are there any ham radio operators and cbers on here without revealing your call sign or signal.

[AllaN01Bear]

Last edited Tue Mar 23, 2021, 06:03 PM - Edit history (1)

thanks . and to add codeless tech.

[Squeaky41]

1. DU Hams

Ham since 1962.

[Throckmorton]

2. 1980 here

Extra Class.

[LastDemocratInSC]

3. 1976 here, General class.

[Towlie]

7. Did you have a "Bicentennial" call sign? I did.

 
?

Back in 1976 we were permitted to temporarily alter our call signs with prefixes like "AA" to commemorate the Bicentennial.

[LastDemocratInSC]

8. No, I was not aware of the bicentennial option.

[Towlie]

4. Advanced Class since 1976.

 
?

But not active for several decades, since technology plunged ahead while ham radio lagged behind and became increasingly irrelevant.

Back then I would have gotten upset about grouping ham radio and CB together.

[Marthe48]

5. When I worked at the library a ham operator came in

One of the things the operators did in the late 90's (and who knows, maybe still and always!) was try to travel to remote spots and transmit a message from that spot. He wanted to know where Peter Paul Rocks were. I helped him locate these remote rocky isles. He was regretful that they were so remote. He had other locations in mind that I hope were easier for him to get to.

I always thought that was a cool spin on a hobby and I've been fascinated by remote isles ever since

[gay texan]

6. General class Ham operator

At your service!

[CanonRay]

9. Technician class since 2014

[SeattleVet]

10. General class here...

wife and I got licensed right after the Nisqually earthquake when we found out how useless cellphones were in an actual emergency.

[A HERETIC I AM]

11. I have had numerous Citizen Band radios over the years, but never got a license....

Because the FCC did away with that requirement decades ago.

But I am curious why you group those two radio types together in your question. The difference in their relative range is akin to the difference between a small bell on a tricycle and a train horn.

[AllaN01Bear]

13. i do both . cb and ham. codeless tec.

[TrogL]

12. So when I first got my radio

...I had a magnatop antenna but nowhere to mount it so I stuck it to the side of a portable dishwasher and started transmitting asking for help.

Pretty soon the base station a few blocks over starts calling “that idiot trying to use a dishwasher as a ground plane” and Dishwasher became my handle.

[Binkie The Clown]

14. Was a ham back in the 60s and 70s but let it lapse. nt

[Dave Starsky]

15. Amateur Extra here.

I passed the General class with the code, but didn't have to do it by the time I went for the Extra.

I used to be a lot more into it than I am now. I still have a couple of 2-meter handhelds I use to listen to the nets sometimes, particularly in times of bad weather, etc. There seem to be a lot of old (and I mean OLD) super-right-wingers involved in the hobby and few others now, which is a shame.

[demtenjeep]

16. hubby is a Ham

has been since 91


says it is nothing like it used to be

[hardluck]

17. Yes, Technician class

Since about 2008. Got my license as all the guy I off-roaded with were licensed and were using their mobile setups to communicate on the trail. Have a Yaesu FT-8800 in my 94 Land Cruiser.

[Baked Potato]

18. General, first licensed in 73.

[funtanaflier]

19. Technician Class in '11 Ugpraded to General in '13

Proudly been an amateur radio operator inspired by my former boss and mentor. Sadly, he passed away (in ham speak, silent key) last year and I really miss him. So, for all those that understand ham speak, 73!

[Yonnie3]

20. I've been an extra since the 80s

I mainly operated HF CW.

I have not been active for a while. Hoping to change that soon.

[Towlie]

21. A story about science, ham radio, and me.

I've been interested in science since Junior High School (what they call "Middle School" today), but I don't recall ever being taught much about science itself. Science classes just jumped right into the specific branch of science being taught, so among other things, I never learned what a scientific theory is and how it differs from the common meaning of the word theory.

But then I got into ham radio and bought myself a shortwave SSB receiver. I sat down at home and started leafing through the manual, which seemed usually thick. (Manuals for ham radio gear went into a lot of technical detail, presumably because the manufacturers knew that their customers would demand it.)

When I got to the final chapter I was confused to find that its title was "Theory of Operation".

"Theory of Operation"?

"THEORY OF OPERATION"???

You mean they designed and built this thing but they're not even sure how it works???

Of course when I began reading that chapter I realized right away that they knew exactly how it worked and that I didn't know what "theory" meant, at least in this context. Since then I followed up on my own and learned a lot more about science itself, including the scientific method and what a scientific theory is.

A scientific theory is a means of describing observations, and a good theory describes a wide range of observations and makes reliable predictions. It's a description of the inner workings of a process and explains why it happens the way it does. That's a good thing to know when confronted by arguments from creationists that evolution is "only a theory", because when they say that they reveal that they don't know what a scientific theory is. Evolution is not a theory, it's an observation, and the Theory of Evolution is an explanation of how evolution works.

Anyway, that's one of the things that ham radio taught me, and it has stayed with me over the years as I moved on to a long series of other interests.

[Karma13612]

26. Fascinating!! Eom

[aka-chmeee]

22. 1980 ish.

Eleven years as Novice Class. After 15 year old girl teased me with her Tech license, 3 months later upgraded to Extra Class.

[JesterCS]

23. My dad has his ham license

I always thought it would be neat to do it myself, just never got around to it

[pfitz59]

24. KMA4598

Used it a lot, many years ago. Been inactive for decades.

[onethatcares]

25. could someone put this all

in a nut shell as to why the different classes of licenses?

I had a VHF radio license for my first boat but that's about it.

[Karma13612]

27. I used to

Love listening to shortwave radio but never got into ham radio.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

28. Not me, but my oldest brother was an enthusiast.

I still remember his call sign, but I won't share it here.

I remembered it only after thinking of him repeatedly saying "Whiskey... (other words and a number)... foxtrot" into a microphone. He mostly communicated with morse code, though, and very fast.

In later years, he focused on super-low power and relying on his elaborate antenna set-ups to communicate around the world.

He's in a nursing home now, and unable to do it.

[AllaN01Bear]

29. i used to use an online thing called echo link which hams use for live conversations .

hadnt used it for years .

[Buckeye_Democrat]

30. I don't know everything that my brother did.

He started the hobby in the early 60's. He took a long break from it while working as an electrical engineer, but did it again after he became legally blind. He was still super-fast with morse code, perhaps like riding a bike for him.

He'd send cards to other operators, and receive them from all over the world.

He was very proud of some of his antenna experiments (which was slow-going given his vision problems) in more recent years, even surprising himself by the communication range using such little power (provided by a small solar panel).