Archive for July, 2016


The Technician’s class that I signed up to teach finished up yesterday evening with all the students passing their Element 2 exam to become licensed Hams.  I’m very happy with those results, but certainly can’t take a lot of credit for it. First and foremost, I have to give credit to the students themselves.  Not only did they listen to me drone on and on and managed to stay awake, but they clearly studied a lot outside of the class and prepared well for the test.  Hats off to Terri Booth, JD McReynolds, Derek Johnson and Dave Johnson for being such excellent students!

In addition, I need to give a lot of credit to John McReynolds (KC0NRO) for his immense help in providing explanations and the student’s study materials.  I could not have done this class without his assistance!  Also, I want to thank Chris Westrick (KD0JVF) for gaining the commitment to use the room.  Many thanks also go to Jay Basinger (AA0FR) and Jim Spencer (KC0NUY) for being part of the test team last night.  Last but not least, I’d like to thank the Members of Sullivan Fire House #5 for allowing us to use their facility.

I think when I first volunteered to run the class, I thought it would be a lot easier for me than it was.  Throughout my career, I did a fair amount of presenting and training.  I found out that the materials we used (the handouts and the slides) really need some coordination and a fair amount of  work before we do this again.  I intend to do that over the coming months and hopefully, the next time, things will go much smoother.  Over the course of the last month I also realized that my presentation skills have really gotten rusty.  They definitely need some shining up and polishing before we try it again!

As I said though, I’m very happy with the results.  I’m certain we will do this again!  Hopefully I’ll be better prepared!

As many of you know, 10 meters is seldom open these days.  It is today, however, and I got excited because I can hear MANY stations.  So I tuned one up and when he called QRZ, I tried to respond.  And I got nothing, only minimal power out.  Adjusted everything I could but still nothing.  Grrrrrr…  I need to get this radio working properly on 10 or find one that does!

I  know that I’m several years behind with the technology, but I’m giddy like a schoolgirl tonight because I built my first Broadband Mesh Network today. It wasn’t big,  just two nodes and a couple of devices connected, but it all worked just like it’s supposed to. I  am amazed at how easy it really is. Can’t wait to hook up one of my nodes to the big 24 dB gain dish antenna and see what we can do with that! 😁