Radio New Zealand
One of the things we can pick up quite well on 40 Metres AM is radio New Zealand, on 7.145MHz it’s kinda neat.
Such a clear signals.
~ivy
One of the things we can pick up quite well on 40 Metres AM is radio New Zealand, on 7.145MHz it’s kinda neat.
Such a clear signals.
~ivy
Well this is our last week without been able to transmit, next week we will go down to strictly ham, and get ourselves an IC-706 MkIIg (yeah we did want the IC-7000 but the price was a little high.) A power supply, and an AT-7000 antenna tuner.
We can’t really wait.
~Ivy
Well I got the standard learning materials from the Radio and Electronics School and have been going through them quite quickly. They are a little rough and ready, but all the information I need to learn is presented well and explained. Which is good.
I guess I should book in an exam at some stage, the standard license has three parts to the exam. The first been theory, second been regulations, and the third is practical. The only part that worries me is the regulations part of the exam but with more study I should be fine.
~Ivy
Well I’ve been thinking of which license to go for to get me started, there are three classes in Australia. Foundation, Standard, and finally Advanced.
I’ve been going through the sylabuses for the three levels and I know I could get foundation without much if any study, but it is too restricted, for example a foundation license can’t use 20 Metres, which at the present moment is where the fun is.
So looking at some of the online tests for the standard exam, I managed to get 68% on it without much study, the pass mark is 70%. So I’m going to go for standard, and later on advanced.
~Ivy
So I get home, to play with the radio. And the noise is just getting to me. There is little one can do really. other than get a better antenna, and in a rental property there is little one can do.
~ivy
Well Hannah and I went to a hamfest over the weekend. And we picked up a LDG 1:1 balun and an old watt/swr meter. The hamfest was fun seeing lots of cool junk, like WW II mobile transmitters and old test equipment.
After that we headed over to my fathers place, where at least the noise levels are much down, set up our droopy dipole, set up the watt/swr meter, and did, well tried to do some tranmission tests on the FT-707, as we knew the transmit was low. Well, unfortunately we cooked the output stage and the magic smoke got out, not my idea of fun.
Anyway at least we hadn’t damaged the receive section of the FT-707, so no big issues there as I’m not licensed yet, and we’re waiting on transferring Hannah’s license from the states (which won’t be hard.) So technically Hannah can’t transmit yet, and I can’t at all.
With the addition of the balun to our dipole antenna, has removed a lot of the noise that we still received at my parents house, and seemed to improve things on most bands. We didn’t do too much on the saturday other than get everything set up and play a little on 20 metres.
On sunday morning we listened to the wia news and the callbacks associated, lots of VK5s and VK4s and a few VK3s. But we were rather disappointed that we couldn’t pick up much on 20 metres like the day before. But on 40 meters we started hearing a lot of people from New Zealand which was a first. So the balun was making a difference.
As the morning progressed though, 20 metres opened right up, and heard many a dog pile as people in the us tried to contact a guy in nz with the call sign ZL3DX.
Both of us are itching to get on the air and do more work with our antennas.
~Ivy
Well fired up the FT again tonight lots of background noise, more than usual. But for a first from home WWV was coming clear on 10MHz AM well still fading in and out but still a lot better than normal.
~Ivy
The one thing I love, is just listening to people chat about whatever is on their mind, such as politics and the price of oil.
I’m really looking forward to the point I can chat too, I sometimes wonder how I will fit in with this crew of amateur radio operators. Mainly because I’m so much younger than them.
But in the end it’s going to be fun, and that’s what this hobby is all about.