A BIG THANK YOU | Discussion | Forum

Just a wee note to say a big thank you to all in CPSARC for their dedication to running the Amateur Radio courses. I just 'graduated' at the weekend , one of 7 who ALL passed , and already have my Call sign MM6ELV so keep an ear out for some one mixing alphabet with phonetics….Also thank you Tom for being my first…..CQ…that is…

73's

Alan-MM6ELV

Bob GM4UYZ said:

Alan congratulations on the new call and a very warm welcome to a great hobby….enjoy it

Thanks Bob for your time and dedication. Very much appreciated.

Tom Gm4LRU said:

Alan-MM6ELV said:

Just a wee note to say a big thank you to all in CPSARC for their dedication to running the Amateur Radio courses. I just 'graduated' at the weekend , one of 7 who ALL passed , and already have my Call sign MM6ELV so keep an ear out for some one mixing alphabet with phonetics….Also thank you Tom for being my first…..CQ…that is…

 

73's

 

Alan-MM6ELV

Well done Alan. Pleased to reply to your first CQ call! You may not get such a quick reply to your next call ,

but don't despair. I've made a mental note of your new callsign and if I hear you I will reply to your call.

Have fun with the hobby in whichever part of it finds your favour.

 

73

Tom GM4LRU

Hi again Tom. Thank you for taking your time and showing infinite patience with us NOOBS, looking forward to a blether on air once i get beyond my baked bean cans and string 

"Mibbe one day….TBH  already looking at the self study option but will see if I pass the next stage…"

Intermediate is a step up from foundation but if you do Bob's homework when you should, then it should be no problem.

I self studied for the full but I've a degree in Electronic Engineering so have seen most of the technical bits before (a while ago though   ). I still underestimated what was involved and as usual left it to the last minute, this is where Bob's past paper questions were invaluable.

Research shows the pass mark for the full is ~60%. In most questions you can eliminate one or two obvious wrong questions and some sections like safety are mostly common sense, so with some knowledge you can probably scrape it. Having said that to me the point isn't scraping through the exam but gaining an understanding of what's going on.

One other thing, you pick up a lot of non syllabus stuff from Bob and Cambell during general chatting during the course which is useful. I'd liked to have done the course but it co-incided with the end of the shooting season and I'd missed most of the early season days, my wife also works in retail and had a couple if weekends to cover during the course.

Good luck and hopefully speak to you on the air.

BTW, what kit have you bought, are you concentrating on HF or VHF/UHF initially?

Nial.

Alan, if you're looking for something _very_ cheap to get started have a look at an UV-3R handheld on Ebay.

They're made by that renowned Ham equipment manufacturer "Baofeng" but they get good reviews (4.0/5) on

eham.net…

http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/9749

It's only 2W but geat £19.99 + shipping from HK it's almost disposable.

I got one a week or so ago, I've only had one pre-aranged QSO with Gavin Stirling (GM0WDD), but can hear the boarders repeater from North Edinburgh.

Nial

Hi Nial. That is very cheap. Seen them on EBAY but was worried in case  I got hammered with import duty. Did you experience anything like that?Currently seeing them on Amazon for 40 quid inc p&p so might go with that as it is UK stock. Had a bad experience years ago importing fishing rod making materials, each packet got opened and each packet cost 35 quid! was not happy! Are these easy enough to hook up to a pc??

I have set my pc up to run echolink in a virtual machine so I am hoping to investigate that over the coming weeks.

Thanks

Alan

nup. I am amazed at the technology you can get for 20 quid these days.