Any Aspie amatuer "ham" radio operators here?

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saxifraga
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26 Nov 2013, 4:13 pm

I searched first and found some mentions of the hobby but nothing really about skeds. Do we have enough (any interested?) hams here in WP to have a little meet and greet on the air? I'm thinking 20 meters during the day/afternoon in the advanced or general portion USB.
I earned my 2x2 the hard way and keeping it the way it is. :) If we can get a few folks up for it we could try it. I'd figure best to keep callsigns out of WP or at least PM them if we have to.



megocode3
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26 Nov 2013, 4:51 pm

Amatuer radio was my major obsession for most of my teens and early 20's. I really loved to build antennas and do contests. I actually moved to Nevada when I was in my mid-20's simply because it was a somewhat rare section in the ARRL Sweepstakes contest at the time. I wish I still had a station setup.



saxifraga
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26 Nov 2013, 5:34 pm

I never got bitten by the contest bug, if I was on the bands and heard one of the bigger ones going I would toss my exchange out to give you folks and extra contact but that is about as far as it ever got. Understand the focus, I went from no code tech to advanced in six weeks. Zero to 13 WPM code in that time seems to define "obsessive hyperfocus" yes? :) After that I stayed cw only for about a year (not counting 2 meter nets and such) and got really burned out on it.

The group I was part of, our main thing was public service, skywarn, ARES and the like. I still do to a point but im living elsewhere now. Field Day was/is my big event. My local club talks it up all year and while we only operate 3 or 4 station sites we do it up right. Bring in our big BBQ smokers, ice chest upon ice chest full of tasty beverages, see just how absurd we can get with our antenna farm, all in having a good time.

My niche was digimodes and have gone a couple/few years at a time without a microphone even plugged into my HF rig. I was one of the first on the PSK31 bandwagon when it first came out and over the last few years have been big in other digital modes like Hell, SSTV, RTTY et.al. Some of the more obscure digimodes ive not done more than a contact or two just to do it.



pezar
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26 Nov 2013, 5:49 pm

I got my General ticket in October 2012, a month after my Tech. I was interested in radio since I was a kid, but since there's not much to listen to anymore except hams, I decided to take the plunge. So far, it's been disappointing-I rarely hear other ops calling CQ, and nets in my area seem to be specific purpose and/or a bunch of guys who have known each other since the age of dinosaurs talking. There's really nothing for a new guy. I haven't got the hang of contesting yet, and I don't really know how it works. Where are you, I'm in California and signals generally can't cross the Continental Divide in my experience.



saxifraga
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26 Nov 2013, 7:42 pm

pezar wrote:
I got my General ticket in October 2012, a month after my Tech. I was interested in radio since I was a kid, but since there's not much to listen to anymore except hams, I decided to take the plunge. So far, it's been disappointing-I rarely hear other ops calling CQ, and nets in my area seem to be specific purpose and/or a bunch of guys who have known each other since the age of dinosaurs talking. There's really nothing for a new guy. I haven't got the hang of contesting yet, and I don't really know how it works. Where are you, I'm in California and signals generally can't cross the Continental Divide in my experience.


Well, HF is an entirely different animal. I may suggest you look into the digimodes I mentioned in a pp, with a mode like PSK 31, very low power, a shoestring antenna, and you can work the world. look for a free download called Ham Radio Deluxe, this is IMHO the best radio to computer digital mode program out there. *over simplified explanation----- you are sending text messages over the air. You can sit at home, work the world, chat as long as you like, and never have to actually speak to anyone.

For upper sideband voice, as i suggested in my OP, on 20 meters, 9pm-ish your time are usually ideal for working texas and admittedly summer much better conditions than winter. If you have a beam antenna, pointing towards texas would be a bonus as im running a fixed shortened dipole style antenna. (mini g5rv) The nets, yeah, they can be specific and clique-ish. I avoid 80 meters voice for this reason. We jokingly call that whole band the "geritol net" on account of all the old timers talking about their ailments and trying to "out-sick" one another. One of a few exceptions on that band, google the 'Freewheelers Net", good bunch of guys, all are welcome.

Digital Modes, all the major bands a general has access to are jumping busy around the clock. You may have to band-hop depending on time of day but will always find someone to chat with that way. I'd say lets work something out now but i need a new cable for my radio. (new computer)



Radiofixr
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28 Nov 2013, 9:17 pm

Been in ham radio for over 20 years and work in LMR radio for the past 13 years


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29 Nov 2013, 12:19 am

pezar wrote:
I got my General ticket in October 2012, a month after my Tech. I was interested in radio since I was a kid, but since there's not much to listen to anymore except hams, I decided to take the plunge. So far, it's been disappointing-I rarely hear other ops calling CQ, and nets in my area seem to be specific purpose and/or a bunch of guys who have known each other since the age of dinosaurs talking. There's really nothing for a new guy. I haven't got the hang of contesting yet, and I don't really know how it works. Where are you, I'm in California and signals generally can't cross the Continental Divide in my experience.


I know about the dinosaur guys-they talk about their gall bladders and medical conditions-great incentive to garner interest in talking-then you have the clique people that monopolize a repeater with the same subjects that only a few on the repeater talk about or know anything about and that 99 percent of the other people on the repeater have no idea whats going on or you have the annoying people that sound like frogs and clear their throat or smack their lips sounding like they are eating while talking-I find that very annoying-then you have the ones that are an endless stream of dry sarcastic one liners trying to be funny but are not then you have other hams start the one upsmanship and pissing contest to see who has the wittiest unfunny comeback-I tell people to talk on the radio like you would talk in your living room and they don't-they put on acts and act like they are commercial broadcasters with an audience that they think want to hang on every word they say-it a big annoyance to me-the best operators are the ones that are the same in person as they are on the radio-some of these guys act like glorified CBer's and sometimes the CBer's are better operators.


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