Subj : Looking into HAMing...
To   : All
From : Deuce
Date : Thu Aug 18 2005 03:51 am

Well, with the new Canadian rules for amateur radio in place, I've no longer
got an excuse to avoid playing with radio... my previous excuse was that I
don't have time to learn morse code, I can't afford to go all commercial
equipment, so I'd be bascially just fiddling around until I could blow more
money than necessary on a very part-time hobby.

So I grabbed the official exam generation software from
http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/insmt-gst.nsf/vwapj/ICP.exe/$FILE/ICP.e
xe to fgure out what I need to learn before I take the exam and was amazed that
I routinely passed (ie: > 60%) without any studying at all.  Of course, I need
to pass with over 80% to get acces to < 30MHz, which I only do sporatically
(Mostly I trip up on the radio-specifc electronics and components questions
such as this one:
In a frequency modulation transmitter, the _________ is in between the speech
amplifier and the oscillator.
1) Modulator
2) Power amplifier
3) Microphone
4) Frequency multiplier
) - phew, that was a long ()  :-)

So I figure if I grab a couple radio books from the local library, I should be
able to learn enough to easily pass with the required 80%.

So what I'm wondering is what sort of equipment I should be digging around
for... in general, I'm interested in two or three areas:

1) 9600bps packet radio
2) 600-2000km range voice (My family is in that range)
3) Augmenting our local fire department communications (joining ARES, dealing
with a few issues we have with out pagins system and local radios etc) most of
which will probobly not be done from home, but I can probobly get the town to
spring for at least some of the costs... and quite possibly, the department
will spring for my advanced course and any study materials I require.  I do
realize that aside from the ARES stuff, the rest of it is probobly not covered
by even an advanced licence (I know the paging system is around 156MHz for
example) no sure of the local radios.

So here's what I'm thinking I should have:
A basic 2m rig
A TNC of some sort (As I use FreeBSD, I would probobly have problems using just
a modem... would need to write to much software I believe)
Any SSB/CW tranceiver that does 20-30m (are there any that don't?)

A few questions I'd like some advice on:
1) Do I really need 9600baud for the TNC?  As I understand it, it's only
useable on 2m and since I'm relatively speaking in the boonies (south-east
saskatchewan) I'm not sure if there's enough digipeters around for anyone to
actually use it there... was thinking of using 20 or 30m for that so I don't
expect more than 1200baud... am I off base on anything in there (Haven't looked
into packet too much, just know I'd want to play with it)
2) Do I want a dedicated tranceiver for the TNC?  I expect to have even les
calls via packet than I get via telnet (ie: statistically zero) so is it worth
even thinking about?
3) What should I be looking at for antennas to start off?  Should I even
consider picking up a used antenna?  What I was thinking of to start off is a
basic whip-style mobile andtenna... one for each band.  Would I be better off
spending the money on an antenna tuner and building my own antennas?  Build my
own damn antenna tuner?  Would building my own end up costing me more?

Plus of course, and advice anyone has laying around...

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