Amateur Radio is an interesting hobby, and not one to be taken lightly. There is an intense amount of information to familiarize yourself with. One cannot simply order themselves a new rig, toss an antenna up in a nearby tree, and start DX-ing. I mean, I guess a person could provided they have the proper license and a deep pocket, but just how successful would then really be? Not very.
My name is Eric, and I’m a brand new Amateur Radio Operator. That’s right, brand new, and boy is every day I turn on this rig a journey. So much to learn, and even in the few weeks which I’ve been doing this I think I’ve figured something out, just to be quickly shown that I have not. This blog is that story, and a series of lessons learned in that journey that I hope will help another new operator some day. Maybe I’ll get lucky and it’ll help two even.
This is something I’ve toyed with doing for years. Growing up back in the 80’s I would listen to my father (WA9FFZ) and his straight key tapping away making contacts. I’d sneak into his office when he wasn’t around and turn the rig on and spin the dial, seeing what I could hear. I found it fascinating, but CW just wasn’t something I had an ear for. He never once made a phone contact, not once, so there was a whole side of the hobby I never got to experience second hand.
When I hit early adulthood I joined the US Navy and trained as a Fire Controllman. This sent me on a two year journey of Electronics and Radar schools before I even stepped foot aboard a ship. Lugging around those 20+ volumes of NEETS (Navy Electricity and Electronics Training Series) manuals is a fond memory. I wish I had held onto them, but hindsight and all.
Once aboard ship I’d say the most enjoyable part of the job was fixing the equipment. Give us a tweaker, an oscilloscope, 50lbs of tech manuals, and some common sense and we could fix anything. Unless it was inside the radome, damn it was hot in there, and gear always broke inside the radome when it was 110 degrees and we were in the Persian Gulf. Never failed. However, had that not happened, I wouldn’t have learned about the utility of nougat, and how a dab of it on the end of your screwdriver was the key to getting those tiny little synchro screws back into place. Yes, we actually had a glob of nougat inside the radome.
Once out of the Navy I transitioned into what is my career field today, Information Technology. I spent many years working for various Department of Defense agencies, even at the Pentagon for several stints. However, government service finally wore me down and I transition to the private sector. Today I manage Product Security for a software company in Silicon Valley, from the comfort of my QTH here at 7,500 feet in Monument Colorado.
I love to write, and I mess a lot of things up, so I want to pass that information along. There are dozens of great Ham Radio blogs out there today, and I’m not trying to compete with them. What I am trying to do is pass along what I learn, and more importantly, what I fail miserably at. I haven’t had my license for a solid month yet, and I have at least 4 articles of things I’ve jacked up already to write about. Maybe, just maybe… it’ll help someone else after me.
Thanks and feel free to reach out or catch me on the air. You can reach me here eric(at)n0ehx.com or via my QRZ page. Fair winds and following seas.
73
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