On April 18th, I will be taking the test to get my Technician Class HAM radio license.  This is something I have been meaning to do for quite some time but honestly?  I got so wrapped up with getting my equipment, two Baofeng UV5 radios, to work that I lost sight of the goal.

To prepare for my test, I have been studying Dan Romanchik’s free guide “The Non-Nonsense Technician Class License Study Guide” which is all good.  But still niggling me was the sense of failure at setting up my HAM radios.  The crazy thing is this: the license should come first because during the process of learning about amateur radio, comprehensive and understanding the gear becomes a whole lot easier.

BaoFeng UV-5R Dual Ban... Buy New $23.06 (as of 05:40 UTC - Details) Long story short, during on of our weekly SKYPE conference calls, I asked my friend George Ure (ham radio call sign AC7X) to help Shelly (aka the Survival Husband) and I to set up our 2-meter Baofeng ham radios which had been sitting on the shelf gathering dust. Just to be clear, it is not that I don’t think we don’t have the smartsto do the project; it’s just there weren’t any simple, easy-to-follow guides that would let us get the job done in minimum time, with minimum fuss.

So I asked George to contribute to the effort so that more preppers would have an easy-to-follow resource. Here is part 1 of How to Set Up a Ham Radio.

Setting up a New 2-Meter Ham Radio

Probably the one thing that overwhelms people when they take up any new pursuit is it seems like there are so darn many details to the project.  The reality is that the difficulty is not in the details, but understanding that each of the “details” actually belongs to a certain recipe. ARRL Repeater Director... ARRL Best Price: $1.89 Buy New $11.59 (as of 06:45 UTC - Details)

So whenever I am teaching people a new skill, I ask them to pretend that it’s very much like cooking.  There may be multiple “courses” to a meal, and in each “course” there may be a couple of “recipes” that must come together in order to make for a really delicious outcome.

Gaye and I know this intrinsically because of our computer backgrounds. But the process is identical: If you don’t have a Windows User Experience Index of 7.4, how do you get there, right? Or, how do you learn ham radio?

Ham Radio For Dummies Silver, H. Ward Best Price: $17.89 (as of 11:40 UTC - Details) In each case, we need to “break the meal” down into courses to be served, and from there, we can move on to the individual recipes. Like putting together a gourmet meal, get the order of the courses wrong and people will look at you funny. Like some French, who insist on eating desert first.

When you’re dealing with technical subjects, the “order of events” (courses) is the key part.

So let’s pretend we just stepped up to the dining room table and have our “meal” set up before us.

What will the courses be?

First Course: Get to know the Radio and accessories.

Second Course: Determine how you want the radios to work. Baofeng USB Programmin... Buy New $33.00 (as of 10:10 UTC - Details)

Third Course: Gather the information you need in order to program the radio(s).

Fourth Course: Install computer software to handle the programming.

Fifth Course: Transfer the computer software into the radio.

Sixth Course: Test the radio to ensure that it is working correctly and as desired.

Seventh Course: Deploy the radio to a trained operator.

Eighth Course: Obtain a paper back-up.

Ninth Course: Make sure radios are always ready for use.

It all sounds simple, does it not? We’re going to have a “Nine Course Meal” of radio prepping and when we’re done, it will be simply delicious.

At the end of this “meal”, we ought to be very full and satisfied.  We will have a working ham radio, which will be recharging periodically, and it should be a ready tool should emergencies arise, or you just feel like chatting with some friends on a local ham repeater.

Read the Whole Article

Baofeng BF-S112 Two Wa... Best Price: $15.00 Buy New $14.45 (as of 10:10 UTC - Details)

Tenq 12v Car Charger f... Check Amazon for Pricing.

Check Amazon for Pricing.

The Best of Gaye Levy

$post_author: WP_User Object
(
    [data] => stdClass Object
        (
            [ID] => 3151
            [user_login] => gaye-levy
            [user_pass] => 05d9baf9c25b75edcd566b2dbc21b434
            [user_nicename] => gaye-levy
            [user_email] => [email protected]
            [user_url] => 
            [user_registered] => 2012-11-02 09:11:13
            [user_activation_key] => 
            [user_status] => 0
            [display_name] => Gaye Levy
            [type] => wpuser
        )

    [ID] => 3151
    [caps] => Array
        (
            [contributor] => 1
        )

    [cap_key] => wp_capabilities
    [roles] => Array
        (
            [0] => contributor
        )

    [allcaps] => Array
        (
            [edit_posts] => 1
            [read] => 1
            [level_1] => 1
            [level_0] => 1
            [delete_posts] => 1
            [email_single_user] => 1
            [contributor] => 1
        )

    [filter] => 
    [site_id:WP_User:private] => 1
)

get_the_author_meta: 

$bio: 

$bios: Array
(
)