In October 2010, as part of my NERT training, I attended a “HAM Cram” class here in SF and gained my FCC HAM license. I picked up a Yaesu VX-7R radio and then tinkered around a bit, but never really got into HAM too much more than it just being a fun idea. Since then I’ve listened on and off to the weekly Siren Net that happens in SF, but I’ve never actually called in and reported what I was hearing.
Today I had my first check-in (from home), and it was fun. It also felt good to know that I was helping the city keep track an emergency system that might save lives at some point. I checked in via the repeater at 443.100+ tone 114.8 and had a bit of interference, but it was clear enough for the net control to hear/understand me after a clarification. “KJ6LFV, back to net control” 🙂
Thats so neat. I got my Ham Radio license (KC0WZD) a few years back so I could talk with my grandfather but unfortunately he passed away before we got around to it. How do you like the Yaesu VX-7R? I was thinking about getting a radio and trying to get back into it this summer once school is out.
I like this Yaesu, but then I don't really have any experience with anything else. There are LOADS of options in it, and it came high recommended by other more experienced HAMs. I also like that it's submersible, since I was buying it with emergency operations in mind, so rain is a heavy possibility. I was also lucky enough to have one of the other HAMs in NERT link it up to their PC and reprogram all the emergency channels etc for my area onto it, so that saved me the effort of going through and manually programming stuff in. It's nice and small, and I also got the earbud headset for it which seems to work well, especially for monitoring.