I'm Excited!

[fourstringburn]

And Monday night I go for the Extra. That'll be a near thing though. Not nearly as ready but worth a shot.

That's all good but I would suggest make sure you are ready. I got my General first then while I was still in study mode, I waited about a month later then passed the Extra class. I found it much easier to pass the Extra after getting the General because now I only had to concentrate on passing 1 class instead of trying to do all 3 at the same time.

If you feel you can do it, then by all means go for it.

Good luck!

 

[Keith Thompson]

That's all good but I would suggest make sure you are ready. I got my General first then while I was still in study mode, I waited about a month later then passed the Extra class. I found it much easier to pass the Extra after getting the General because now I only had to concentrate on passing 1 class instead of trying to do all 3 at the same time.

If you feel you can do it, then by all means go for it.

Good luck!

Thanks. I got my Tech and General two weekends ago, so I've been bearing down on the Extra because I want to get it behind me. Once that's done I can get down to designing and building my station and then actually learning how it all works without the pressure of a self-imposed deadline. Right now, a lot of my knowledge is disconnected information without context. Hopefully, the radio club I joined will mentor me through the Spring and Summer.

 

[Sonar]

Just came home today from Ham Radio Outlet in Salem, NH, with a brand-new Icom IC-7300 in the backseat. They also fixed me up with a power supply and a 140' dipole antenna. Now the challenge is to string the antenna between two trees on my heavily-wooded lot and hope I can make contact.

Still three weeks before I sit for my license exam, so till then I'll be listen-only, but the guys at the store assured me I can learn a lot from just listening to how other hams conduct communications. It'll also give me a chance to familiarize myself with the controls and the menus.

Gonna be fun.

You've got yourself one beautiful transceiver. As soon as they came out about Four Lokos here in South Jersey and a few others in Pennsylvania run fast enough to to purch them. Every one of them I've heard sounded wonderful. Weather the station was using the supplied hand microphone or a little bit of outboard mixing and the studio mic. And either one of those microphone configurations all the 7300's sounded choice. Nice smooth Crystal Clear audio. not to mention all the other goodies packed into that small SDR sampled transceiver. I thought about getting one myself. But I'm happy with what I'm currently using.$1,300 is a lot of money for a glorified CB radio. If I had a ticket it might be a different story. Good luck and enjoy. 73's

 

[Keith Thompson]

Sitting here sipping a glass of spiced rum after returning from tonight's exam session with a brand-new, ink-still-wet Amateur Extra ticket added to my licenses. Now I can get down to the task of really learning all this stuff. Thanks again to everyone for their encouragement, support, and advice.

 

[Sonar]

Congragu

Sitting here sipping a glass of spiced rum after returning from tonight's exam session with a brand-new, ink-still-wet Amateur Extra ticket added to my licenses. Now I can get down to the task of really learning all this stuff. Thanks again to everyone for their encouragement, support, and advice.

Congratulation! Extra class must've taken some real brain power. The kind I don't have. Once again congratulations.

 

[543_Dallas]

Sitting here sipping a glass of spiced rum after returning from tonight's exam session with a brand-new, ink-still-wet Amateur Extra ticket added to my licenses. Now I can get down to the task of really learning all this stuff. Thanks again to everyone for their encouragement, support, and advice.

Good deal. Some decide to wait for the extra and end up never doing it. Having those extra privileges is great when the band is over crowded. The extra portion of 75m is like a ghost town during prime time.

 

[fourstringburn]

Congrats from me as well!

The Extra class is nice knowing you now have full Amateur frequency privileges.

 

[Keith Thompson]

Finally got the tree guy over to get the hoisting tackle placed in the trees for the dipole antenna. Went pretty smoothly, with supervision from my noble dog, Denver. Once this Nor' Easter passes through this weekend, I'll start getting the final stages of the station set up. Looks like he got the tackle up about 55-60 feet.