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How to get involved in Ham Radio.
You will need to study and pass the test to become a ham radio operator. You may find infornmation at the
ARRL website.
ARRL
You will need a 2 meter hand held radio and your license to start this wonderful hobby. There are three levels of licenses
and each level opens up new and different air waves. You start with a Tech. license and many people never go any further -
with this licenses you can easly talk with many people over the radio. The next level is General and then Extra. The test for
these are harder to pass. The main reason I got my Extra license was to be able to give the radio test to others so that
more people can enjoy this hobby.
Ham radio led me into Skywarn This is were I get to watch and report weather conditions to the National Weather
Service. To become a e-spotter you need to attend a weather class given by the National weather service. The class covers
different types of weather clouds, storms, tornados and how to read the weather radar. I have taken this class at least four
times and have taken the advance class as well.
I also have taken FEMA courses so that I can work with R.A.C.E.S. This is the radio amauter comminication emergency
service. This required many hours of studing and even some all day classes and hard test to pass.
Which in turn led me to CoCoRaHS. This involves measureing the amount of rain, hail and snow that we get daily and reporting
it each morning to the National Weather Service. Since I have retired from the post office I have not reported to CoCoRaHS
- they like to have the report at the same time each day and that poses a problem because I no longer go outside when it is
snowy or iced over unless I have to. The joy of retirement!!
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