Any Tips For Someone Thinking of Getting A H.A.M. License?

[SOBX]

On 11/2/2023 at 2:49 PM, back4more70 said:

I heard if you put on a bikini and wash his Jeep, he is slightly nicer.

I wouldn't bother.  I heard on the 40 meter net he has a small jeep.   

[Adamdaj]

Someone thinking about getting a HAM LICENSE. I say, go for it if that's what you want. Although, unless your family members also have their licenses or going to take the test with you, you won't be able to stay tough via radio as you can on GMRS under one license.  

[WSBW539]

Go to hamstudy.com also ham radio prep.com they are what i used. I don't like videos so I just scrolled down and read everything. Then do quiz on each section after you think you know it a little, go to the end,  and take quiz. Continue to take quiz untill you get 85% most times. It remembers what you had wrong and brings it up again, and it keeps track of your scores.  The on line test is exactly what you have been taking, 35 questions. You can miss 8? It is very relaxed. There are not many math problems maybe 3. Get a notebook and write down the ones you have problems with. Write down definitions of  APRS WMR, SwR psk, etc. Also the pie chart they  changed  P power. To E 8n the chart, don't know why. As to the pie chart, write down under each other the  description such as

P=POWER WATTS =AMPS DC

E=voltage volts

I= intensity current amps

Good luck. Double check all I have written to make sure I did not make a mistake.

[WSCU465]

It depends on your use case.  If you want more transmitting modes (AM, FM, SSB, FSK, FT8,etc) , larger frequency range, ability to do world wide communications, building or experimenting with radios, do contesting, etc -  Then hands down HAM radio is better choice.

If you just want a simple radio that you can use for short range communication, perhaps hit a few local repeaters, talk to people a few miles away, no tests, no brainer - then FRS/GMRS is better for this.

 

Off topic, to coin the phrase lightly - Just like the Matrix Movie -

Red Pill (Ham Raido), You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Blue Pill - (GMRS) You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. 

 

[Davichko5650]

On 7/30/2023 at 2:32 PM, OffRoaderX said:

Obviously it is an acronym because "ham" would not make any sense. H.A.M. makes more sense to anyone with a good grasp of talking english good.

Has. Amateur. Madness.???

[WRQC527]

48 minutes ago, Davichko5650 said:

Has. Amateur. Madness.

Every time I go in to Ham Radio Outlet, some old (er than me) guy will inevitably use the same worn-out "Had Allotta Money" joke. I thought it was funny the first fifty or so times I heard it.

[Davichko5650]

2 hours ago, WRQC527 said:

Every time I go in to Ham Radio Outlet, some old (er than me) guy will inevitably use the same worn-out "Had Allotta Money" joke. I thought it was funny the first fifty or so times I heard it.

In the guitar world, we know it as GAS, "Gear Aquisition Syndrome"...

Or the Pawn Shop in Eau Claire called the Menominee - their billboard tag line - Me No Money? come on down!

[WRXN668]

On 5/13/2024 at 11:22 AM, WRQC527 said:

Every time I go in to Ham Radio Outlet, some old (er than me) guy will inevitably use the same worn-out "Had Allotta Money" joke. I thought it was funny the first fifty or so times I heard it.

Thing is it's gotten SOOO much cheaper than it used to be.

I have a Bird 43 wattmeter with a 400-1000MHz 250W slug and a Bird 200W dummy load that I got when a paging company that I worked at went under.  I didn't know what that stuff cost, they basically couldn't pay me for the vacation days I'd accrued and said to raid what was left of the testing lab I was helping take down for whatever I wanted.  A slug alone for the wattmeter is something like $200 new, frequently go for $50-$150 used, and you have to select for fairly narrow frequency ranges and power levels.  And for that dummy load, Bird wants $2000 for them new.  On the used market they go for more like 10% of the new price, but that's still a lot of money.

These modern TinySAs and NanoVNCs and Surecoms in their $50-$200 price ranges didn't exist when I initially got licensed, it was a much bigger crapshoot if your install had a good SWR, or you had to know another ham or a radio engineer willing to test with their equipment.  Sure, you still might end up with two or three test tools, a motley assortment of cabling and adapters because of course radio manufacturers can't pick a standard and stick to it, and if things weren't working to your satisfaction, more and more stuff to try to sort out why it wasn't working through simple trial and error.  Now you can buy the tools to ensure that your mobile or base station is working optimally for the cost of a night out on the town.

GAS in inevitable in any hobby, but it's a little easier for a radio hobby now when one can verify instead of having to buy more basic transmission equipment.

[marcspaz]

22 minutes ago, WRXN668 said:

These modern TinySAs and NanoVNCs and Surecoms in their $50-$200 price ranges didn't exist when I initially got licensed, it was a much bigger crapshoot if your install had a good SWR, or you had to know another ham or a radio engineer willing to test with their equipment. 

 

I would like to caveat for those without the experience, I found out in a somewhat painful way that SureCom SWR/Watt Meter and the Erik/ZeenKo TinySA and NanoVNA fall into the "Close Enough" category.  Meaning, you are not going to be doing precision measurements.

 

It's not that the TinySA and NanoVNA are inaccurate, per se, but rather they do not have a fine enough resolution for the type of work you would do with tuning a transmitter or a duplexer.  However, you will be able to use all 3 devices to see if your SWR is broadly in a safe range, approximately what you power is, and other types of GO/NO-GO results.

[WRXN668]

28 minutes ago, marcspaz said:

 

I would like to caveat for those without the experience, I found out in a somewhat painful way that SureCom SWR/Watt Meter and the Erik/ZeenKo TinySA and NanoVNA fall into the "Close Enough" category.  Meaning, you are not going to be doing precision measurements.

 

It's not that the TinySA and NanoVNA are inaccurate, per se, but rather they do not have a fine enough resolution for the type of work you would do with tuning a transmitter or a duplexer.  However, you will be able to use all 3 devices to see if your SWR is broadly in a safe range, approximately what you power is, and other types of GO/NO-GO results.

True.  Precision costs money.  The trifecta of Surecom/TinySA/NanoVNA costs less than 10% of even cheap used professional instruments, but for someone with only a technician license like me that level of verification is adequate for what I'm going to do with radio at this point.  This should hold even more true for GMRS licensees given the power and frequency limitations.  The cheap tools are enough to keep me from burning up my radio and to confirm that I'm likely radiating enough to talk regionally, which frankly was all I could really ask for anyway.

And to be frank about it on the flipside and back to the stated reason for the thread, if you're a GMRS user and you feel that you need this level of precision, you're probably better off getting your amateur license and leveling-up.  That's when the hobby has shifted from using it as a way to assist a larger hobby into itself being a larger hobby.  If you're not into radio for the sake of being into radio then you probably don't need to go beyond the cheap commodity tools.  You can set up your four wheel drive for decent SWR and signal propagation with those cheap tools.  When you're ready to do more only then spend more.