Any hams here? Look what I did on Wednesday!

[Ghery]

I had meetings in Newington, CT this past week. What's in Newington? ARRL HQ. Played hookey from a couple sessions on Wednesday that I didn't need to attend and got on the air as W1AW. Fantastic setup. I can only dream about something that nice at home. Such a wonderful crop of aluminum outside. The operating position was one of several in three different "studios". No problem calling CQ and getting someone to reply to that call sign, including a DXpedition on Aruba. Staff claims that call is worth 10 dB of signal strength.

 

[Shipoke]

Well Ghery , I'm a Ham Operater also. Call sign is N3XBN. i have the radios but not the lisense to transmit on HF.Using a Old Tram Titan II, maybe some day i'll upgrade and talk more.
Dave G

 

[Ghery]

5 wpm isn't hard. Go for it. That will get you voice on 10 meters and CW on several bands.

Ghery, N6TPT

 

[LeonardMack]

Very cool! I operated out of W1AW several years ago. It is amazing how many people want to talk to you when you use that call sign!


73 de KB8KTC

 

[OnlyAnEgg]

FB Ghery,
And you took some nice photos, too. That last one looks like a cover from QST a few years back. Sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime sort of visit.

73 de N3AMF
Jim

 

[wbarnhill]

I really should get back into it. Sounds like it was a blast

73s

William (KI4CLM)

 

[ScottM]

Very nice. Someday I might visit there too. I am about to start the process of taking my station apart. It is time to sell the gear I don't use and reconfigure yet again. I am into VHF DXing, I have 20 countries worked on satelitte but that has slowed down since AO40 busted a couple of years back. I only need 4 more states for WAS satellite too.

I agree with other too Shipokee, 5wpm is pretty easy to get done. Go for it.

DE K9PO

 

[Skip Miller]

Wow, WIAW! I visited there when I was a cub scout, I think. It hasn't changed a bit. The outside, I mean!!

It was a fun visit for a little kid. Sadly, being a ham never "took" with me.

-Skip

 

[tparsons]

Neat!

de Tyler, WB7DDL (ex WA3QIC, DA1TB)

 

[AdamZ]

Uh forgive the ignorance but is that like visiting Kitty Hawk for a pilot? Whats the significance?

 

[wbarnhill]

Uh forgive the ignorance but is that like visiting Kitty Hawk for a pilot? Whats the significance?

I guess you could say it's like visiting AOPA and going up in the air with Phil and him saying "Your controls".

ARRL = American Radio Relay League

From their site:

ARRL is the national membership association for Amateur Radio operators.

The seed for Amateur Radio was planted in the 1890s, when Guglielmo Marconi began his experiments in wireless telegraphy. Soon he was joined by dozens, then hundreds, of others who were enthusiastic about sending and receiving messages through the air--some with a commercial interest, but others solely out of a love for this new communications medium. The United States government began licensing Amateur Radio operators in 1912.

By 1914, there were thousands of Amateur Radio operators--hams--in the United States. Hiram Percy Maxim, a leading Hartford, Connecticut, inventor and industrialist saw the need for an organization to band together this fledgling group of radio experimenters. In May 1914 he founded the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) to meet that need.

 

[GMascelli]

It's been many years since visiting W1AW...still good memories. All this talk on the forum about ham radio finally pushed me to set the station back up. I even put the dual band 2/440 back in the Benz.

Scheduled to take down the old dead tri bander this week and string up a G5RV to get back in the swing of things. Station equipment is a Yaesu 757 GX MFJ Versa Tuner III and the always fun Dentron GLA 1000B (for that added kick)

Maybe all the op's here can agree on a time and day for a "flying" net....just a thought.

Great pictures Ghery!

N3DLM

 

[ScottM]

All this talk on the forum about ham radio finally pushed me to set the station back up.

Scheduled to take down the old dead tri bander this week and string up a G5RV to get back in the swing of things.

Be careful 75 meters is a lot like PoA's Spin Zone That band has gotten even worse in the apst few years. I am almost never on HF anymore. When I do it is almost always QRP 40m/20m CW

 

[Ghery]

Be careful 75 meters is a lot like PoA's Spin Zone That band has gotten even worse in the apst few years. I am almost never on HF anymore. When I do it is almost always QRP 40m/20m CW

75 meters is my standard reply when someone claims that a CW test keeps out the riff-raff. And when I was first licensed in 1988 and the sun spots were popping 28.325 MHz was every bit as bad. I'd just spin the dial past that one.

William, you are spot on as to the significance of W1AW.

Jim, thanks. Many of those are the new antennas shown in the latest QST. The old ones are lying on the ground under the tower. The 5 element beam I was using on 20 meters is near the top of that tower at about 120 feet.

In addition to the meetings I was able to get with W1MG and go over a few minor editorial fixes in my chapter in the upcoming 2nd Edition of the ARRL RFI Handbook.

Oh, and the hardest part of operating W1AW is working up the courage to step on the PTT switch on the floor for the first time and say "CQ CQ CQ. This is W1AW". Once you get over that first hesitation, away you go. Entirely too much fun. And one of the people who called was a member of our club here in Olympia. I had given them a heads up e-mail the night before letting them know when I would be on. Guess I'll have to make a club meeting and show them the pictures.

Adam, operating W1AW is to a ham pretty much what your first solo is to us pilots. One of the biggest thrills I've had as a ham.

 

[ScottM]

75 meters is my standard reply when someone claims that a CW test keeps out the riff-raff.

So true, I do the same.


BTW given that you and I are in the same line of work have you ever operated 4U1ITU in Geneva?? There are some forms and bureaucracy to deal. After all it is the U. But once you get access it is a cool station as well.

 

[CJones]

Wow.. I can usually *somewhat* follow a conversation on most things discussed here, but I must admit that all this HAM stuff is complete Greek... er... Chinese to me!

My grandad had a ?Moonraker? antenna on his base CB station, but he never got into HAM at all. I can still remember hearing him bleed through on my FM clock radio at 5am some mornings. It sure irritated me then, but boy do I miss it now!

HAM sounds like one of those things that, once you're into it, you're into it with both feet!

To each, his own.

-Chris

 

[Ghery]

BTW given that you and I are in the same line of work have you ever operated 4U1ITU in Geneva?? There are some forms and bureaucracy to deal. After all it is the U. But once you get access it is a cool station as well.

I haven't been to Geneva, so I haven't had the opportunity. I have taken an HT to the UK with me and operated on the reciprocal privileges that we have with CEPT countries, however. And the automatic reciprocity with VE land, too. That's been a while.

 

[wsuffa]

BTW given that you and I are in the same line of work have you ever operated 4U1ITU in Geneva?? There are some forms and bureaucracy to deal. After all it is the U. But once you get access it is a cool station as well.

Seen the station, but never wanted to get through the bureaucracy to operate it - I was more interested in traveling and getting to know the town.

I did several trips over for Study Groups 12/1 and 12/2 in the early 90's.

 

[ScottM]

Seen the station, but never wanted to get through the bureaucracy to operate it - I was more interested in traveling and getting to know the town.

I did several trips over for Study Groups 12/1 and 12/2 in the early 90's.

Understandable. I had only a couple of days and no time for siteseeing as it was a WP8F meeting but I could kill an hour or two at the station before heading off to dinner.

I haven't been to Geneva, so I haven't had the opportunity. I have taken an HT to the UK with me and operated on the reciprocal privileges that we have with CEPT countries, however. And the automatic reciprocity with VE land, too. That's been a while.

I do the CEPT thing in Switzerland, England, and France. I also have reciprocal privelages in China with an operators permit and operated BY4AA in Shanghai, then I operated in part of the all Asia contest as XX9TXW from Macao with a friend plus I hold JN3XCV as my Japanese license.

 

[PostTenebrasLux]

I really ought to get back into radio. I got my Novice in 1977 at the age of 13, General and Advanced both that same summer (I had turned 14 by the time I got the Advanced) and Extra several years later in my 20s when some friends were going to take exams at a hamfest and I decided I'd get in on the fun. I'd been operating CW anyway, which I always enjoyed.

In a roundabout way it was ham radio that got me interested in flying. One of my friends in high school was also a ham as was his father. His father also happened to be the director of Moody Aviation where Moody Bible trained their missionary pilots in my home town, Elizabethton, TN. (0A9) Back then the exams were only given at FCC field offices or occasionally at remote exam points. The closest was Knoxville, TN, about 100 miles away, four times a year. His dad was flying them to Atlanta to take exams and my friend asked me if I wanted to go. I'd never flown and wanted to, so I decided to take the second class commercial exam. (It turned out to be the only radio exam I ever failed, though I got the General Phone and radar endorsement years later when I worked in TV.) He flew us to PDK in a T210 and the instant we took off I knew I had to fly some day. I later got to repeat the trip with them in an A36.

That would have been...1979 or so, I'd guess, maybe 78. I started flying in 1983-84 and had to quit barely pre-solo due to expense. Just now taking it up again, but better late than never.

73,
de WD4IGX
(Roger)