Odyssey of a General HAM - by Neil West (KE5BUS)

Growing up in the rural mountainous area of NY State (dangerous to say in these parts) was somewhat of a shelter to the radio wave world.  We were able to get the standard 3 TV channels and that was it for many years.   We had to entertain ourselves with chores and sports.

We had a rare occasion to go on a family trip to Disney World or short jaunts with camping friends where everyone had a CB for talking along the way.  Being able to talk between 8-10 campers on the road was very entertaining and a whole new world for me as a kid.  When I was in High School, I was able to install an old Realistic CB in the station wagon to play with.   I would listen to the truckers going to and from Canada often, there were many colorful conversations to say the least.

A good friend of mine had a dad that was an Extra class HAM and had all the rigs and antennas set up when I first saw them at the side of the house.  I was curious but never asked what it all meant until we were on a Scuba diving trip on Lake Champlain.  The weather turned bad with huge 3-4 ft waves and strong gusting winds.  We had a 28ft cruiser equipped with a Marine radio and a 2m rig that was able to use the Patch facility for a phone conversation to my friends’ mom, telling her we were ok and tucked away in a small harbor on the back side of an Island protected from the major winds and waves.  We waited out the 2 hour storm and made it home safely.  The idea of a wireless radio being able to make a phone call was amazing to me and really where I go back to for my initial spark to investigate Amateur Radio.

After many years in the Dallas area, I started asking around for beginner/Technician classes available.  The only one available was at the MARC club site.  The dates did not work out for me, so I just bought the “Lets Start Talking” Technician book at Texas Towers.  After reading through the book over a month time-frame, I found a nice site called   hamtestonline.com where I was able to study the question pool repeatedly; I need that type of studying tool.   I went to HamCom 2004 in Arlington, TX where I passed the test!   Now I had to learn about the available radios, antennas and how to hook them up.

I went to Texas Towers and asked an annoying amount of questions, but they were very helpful.  I ended up with the Icom-208h dual-band rig with a magnet-mount antenna for the time being.  I enjoy the MARC club Nets on Sunday evenings when I can.

I attended the Westminster study group sessions in late 2004-early 2005 for the General class and passed the written test no problem.  Now I had to tackle the Morse code.   I bought the ARRL cd set and listened to them repeatedly in the car to and from Westlake (1+ hrs each way) but struggled to retain the letters and numbers.   I got very frustrated and stopped studying, not realizing that I had 365 days to pass the code part. 

Well, a year went buy and I had to retake the General Written test as well as the Code test.   I went back to hamtestonline.com for the General pool and studied for about 30 days, I was refreshed for the written.  The code was a different story.  I searched and tried different code tools, finally found one that made my brain retain the letters, numbers and pro-signs with catchy tunes or phrases.  It was Code Quick for reference.  I studied the code for about 6 weeks and finally pushed to be ready by Field Day 2006.

At Field Day 2006, the setup of towers and rigs was a well oiled process.  The FD chattering started with anticipation and the dinner food preparations were “smoking” so to say.  The dinner with everyone was fantastic, a great menu was presented and side dishes filled in the gaps.  The nerve-wracking part of the day kept looming for me, both General written and code tests …….AGH…     Comic relief was supplied by N0RQ Dave who began the meal walking by talking in Morse code…..I think I turned white I was so nervous.  My brain did kick in and start translating what Dave was saying though…..I think he started to spell out “chicken”, but I will get confirmation on that…hihi

The VE session started and the sweat was poring….the written was first, passed that with no problem.   My turn for the code came around and I knew I could not get flustered during the test…..well…AE5PL Pete was administering the pain…I mean the code test…explained all the things to do….the test started and I started messing up on the call signs….I really got flustered….was ready to stop….well…Pete re-aligned my head and I was able to copy consistently to pass the test!!!!   I realized that I am my worst enemy and had to control the nervousness.    I checked the QRZ web site and I am officially General class now!!  I want to thank the VE folks for being available at Field Day, it all tied in well.

I spent Sunday morning listening to some of the code stations sending/receiving for FD points, great fun.  I plan on improving my code speed in the next few months as well as preparing for my Extra test hopefully in October 2006.   I am working on setting up an MFJ 40-10 dipole and hope to be on HF calling CQ in a week or so.  I can’t wait to see all the push-pins in the map, maybe even Work All States.

73’s

KE5BUS Neil West