Amateur Radio

Way back in the olden days, I heard a ham radio operator talk to someone in a different country on his radio. Those were the days when color TV wasn't very new, and live satellite TV was something special. I wanted that feeling of connectedness with the world. I got my first amateur radio license while in high school. It was a Novice class license, meaning that I passed a 5-word per minute morse code test, and I was limited to talking to other people in morse code. My call sign was WN7VFD. My frist transmitter was an old Johnson model. My license let me put out 75 watts of power into my vertical antenna mounted on top of my parent's mobile home. When I build a Heathkit SB-303 receiver, I was in heaven. For reasons I no longer remember, I let my license lapse for a couple of decades, then on a whim I decided to become a Ham again. I studied morse code all over again, and studied the electronic theory and FCC regulations. I managed to pass the 13-word per minute morse code test, and pass three written tests to get an Advanced Class license, which I still have..

If you know a ham's callsign, you can enter it here and get all sorts of FCC information about that radio operator. This service comes from the good folks at www.qrz.com,and pressing the Go button will take you there.