New to HAM. Gimme some advice.

[Juker008]

Well a buddy of mine gave me the heads up on HAM. Things that I never even knew. The fact that you have to be certified to use one. The one thing that got me, what I thought was really cool, was the use of repeaters. I always thought that it ran on line of sight, but he told me that HAM use repeaters and you can talk to others across the US, and he made me laugh when he told me that it has the capabilities to talk with people in Russia.

So give me some more insight to HAMs. The cost to be certified. The cost of equipment. The broadcast range, and any other cool capabilities that it can do.

Thanks,


Juker008

[alpmco]

Study for your license and you will learn this. It is an easy test to take. 30 multiple guess questions.
VHF and up is line of sight. There are exceptions like occasional tropospheric ducting but generally it is line of sight.
The repeaters increase the range by putting an antenna way up in the air. You might be able to hit the antenna from 30 - 50 miles away and it will retransmit the message out in a radius of 30 - 50 miles so you could via repeater talk to someone 100 miles away assuming you were both at the fare ends of the coverage area.

As for Russia, He could do it on the lower HF frequencies but on VHF and up he would have to hit a repeater that is attached to the Internet. This is a cool setup because the repeaters are linked around the world sou you could key up in Rome Georga and talk to someone in in Rome Italy.

[Juker008]

This is a cool setup because the repeaters are linked around the world sou you could key up in Rome Georga and talk to someone in in Rome Italy.


Haaa. Hey man thanks for the info. As for studying up and the test. Where can I go, possibly OL, to study up for it. Also where can I go, again possibly OL, to take the test.

MTIA,

Juker008

[alpmco]

I'm at work and haven't time to research it. I believe some links were provided on other threads under communications. There are several hams here that might know before I can get back to this. You can get the study material online including the entire question pool that the 30 questions are taken from. As fro taking the test you have to do that in person. Find a local amateur radio club and they will be happy to help you out. Many clubs even have classes followed by the test.

[C-ya]

Hey Juker,

You can't take the test online. You have to go to where VE's (Volunteer Examiners) are administering it. Check http://www.arrl.org/arrlvec/examsearch.phtml for the location(s) of exams near you.

Here is some info to study. I used these sites to prep for my Tech.

http://www.qrz.com/xtest2.html? - practice tests are here. This site can generate 99 exams, so if you practice 1-5, you can come back later and change it test #6 and keep going. The questions are from the same pool, it just randomly picks different ones for each test number.

http://www.w8mhb.com/exam/ - another place for practice exams

http://www.hamtestonline.com/ - I used the free portion of this site to study. It gives lessons while asking questions.

http://www.hamuniverse.com/frequencyallocations.html - what freqs you can use with each license class

Echolink uses VoIP to link hams via the net. http://echolink.org/ Nice setup. I have used it several times. You can talk computer-computer, radio-radio, computer-radio or radio-computer with the right eqpt.

Good luck. It's fun and it's useful. Can't ask for much more than that in a hobby.

[Juker008]

Hey man, thanks for the links. I will check them out later today.


Juker008

[jdh]

For a what is try this one:
http://www.hello-radio.org/whatis.html