Looking at your profile I noticed you are into "Amateur Radio - KU4OJ". I've always been interested in that but it's been one of them 'round toos that I haven't gotten around to. I do have a Hot Uniden Grant from many years back with a 100W amp sitting in my garage. When I was in the Army as a radio repairman many moons ago I played with it bit and bumped up the power and channels it handles. No I don't have a license or anything so I don't use it anymore but it was fun. I was able to to talk from Huachuca, Az. to Florida regularly and hit Panama several times as well as Canada too. All using an 8 1/2' steel whip. Nope not very sophisticated and you legal HAM'ers I'm sure hate the "outlaw" wave users but............ Like I said it was fun.
What kind of equipment do you have? You have some pics? I'd be really interested in seeing what you have and learning some stuff from somebody that is into it.
Ok ya got me. I'm guessing the "KB5LJE" is your call sign (is this you license # too? Not sure how that works). What is the 73's?? Is it the band? 73 meter? I'm SWAG'n on that one.
Well, been on the air for about 26 years. Yes, My 'call' is KU4OJ which was randomly assigned to me by the FCC. The arrangement of the letters and numbers indicate to any listening station that I am a US station, in the 4th call zone (southeatern states) and am an Advanced Class or higher license class. I actually hold the highest class of extra.
"73" is left over from the old commercial telegraph days where you paid by the word. There was a list of about 100 common phrases, and you could pick from this list and save a few pennies on the cost of your telegram. The code "73" means "very best wishes" and "88" means "love and kisses" It has become a bit of ham radio slang.
If aintgotnun will send me an email, I'll send you some pics that you can post for me. I don't jave a place to put them up to link to.
One of the reasons I like that 8280SS 5W is that the floor plan lends itself to radio operaions there in front of the big window in the side.
I work for a company that produces business grade satellite receivers and the uplink/net control hardware and software to deliver multi-media content via satellite. I still like to play with radios. Even at work.
If you want to learn more about amateur radio go to the ARRL web site
Here are some a Radio's Pics and I am posting for him........
The first pic is obviously the radio room at KU4OJ. The main HF rig is a
100 watt 9 band Kenwood TS-570. The other is a 30 year old Heathkit
HW-101 that I built myself from a kit. All the computers in the picture
are tied into the radios. Most distant station worked: Either Antartica
or the MIR space station, depending on how you measure the distance!
The 2nd picture is of a project for which I was contracted to provide
training material for the military. I wrote and taught a class to teach
soldiers how to use the satellite station on a humvee in the field. What
a blast that was! And that was one really expensive radio.
The 3rd is me operating portable from a car battery. Here I am on the
Outer Banks of North Carolina. I contacted 550 stations from all over
the world that week. All the trailer floor plans I really like have
ample space for radio! But you see, not much space is really required.
The 4th is the Amateur Radio Station at the National Weather Service in
Peachtree City, GA. I am privileged to voluteer as a net control
operator during times of severe weather. (I am not in this picture, my
ham buddies are)
The 5th is another island hopping adventure on Ocracoke Island. 635
contacts over a week on that trip. You can see the compact size of
todays modern 100 watt HF radio. This is the same radio as in the first
picture. I just yank it out and take it with me.
This is a picture of the home based 5 band 2 element quad antenna.
I can work the world on this thing with only 100 watts. It usually
stands at 70 feet, but the tower retracts and folds over for
maintenance. I wanted to show the relative size of the antenna. All
these folks are licensed hams, including my two kids, KG4GIM and KF4ZDJ.
That's me on the ladder.
Ummm...You may have worked me on Ocracoke. The custom QSL card was "4 sided" it folded in the middle and had 4 panels with pictures. I think that picture may have been on that special QSL card.
Radio, My dads is a ham KK4SI. I don't know what band, but he has five acres of land with antennas all over it so if by chance you ever hear him say hi. He got me as far as C.B. back in the 80's but then girls came along...well you know the rest. It didn't dawn on me until about five years ago that before cell phones he had tabs on me almost all the time, and I enjoyed it. Between that and telling me " let's put dual exhaust on the truck" He knew when I left and when I got home and either him or one of his friends were in constant communication with me. Boy was I stupid.
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'67 Scuba Stan, starting to show signs of wear
'04 Dodge 2500 Quad cab, 5.9 Cummins, low miles
'04 Cardinal 29LE, like new
'92 Son, Barely used
'71 Wife, spoiled rotten, but in great shape
'99 Miniture Cocker Spaniel, spoiled rotten, almost as much as '71 wife.
'08 "Chug", running in a dead tie for second as far as being as spoiled as '71 wife.
What's that 73 I hear?
Suddenly the light comes on...
Linear Mode
