Hi Everyone,
Tonight at 5:30 PM our new round of Ham classes
start at the new meeting room upstairs in the new Glacier Bank
building in Eureka. Park in the parking lot or on the
street and go in the door behind their lighted sign and turn left up the stairs.
The Bank is on the east side of Highway 93 right
downtown. You can't miss it. The door is on the south side of the
building.
We will be having these classes every Tuesday at
5:30 PM with March 5th as test night. There will be radio gear on
display, and Don Johnson will be doing some demonstrations
of various equipment and showing some videos.
These classes are designed to give you a working
knowledge of ham radio in addition to getting you ready for the Technician class
test.
The test is only 35 multiple choice questions. You
can get 9 wrong and still pass. You will get all the answers in the pool up
front.
We are giving this test to kids as young as 8 and
getting good results. My grandson Cordell Stramer is 13 and has the callsign
KF7UQD and has had his license for about a year now.
It's a great family hobby. He studied with his dad Michael
KF7UQC last year and both tested on the same night. Look up any ham license here: http://www.qrz.com
Having your Ham license will get you very familiar
with operation so that in an emergency you won't be fumbling around and messing
things up.
In other words you will be a very effective
communicator and useful to your family and neighbors as a safety and emergency
provider.
I consider that one very important skill to have
considering what might be coming to our country soon.
The Technician class license lets you use all the
bands above 30 MHz. So you can use all the repeaters on 2 meters, and 70 cm.
There are about 18 different repeaters around western Montana that we
use. There are probably more by now that I don't know about. Some of these
repeaters are connected to our statewide safety net called MRLA (Montana
Radio Linking Project) See it at www.wr7mt.org I can us 11 of these repeaters
including the repeater on black tail mountain above Lakeside, while
sitting in my ham shack at home. Some of these repeaters have up to a 150 mile
footprint.
The license is free for 10 year spans. Just renew
free each 10 years on line. The book is $30 and will be available at the
classes, or you can study on line at www.hamtestonline.com for the same money for a 2 year subscription.
If you can't attend the classes (highly
recommended) you can study on line and just show up on test night, or attend
whatever you can while you study on line at home in between.
In addition to getting you ready for emergency
communications, your license gives you some pretty advanced ability. In normal
times you can run up to 1500 watts of transmit power. That is not a
misprint. Fifteen hundred watts. You also have hundreds of frequencies you can
use any time. Then in a real emergency you have the authorization to go outside of band or
use whatever power is available when someone's life or property is in
jeopardy.
All these rules have been written in the FCC regs
since the beginning of ham radio. Here is a great article on Wikipedia about Ham
radio.
There are close to 1 Million hams in the United
States alone as of this year. You are in good company because most of these
people are pretty knowledgeable about what is really going on in the world. They
are getting prepared. They know full well how ham radio can be used in any
emergency. They know how to overcome obstacles and get through when the chips
are down. They are generally freedom loving peaceful people who just want to be
left alone to live and work and raise their families.
Generally the Hams I know are very tuned in to the
whole globe for news and events as they happen, and have a different perspective
of global affairs than your average TV watching couch potato, as a result of hearing
from people around the world. They can be instrumental in keeping the peace and
good order in our communities, and always have been available for special events and
logistics in the communities around the country.
I hope to see you at the classes starting
tonight.
Sincerely,
Paul Stramer KC7MEZ http://www.fm2way.com
Here is more information pertinent to the use of ham radio previously posted on this blog.
http://www.paulstramer.net/2009/10/use-of-ham-radio-in-emergency-such-as.html
http://www.paulstramer.net/2012/05/emergency-communications-what-you.html
http://www.paulstramer.net/2012/10/supply-ending-soon-on-spread-spectrum.html
Here is more information pertinent to the use of ham radio previously posted on this blog.
http://www.paulstramer.net/2009/10/use-of-ham-radio-in-emergency-such-as.html
http://www.paulstramer.net/2012/05/emergency-communications-what-you.html
http://www.paulstramer.net/2012/10/supply-ending-soon-on-spread-spectrum.html
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