Are there any ham radio operators

[MagniAesir]

I am just wondering who else in the group has a ham radio license, or uses ham radios in their research

[SWWASAS]

I wish I did.    I have thought of several projects where a long range radio capability would be necessary.   

[hiflier]

My father was one. Excellent technician as well. When he passed away I had thought of taking over his call letters, even signed up with the FCC because I understood the FCC a family member first choice if possible but never followed through. I think they are still available. As a kid I even spoke to one of his contacts up around the North Pole over short wave. It was cool. Ran into some folks some years back conducting "Field Day" operations near me and we had some good talks.

 

"CQ Field Day, CQ Field Day, this is....."   

Edited May 4, 2019 by hiflier

[SWWASAS]

I listened as a kid.    Had a Heathkit short wave receiver and a long wire antenna going from house to a back shed.  Problem is, I am the kind of person that even hates to talk on the telephone much less let the world listen in while I talk to someone.    It probably would have not been difficult to pass the written test with study,  but I did not pick up Morse Code very easily.    The military taught Morse to us as pilots but had spent a lot of money on us when they gave us the class.   So they locked us in a classroom and made us take same test over and over until we got it right.    I thought I was going to starve to death before I would pass the test.    I sure would like the ticket to be able to do some longer range communication than CB allows.  

Edited May 4, 2019 by SWWASAS

[MIB]

Many of my friends in the four wheel drive community use ham radios because they spend so much time out where there is no cell service.    Of course, many of them are engineers and middle managers in engineering / tech companies ... it's an appropriately uber-geeky thing to have.    You'll recognize such people if you pay attention to license plates since many of them have their call letters as their plate number.   I don't know what the call letters are elsewhere, here they are K7xxx.  If you see that on a license plate, it's a pretty sure sign of a ham operator.

 

MIB

[MagniAesir]

In Canada we no longer have to pass cw to get a license 

You can buy a cheap sdr receiver off of Amazon for about $25 and listen to hams talk.

My new hand held allows me to listen to planes, also it has a built in gps that allows me to broadcast my position 

In an emergency situation I can send and receive emails via repeaters (Many repeaters have solar and/or generator backups) that are transferred to the internet to contact people outside of the emergency area

[JohninNV]

I have the General class ticket. Thats most HF and all UHF/VHF ham allocations. I've played around with long range and made a couple contacts but that's tough, at least for me. I would use VHF frequencies to hit a repeater in the case of an emergency while on a long off road trip. Thankfully never had to use it. I keep badgering my off road friends to get the Technician Class ticket so we could use simplex coms on off road trips. Vastly superior to CB. I have not played with the radios for years, kinda lost interest. 

[MagniAesir]

None of my friends have their license so I have joined a local ham club.

The club is part of the local emergency response plan for our city, so it is nice to give a little back