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Jan. 27th, 2013 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolariSo, about the ham radio from the other night.
My father was a trucker, and like all truckers, he had a CB Radio. It fascinated me that radio could be used for more than American Music (AM) or Fancy Music (FM), and be aa way people talked to each other over long distances. Before the dark times. Before the Internet.
When he wasn't hauling stuff around, we'd use it ourselves on road trips. It came in very handly when we did a multi car 1500 mile trip to Virginia. Although driving around Texas was always exciting hearing new people pop through the speaker.
Eventually my interest got deeper. An uncle gave me his CB Radio base station - I could use it from the house. A quick trip to the ham radio store had me come home with an eight foot whip antenna and a hundred or so feet of Coax cable. The radio universe, was now at my house. Or at least a few miles of the unverse.
Dad's handle on the road was "Rooster." Something he inherited from his days as a radio operator in the Vietnam War. Mine was "Blaster," from the Transformer of the same name (This was 1985, after all). I even had the Blaster boombox toy sitting on my station. And for the next four years, I became deeply entrenched into the CB radio culture. Listening to the vulgar gravel drivers in the morning, and the griefers blocking o ut legit transmissions at night. I learned to listen to people named "Purple Princess" and "BT" (whose full handle was slightly less vulgar than those gravel truck drivers).
Eventually, I interacted. The CB could transmit as well as recieve, and, as it turned out, because of our position on a hill with a great view of the east, I had a transmitting range of at least ten miles. On good days, 25 (my longest contact was from Leon Valley to Medina Lake). The local people apparently had a nightly get together on channel 17, and me and a few friends eventually became part of that. The get togethers lasted late into the night, and were a heckuva lotta fun.
There were a few complaints here and there. Neighbors complained I came out on their TV sets, or on their VCR recordings, so I kept my talking to past 10PM when most of them were winding down.
It wasn't until a few specific event that I ever thought of getting into ham radio. I had an old portable TV in the 80s with an analog dial. The TV band in those days wasn't continuous...there were channels 1-6, then a break, then 7-13, then a break and 14-83. While I couldn't get the TV to scan the break between 13 and 14 (VHF and UHF are totally different areas of the spectrum), the band between 7 and 8 were. One halloween, I was going through the channels when suddenly I heard "LARRY, PLEASE CALL THE OFFICE. LARRY, CALL THE OFFICE." It was in the long space between 6 and 7 on the dial. I was picking up voice pagers. My TV also went up to channel 83, when at the time, TV stations stopped above channel 69. If I went high enough, I could pick up airplane transmissions.
In the mid 80s, KENS TV stopped showing Saturday Morning Cartoons. This made me really sad as this was the Saturday Supercade era, with all the videogame cartoons. One saturday, as I wsa turning the dial, I picked up an episode of Pole Position...on channel 10. There was no Channel 10 in San Antonio, the closest was 9 (KLRN) and 12 (KSAT). Apparently, I was picking up a CBS station from either Corpus Christi, or Waco, both hundreds of miles away. And so began my love for what's called "DXing." Grabbing a signal from as far away as possible. I never really got very far...the farthest being that first one, if it actually was from Waco. Emily had me beat, picking up a Colorado City, CO station in Victoria, BC, Canada.
Then there are the shortwave numbers stations dad told me about, that, once I finally heard them, both fascinated and scared me, knowing these were spy transmissions.
Between the CB, the DXing and picking up stuff I wasn't supposed to, I wanted to get into amatuer radio, and began looking into getting a license. But I had to learn morse code for even the lowest license. And as much as I tried, I simply could never get it. So I stuck with the CB, listening to shortwave, and doing as much TV DXing as I could, which wasn't much given how small my TV was.
When we moved, between the complaints at the old house, and the difficulties of finding anyplace to put the antenna on the new place, I quickly lost touch with the CB folks, but remained listening to shortwave when I could, especially once I got a boom box that did short and middlewave and could simply play it through the speakers while doing other things. In time, all that remained was shortwave listening.
Cut to about three years ago.
A friend of mine decides to finally get her ham radio license. We started talking and she was surprised at howmuch of this stuff I knew. She began egging me on to get my own license. I told her I'd tried ages ago, but the morse code requirement kept me from getting it.
"You don't need to know morse code anymore."
!!!
Still, my inertia had been sitting pretty still for a while. It was gonna take a lot mre about reading her own DXstyle exploits to get me moving. But the interest was there, and so was the intrigue. She sent me info about her system, she posted about her connections and distances. and it got more and more intriguing.
When I got to Minnesota, I was running on two hours of sleep. She had me take a sample test. I got 60% on it without even trying. The second time I took it, with a lot more sleep under my belt, I made a 69%, just under passing. I was really surprised at how much I remembered! With a little studying I could possibly get my license.
She issued me a challenge: Take the test while you're in Texas on vacation. Get your ham license. It's cheap and easy, and if you just get the lowest grade, you're still a ham operator. She started talking about types of setups and what would work best for me. And once she saw the position of my property in Texas, she pretty much said "that's perfect."
Sadly, the Texas vacation became a bit of a debacle as to actually going out and doing anything, so I never got the chance to take the test. Since I wanted to be licensed in Texas, I decided I'd wait until I knew wether I was staying in WA or moving to TX. During my vacation, I left one of my hoodies at her place. She'd mail it back to me.
And when she did, there was a ham radio learning guide in there, as well as a book on repeaters. I ::cough:: acquired a radio for listening in (no transmitting, not till the license is earned), and checked out what was nearby.
The gravel truck drivers driving down I-10 are now the milk trucks driving past Issaquah into Snoqualmie Pass. The late nuight parties with BT and Purple Princess, are still going on - although the voices are older and more gravelly. And there are now more women on my speaker than before.
This could be the restarting of a wonderful relationship. I wonder if I still have that old Blaster Transformer anywhere....
My father was a trucker, and like all truckers, he had a CB Radio. It fascinated me that radio could be used for more than American Music (AM) or Fancy Music (FM), and be aa way people talked to each other over long distances. Before the dark times. Before the Internet.
When he wasn't hauling stuff around, we'd use it ourselves on road trips. It came in very handly when we did a multi car 1500 mile trip to Virginia. Although driving around Texas was always exciting hearing new people pop through the speaker.
Eventually my interest got deeper. An uncle gave me his CB Radio base station - I could use it from the house. A quick trip to the ham radio store had me come home with an eight foot whip antenna and a hundred or so feet of Coax cable. The radio universe, was now at my house. Or at least a few miles of the unverse.
Dad's handle on the road was "Rooster." Something he inherited from his days as a radio operator in the Vietnam War. Mine was "Blaster," from the Transformer of the same name (This was 1985, after all). I even had the Blaster boombox toy sitting on my station. And for the next four years, I became deeply entrenched into the CB radio culture. Listening to the vulgar gravel drivers in the morning, and the griefers blocking o ut legit transmissions at night. I learned to listen to people named "Purple Princess" and "BT" (whose full handle was slightly less vulgar than those gravel truck drivers).
Eventually, I interacted. The CB could transmit as well as recieve, and, as it turned out, because of our position on a hill with a great view of the east, I had a transmitting range of at least ten miles. On good days, 25 (my longest contact was from Leon Valley to Medina Lake). The local people apparently had a nightly get together on channel 17, and me and a few friends eventually became part of that. The get togethers lasted late into the night, and were a heckuva lotta fun.
There were a few complaints here and there. Neighbors complained I came out on their TV sets, or on their VCR recordings, so I kept my talking to past 10PM when most of them were winding down.
It wasn't until a few specific event that I ever thought of getting into ham radio. I had an old portable TV in the 80s with an analog dial. The TV band in those days wasn't continuous...there were channels 1-6, then a break, then 7-13, then a break and 14-83. While I couldn't get the TV to scan the break between 13 and 14 (VHF and UHF are totally different areas of the spectrum), the band between 7 and 8 were. One halloween, I was going through the channels when suddenly I heard "LARRY, PLEASE CALL THE OFFICE. LARRY, CALL THE OFFICE." It was in the long space between 6 and 7 on the dial. I was picking up voice pagers. My TV also went up to channel 83, when at the time, TV stations stopped above channel 69. If I went high enough, I could pick up airplane transmissions.
In the mid 80s, KENS TV stopped showing Saturday Morning Cartoons. This made me really sad as this was the Saturday Supercade era, with all the videogame cartoons. One saturday, as I wsa turning the dial, I picked up an episode of Pole Position...on channel 10. There was no Channel 10 in San Antonio, the closest was 9 (KLRN) and 12 (KSAT). Apparently, I was picking up a CBS station from either Corpus Christi, or Waco, both hundreds of miles away. And so began my love for what's called "DXing." Grabbing a signal from as far away as possible. I never really got very far...the farthest being that first one, if it actually was from Waco. Emily had me beat, picking up a Colorado City, CO station in Victoria, BC, Canada.
Then there are the shortwave numbers stations dad told me about, that, once I finally heard them, both fascinated and scared me, knowing these were spy transmissions.
Between the CB, the DXing and picking up stuff I wasn't supposed to, I wanted to get into amatuer radio, and began looking into getting a license. But I had to learn morse code for even the lowest license. And as much as I tried, I simply could never get it. So I stuck with the CB, listening to shortwave, and doing as much TV DXing as I could, which wasn't much given how small my TV was.
When we moved, between the complaints at the old house, and the difficulties of finding anyplace to put the antenna on the new place, I quickly lost touch with the CB folks, but remained listening to shortwave when I could, especially once I got a boom box that did short and middlewave and could simply play it through the speakers while doing other things. In time, all that remained was shortwave listening.
Cut to about three years ago.
A friend of mine decides to finally get her ham radio license. We started talking and she was surprised at howmuch of this stuff I knew. She began egging me on to get my own license. I told her I'd tried ages ago, but the morse code requirement kept me from getting it.
"You don't need to know morse code anymore."
!!!
Still, my inertia had been sitting pretty still for a while. It was gonna take a lot mre about reading her own DXstyle exploits to get me moving. But the interest was there, and so was the intrigue. She sent me info about her system, she posted about her connections and distances. and it got more and more intriguing.
When I got to Minnesota, I was running on two hours of sleep. She had me take a sample test. I got 60% on it without even trying. The second time I took it, with a lot more sleep under my belt, I made a 69%, just under passing. I was really surprised at how much I remembered! With a little studying I could possibly get my license.
She issued me a challenge: Take the test while you're in Texas on vacation. Get your ham license. It's cheap and easy, and if you just get the lowest grade, you're still a ham operator. She started talking about types of setups and what would work best for me. And once she saw the position of my property in Texas, she pretty much said "that's perfect."
Sadly, the Texas vacation became a bit of a debacle as to actually going out and doing anything, so I never got the chance to take the test. Since I wanted to be licensed in Texas, I decided I'd wait until I knew wether I was staying in WA or moving to TX. During my vacation, I left one of my hoodies at her place. She'd mail it back to me.
And when she did, there was a ham radio learning guide in there, as well as a book on repeaters. I ::cough:: acquired a radio for listening in (no transmitting, not till the license is earned), and checked out what was nearby.
The gravel truck drivers driving down I-10 are now the milk trucks driving past Issaquah into Snoqualmie Pass. The late nuight parties with BT and Purple Princess, are still going on - although the voices are older and more gravelly. And there are now more women on my speaker than before.
This could be the restarting of a wonderful relationship. I wonder if I still have that old Blaster Transformer anywhere....
