CQ COTA CQ COTA, calling cyberspace on air This is STEAMY calling cyberspace!

Thank you reader for receiving my call you are a 5-9 here from my desktop computer :P.

So i have once again logged into cyberspace to talk about my newest addiction hobby Ham radio.

And since my previous post which may or may not have been pretty close to a month ago, ALOT has happened! First and most importantly last month I talked with a fine gentle man, he urged me to go for my generals license. After the meeting I looked up the person on QRZ which is like my space for ham radio. And I then read about how the guy I talked to was in his early 30s and got his tech license, then found a very nice lady and he got very busy. Until about 2019 where he got his general license after 30 years from getting his tech license, then it all made sense this guy whom I now consider my Elmer (a close teacher). Was basically telling me to get my generals now so life doesn't put a wrench in my ham adventures. So on April 2, because April 1st would have been too satirical. I sat down at my computer and started studying for my generals, every day I would take a practice quiz till I passed, sometimes taking 2–4 hours. Until about a week and a half after a started this rather painful ritual. I would get 70% average, I still kept at it every day until May 2nd which I did nothing but practice quiz's until later that day I would take the quiz. It got to the point where my average was I would miss 2 out of 35. So believe it or not I passed :D!!!

General for me

So the astute readers may know what a generals class license gets you in the red, white and beans country. But i will explain regardless, so as a technician class operator you get access to VHF and UHF as well as a very limited portion of the 10meter HF band.

So VHF is good for rural areas and can be several miles of range with the right setup.

UHF is more for urban environments with short range, such as a radio from a local convenience store. The biggest limit with VHF and UHF is it is LINE OF SIGHT, meaning give or take you basically need to be able to have a clear path to whom your talking too.

And the 10meter band is HF, which is where it gets more complex.

HF is not line of sight and the majority of HF under certain circumstances allows global atmospheric propagation. Now there are nuances with HF which I will explain, for example Civilian band radio in region 2 (north and South America) is HF and is within the 11-meter band. However, the power limit being 2 watts stops your auditory shit talking from reaching the atmosphere (yes that big ass tailgating truck deserves the slander).

But I digress, so the pain point with a technicians license is 10meter, is very temperamental. Some hours people make global contacts, the next is nothing but static. And 10 meter being added to the tech class in the early 2000's was meant to incentivize a license upgrade to general.

General class licensees, whole privilege is being able to access the majority of HF bands, 20, 40 and 80 are the most popular and most reliable (80 only at nighttime). There are more bands you get access too however many are situational, such as time of year or daylight.

So just like in any new hobby, I needed a new toy >:).

So while I was studying I was looking up HF radios, and did tons of research. Because compared to VHF and UHF there is a MAJOR learning curve (more than neovim and emacs). So over many hours of overclocking the hamster in my skull with caffeine. I settled on the cult classic Yaesu ft891, features include not having vacuum tubes a bunch of digital stuff i still need to read about how to use. And being portable which was a main objective.

As well my antenna, my cheap-ass settled on the JPC-12 because in my utter foolish state I saw it didn't need a tuner because the purple word is it's a resonant antenna. Which in simple terms means when your radio puts power through it, it RESONATES a certain frequency. And i really didn't want to spend any more money because radios are EXPENSIVE especially HF radios.

A tuner is usually for non-resonant antennas and makes up for the wire not being the correct length to radiate on a frequency.

So the jpc-12 does well on 20meter, 40meter i got bad SWR but i also need to do more research on it.

Now for

MY FIRST HF EXPERIENCE!

Antenna was firmly shoved in my front yard, my radio was put on my porch and everybody driving by slowed down and admired my antenna, in reality they probably thought I was trying to contact Mars or something. But I made contact with somewhere a lot farther than Mars! Tokyo Japan (don't fact-check it, my slop machine said it was true TRUST). So I was utterly AMAZED that my little setup was hearing a nice man from the beautiful country who designed my radio. Which I personally thought was hilarious, however I was far to gun shy to transmit as the man was doing a PARKS ON THE AIR and everybody wanted to make contact with him. So I scrolled through the band giggling whenever I started to hear somebody's distorted chipmunk voice slowly hit its actual tone. My first logged contact was a man from New Hampshire named Keith, he was also doing a POTA and was very friendly. The contact was not super long because the goal of POTA was getting many contacts, but it was a good taste for my palate, I then listened on 40meter and hear a few NETS and then packed everything back in my case for the day as a storm was coming.

For the last 2 days I have made 3 more contacts for POTA hunting and listened to some Canadians talk about tractors and radios, and it has been super fun!

As for now i will be slowly getting more comfortable making contacts on HF and reading a lot more about radio equipment till next time readers 73!