5/10/2012 I Don't Want to BUILD a Ham Radio

I opened my manual and stared at it with dismay.
It read: For waves in air or space, the formula for meters
is the length in meters is 300,000,000 meters per second
divided by the frequency in hertz or cycles per second.
I did not know what a hertz was.
I was in BIG trouble.
Our nice teacher, Robert Grinnell had started going
over the second chapter and at the end
I raised my hand and he called on me,
"I don't want to build a ham radio,
I only need to learn to operate one."
He just chuckled and gave me a look that said,
"By the end of eight weeks you'll be dying
to build one of these babies."
It has been seven weeks now and I STILL
don't want to build a ham radio,
although when I wake up every morning
I have a strong urge to rewire my house.
Two months ago I got an e-mail from the
Kookmore fire chief requesting people
to take the ham radio operator class
to get licensed to work at the new fire station
on the emergency radio net in case of a 9.0 earthquake.
Well, I thought as a good citizen
it was my obligation to my community
to help out.
What a can of worms I opened!
For some reason I had never studied radio,
electricity or FCC regulations in school.
It was like starting Chinese at fifty-five years old.
When we did classroom introductions,
I learned 90% of my classmates were retired people
taking the class for "giggles and kicks."
Except for William, who at eleven, seemed
to understand all this stuff better than I did!
At the end of our last class Monday night,
a lady raised her hand and asked Kerry,
"When is the class where someone shows
us how to operate our radios?"
We all burst out laughing since we were
all thinking that exact thing."
Turns out once you get your license,
you have to join a club to get up and running.
Kerry ended class with, "Study hard!
I'll be watching to see gets 100% on their test!"
I turned to Robert Grinnell and asked,
"What if I get a bad test?"
He smiled and asked me,
"You mean the one with the thirty-five questions
that you didn't study for?"
That was exactly what I was asking about.
Turns out they'll have four versions of the test
and we can keep taking them until we find one we pass.
Since it is $15.00 a pop each test,
I have been highly motivated to study hard.
Two days ago I took my first online practice test
and missed nine-teen out of thirty-five.
I only missed three on the next one.
So I was right! There are bad tests!
I can only pray that come Monday night,
I get a good test.