and general exams are 35 questions each, and the extra  
exam is 50 questions. the actual questions, and the answers you will  
see on the test form, are taken from pools of 350 or 500 questions,  
which are publicly available in any number of places (google for  
"amateur radio test question pool".) the test booklet for your exam  
will have questions selected, word-for-word, from these pools... and  
the four answers for each question are also taken word-for-word from  
the pools, although the choices are presented in a random order. you  
are required to get 85% of the questions correct to pass.

there is a fee to TAKE the exam or exams- it's either $14 or $15, and  
it allows you to take as many tests as you like, until you fail one.  
there are people who have walked in off the street and passed all  
three exams on their first try.

the tests are actually graded when you turn them in, which means  
you'll know before leaving whether or not you passed, and what kind of  
license you'll have. the testers will give you a paper showing which  
class of license you're qualified for, and they send the same paper to  
the FCC. if you already have an amateur license, you are allowed to  
transmit on the new frequencies immediately... otherwise you have to  
wait for your license to appear in the FCC's database (which is  
available on their web site) so you know what call sign to use.

the license itself is free, and it's good for ten years. when your ten  
years is close to expiring, you send a form to the FCC and they renew  
it for another ten years, also free. the only things you pay for are  
the testing fees (which go to the testers, to pay for the testing  
materials and to fund the development of new question pools as  
technology changes) and if you choose to get a "vanity call sign",  
there's a once-every-ten-years fee for that (which varies- at the  
moment i think it's $11.80, but i've seen it as high as $28.00.)

personally, i have a general class license, and the vanity call sign i  
wanted wasn't available unless i were to move to alaska, so i just  
kept the random call sign KG4ZOW that i was assigned when i got my  
first tech license back in 2003. some people want vanity calls, some  
people don't care.

come out to the hamcation this weekend- the linux table is in the  
front building, in the "commercial 2" section, along the south wall of  
the building. i'll be there, several of the other "regulars" from the  
linux group will be there, and plenty of people to ask about ham  
radio... and there are testing sessions on saturday, so if you want to  
real-quick-like study for the test and try to take it, you'll be able  
to do that as well. http://www.hamcation.com/ has the details about  
when the test sessions are- they LIKE for people to pre-register for  
tests, but they'll usually work you in if you just show up. (remember  
to bring a photo ID to the test session if you go.)

and i'm out the door, going to set up the booth with fuzzy... later.

--------------------------------------------------------
| John M. Simpson  --  KG4ZOW  --  Programmer At Large |
| http://www.jms1.net/                 <jms1 at jms1.net> |
--------------------------------------------------------
|   Hope for America  --  http://www.ronpaul2008.com/  |
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