This is not really going to be Day 1, but it will be the first post. I have been wanting to get my HAM license for decades. As a teenager I worked at a Boy Scout summer camp out in California. My first summer on staff, I bunked with someone who had their license. Throughout the years, and I most recently caught up with him late last year, he has encouraged me to get my license.
About 10 or so years ago, I was all ready to go to study and do it. I bought a nice little handheld, a Yaesu VX-8DR. I played around with it trying to find something to listen to. I never really got out of the house with it and at the time I was living out in the sticks. Rarely did I catch anything and I never truly found the energy to study properly. This year I had friends who were planning on attending Defcon. This is the annual Hacker convention in Las Vegas. I hadn't been to it since around 2000 and had heard that it had changed quite a bit, least of which was the price..yikes! Anyways, I hadn't seen these friends in like 10 years so I made the effort and went. I found that they had a thriving HAM Village and one could take their exam there for any, or all, of the currently 3 levels of licensing. So I made the decision I was going to make that my priority outside of hanging with my friends. And I successfully passed the Technician exam.
I was legal to transmit on certain bands and frequencies...but now what? Well, with all the studying and reading and listening, I learned about how people are using their licenses out there. POTA, SOTA, Contests, all the digital stuff. There were many things to explore. I really want to do POTA (Parks on the Air). It's an excuse to get out of the house and go to beautiful places and do technical stuff. That's really what it is. You go out to a State or National park. There is a list of them that are port of this activity. You setup your portable radio and antenna and you try to make a bunch of contacts with folks all over the place. This sounded like fun. Not a lot of small talk needed, just the initial contact, an exchange of signal and location information, and that is it. An excuse to get out in different places and test out different antenna setups and make the electronics work in a rugged location. So that was my goal to begin with. Get setup and get out and participate in POTA. I also want to do other things, but this was the big one besides getting my home setup figured out.
So, to do POTA, you just have to be able to make contact with others from out in the wilderness. This means being able to get long distance. The 10 meter privileges you get with the Technician might be able to do some of this, but that band is not the best right now. If you really want to get out 20 or 40 meter is where you want to be from what folks are saying. In order to talk on those you need a General license. So I studied and last weekend I passed that exam. And now I am studying for the Extra license becuase...why not? The General license gives access to most of the frequencies available to amateurs so it really is all you need.
I will be writing posts going into detail on the various components I am using or trying. My successes and failures as I will be not just buying items but trying to make some. For now, I'll just go through what I have and am playing with right now.
One of the first things I did was to purchase a radio capable of doing the HF bands. I don't have a ton of money to throw at this right now so I went to the used market and went for an older radio. I found a Yaesu FT-840 that was within my budget and looked like it was in great condition. I will do a post about the modifications I have done as this was mostly stock and there is a resistor modification that is pretty much a must to do. But as of right now, I have not really used this radio. The radio alone isn't enough but it will get me from 160m up to 10m on 100w. It doesn't have all the fancy newer items like a waterfall display or digital mode (it was made in the 90's), but there are some things you can do to bridge the gap. And ultimately, I was to primarily just make contacts.
You need power so I stuck with the Yaesu gear that was lined up with the FT-840 and got a used FP-800 power supply. Again, great condition as far as I can tell. I also got a MFJ-941E Versa Tuner II. This is a manual tuner which makes it cheaper than the alternatives and more than sufficient for me to begin with. Learn first, then get fancy and lazy later. heh
I've since also picked up a dummy load so I could test my radio without hooking up the antenna. Speaking of antenna's. Antennas are where things get complicated. That actually gets easier when you get out into the wild, but for my home.... First i live in a HOA controlled area. I can't just throw an antenna up on my house and be done with it. I'll go into details on this as well later but for testing purposes, I'll be looking to do what I'll be doing to some degree when I go do POTA. I bought a mast to be able to get the antenna wire up high, and I bought a End-Fed Half-Wave antenna, specifically I purchased a 100w Variable End Fed Half Wave Antenna from Xtenna. This is going to be one of my POTA antenna's but it gives me a lot of flexibility initially. For a mast I purchased the Explorer POTA33H Heavy Duty Portable 33 ft Telescopic Carbon Fiber POTA Mast from Gigaparts and a Messi and Paoloni PotaFlex 7 20' Coax Cable. I'm not going to be making any 33' tall masts anytime soon and you need a quality cable and I'm not capable (yet) of making one.
So that is my initial setup. I have a couple things that are accessories to help put all of that together, but I am hoping to put it all together this todnight/tomorrow if weather permits and get on the air for the first time with this rig. I have been on 70cm with my VX-8DR a few times. Just not enough power for transmitting out of my house so I'm getting a new VHF/UHF radio. So I'll document that as well.
Before ending this post, I wanted to mention a few of the projects related to all of this I plan on documenting. I am really enjoying watching reading what others are doing for home brew type setups. The cheaper the better. So, the first antenna I made I made twice and both were horrible. It was a 2m/70cm antenna. I plan on making a 3rd attempt once i get a few more things in line. It requires precise measurements and the materials you use matter. I have all the parts to make a 10m dipole making use of some pvc pieces. I have all the material to make a bunch of counterpoises. I plan on putting up a dipole or two in my attic space. I don't have a lot of space up there but I should be able to put up a 10m and 20 m dipole setup. As it cools down here (I'm in Arizona), I plan on cleaning out my work area in the garage and making it livable. There is a perfect place there for a shack so I'll be getting that all setup. I'll be able to run cables up to the attic for those antennas and one or two outside. I have figured out how to setup an outdoor antenna here that I think will be stealthy enough to not get me in trouble with the HOA. Time will tell.
I am far from an expert on any of this. I'm still learning and that is the point. I'm not going to have expensive gear unless that really is the only way to do things properly...and then I have to have the money to do that. So expect this blog to cover me stumbling through this new adventure. I'll also try to document the HAM related events I attend. I have joined local groups and am starting to participate in various events. It is another great way to learn all of this. There are a lot of people with a ton of experience. Your local HAM operators will have knowledge on things unique to the area you live.
Anyways, if you happen to stumble across this blog and find any of this interesting or useful, let me know. If you are on the air, keep a ear out for K7STY. 73
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