AMATEUR RADIO EMERGENCY SERVICE (ARES)

MORSE CODE (CW) HIGH SPEED SENDER

The list below is just a small sample of what Ham Radio is about. Morse Code is no longer required in order to get an FCC license. If you find this interesting and would like to be a Ham, attend the SOARA -- ARES Meetings, they are every third Monday of each month at 7:00 P.M. Location is the rear room of the 911/EMA building, 515 Park Ave., Ironton, OH. You are welcome.

For more information about our SOARA -- ARES Club, send e-mail to Ken Massie, WN8F, SOARA -- ARES Public Information Officer at: wn8f@arrl.net.

HAM RADIO IS INTERESTING:

Talk to people in foreign countries. DX'ing is a favorite of many hams!

Talk to people (both local and far away) on your drive to work

Help in emergencies and natural disasters by providing communications.

Provide communications in parades or walkathons and other public service events.

Help other people become hams. (We call it "Elmering.")

Hook your computer to your radio and communicate "computer-to-computer." Hams use radio modems.

Collect QSL cards (cards from other hams) from all over the United States and foreign countries and receive awards.

Participate in contests or Field Day events.

Provide radio communication services to your local Emergency Management Agency (called Civil Defense in the old days) through ARES (the Amateur Radio Emergency Service) or RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) ...or even FEMA, (the Federal Emergency Management Agency.)

Aid members of the U.S. military by joining the Army, Air Force or Navy/Marine MARS (Military Affiliate Radio System). Pass messages and run phone patches for service folks.

Participate in transmitter hunt games and maybe build your own direction-finding equipment.

Have someone to talk to on those sleepless nights at home.

Receive weather pictures via satellites.

Build radios, antennas, learn some electronics and radio theory.

Talk to astronauts in space, or use the moon to bounce signals back to people on the Earth.

Experiment with Amateur TV (ATV), Slow-Scan TV (SSTV), or send still-frame pictures by facsimile.

Lash your ham radio to the public telephone system and call your friends toll free. (Auto patching)

Communicate through orbiting satellites. (There are many in ham satellites in orbit that are owned and operated by the amateur community! And you can use them without any cost whatsoever!)

================================================== Getting the License

Here is some good information that was copied. Sounds like the author is from my time in ham radio. WN8F.

There are now only three licenses available. The entry level license is called Technician. The old Novice license is gone, and the Technician written test is harder than the old Novice test, but you do not have to learn Morse Code at all. In fact, there is no more Morse Code testing for any class or ham radio license. That's right: No more morse code tests. The Technician license is basically a VHF license, but it lets you have a taste of short waves - the worldwide frequencies that so enraptured me in the 1950's, and still do. Believe it or not, those shortwave or HF privileges are Morse Code only. This is a paradox, sort of, you can get the license without passing the morse test. You can use voice on VHF, but to use HF you need to do it with morse code! Now, if you want to use voice on shortwaves (HF), you need to pass a more involved written test, for the General Class license. This is, in fact, the oldest license class ever, instituted in 1927. Before 1927 you were just an "amateur" licensed by the US Department of Commerce. I wasn't alive in 1927, so I missed out on that possibly controversial development. With a General license you can roam the shortwave HF ham bands with 1500 watts and voice. And morse code too, as well as data transmissions (like teletype, or chat) and many and varied methods of transmission. As a General, you will have access to about 95% of the HF bands, and there are tiny slivers that are reserved for the Extra Class hams. Extras have to pass a test that is, even in 2007, is a real challenge. You may cram for it and manage to pass it, but if you know what is behind every question and answer, not just rote-learned, you will be well on the way to being a real Communications guru. The little slivers that are not available to Generals are what the Extras get. Kind of a reward for being old, venerable, wise, or having political clout for reserving "us" a slice of frequencies where we do not have to put with the average riff-raff. Or so the Generals would have you believe ... One thing Extras can do is participate in the giving of ham radio exams for Generals and other Extras as a Volunteer Examiner. As a General you can be a VE for giving Technician licenses, but that's it. As a rule, Extras have been hams for a while. Some, like me, have been Extra for over 40 years. Trust me, as a Technician or a General you can have your barrell of fun ... and if you ever get hard cored about Ham Radio, then you may want to start thinking of being an Extra. In the old days we used to just read books. I mean, like real hairy college texts, such as FE Terman's Radio Handbook, and the like. Of course, the Boy Scout Merit Badge series was also a gold mine of info. Alas, the Boy Scouts no longer have anything like it. In those days the Novice test was multiple choice, but upper class tests were all in Longhand, you had to draw diagrams and all tests were taken in a Government office, the dreaded Federal Communications Commission. Tests were given once a month. If you flunked, you had to wait a full month. The morse code testing machine used a punched paper take and besides the beeping morse in the headphones, it set off real clatter. The entire episode was absolutely intimidating and daunting, and for a 13 year old like me, terrifying. I did manage to pass my General in 1960. Well, Virginia Slim Cigarettes had an advert that said "You've come a long way baby!" And indeed, things are quite different now. The tests are all multiple choice, and the study materials have been refined to where you can read just one book to pass the test. I will venture to say that if you are going for the Technician test, the book by Gordon West is the best guide. Each possible question that can be asked is in the book, along with the answer and an explanation of the answer. You also get to see the wrong answers. This is because for the last decade or two, tests are drawn from a question pool. The Technician pool has about 500 possible questions, and out of that 35 are chosen. Not at random, but from several different areas of the pool. There are ten main subjects, and the 35 questions are divided among those in a prescribed way. As an examiner, the law allows me to put the test together by taking 2 questions from this subject, 3 from this one, etc. The W5YI Organization that I belong to automates that process, and I simply fire up my computer, tell it to print a Technician Test and answer key, and presto! Instant test. Gordon West's book has all those 500 questions and answers in it. It is the best and clearest guide I have seen, better than ARRL's book -the previous favorite. The same approach can be taken for the General Test, but some experience as a ham helps with the General. For the Extra test, it is also possible to do it with Gordon's book for the Extra, but most people I have met really have a hard time with that test unless they have expanded their studies beyond just that book. Experience is perhaps the key factor here. General tests are also 35 questions like the Technician, but the Extra test is 50 questions. You may ask, "what is the general nature and demeanor of those tests?" As a rule, the Technician test is very little radio and electrical theory or practice. It mostly asks about the rules for operating radio as a Technician ham. It asks some basic radio questions on how to hook up your set to an antenna, how not to get electrocuted or fried, etc. Some of this knowlege has to be learned by rote; many rules are arbitrary: its just the way it is. The FCC does not want us hams to transmit on top of KNOM, so they have frequencies we can use. Taxicabs use other frequencies, as do boats and the military. The test will not ask you about broadcasting, military or marine bands ... but they will ask you very specific questions about the ham bands as authorized to a Technician class licensee. As you get to the General Class, since this is the license most used for HF shortwave, you will have questions about shortwave, international communications and deeper understanding of radio and electronic theory. The technical part is still fairly straightforward, but geared to the shortwave HF amateur that generally tinkers more with his equipment and antennas in particular. Of course, rules and regulations and procedures as now expanded to the General class are asked. Extra class hams, for the most part, do HF just like Generals. The exact frequencies are again slightly different, but the test is light on rules and procedures - those questions got asked of you as a General or Technician. The test is strong on Radio Theory, troubleshooting and the like. All of these licenses are recognized by most major countries in the world. You get a USA license, and you can operate in Canada, Mexico, and Europe. Many of these countries reciprocate automatically, some you have to make a phone call or fill a form, but for instance, if you go to Mexico and want to operate there during a vacation, you do not have to take a test again. Your US license is recognized. What you want to do is get some booklet or something as regulation details vary from country to country. In the United States it is customary to segregate Voice modes, and on a given ham band only a part of it is allowed for voice transmissions. A smaller portion of the given band, but still a significant part, is restricted to non-voice transmissions, like morse code ( CW ). In most foreign countries no such distinction is made, and you can operate voice or cw anywhere in the band. Why? In many countries, specially those in the less developed parts of the world, there are just not enough hams to crowd the bands.

WHY ARE HAMS CALLED "HAMS"? You'll hear lots of stories about why amateur radio operators are called "hams," but there is no proof for any of the competing claims, and the simple truth is that no one knows for sure. What we do know is this: regardless of its source, the "ham" label is worn with pride by radio amateurs around the world. HOW MANY HAMS ARE THERE? Worldwide, amateur radio operators number in the millions. There are over 600,000 licensed amateurs in the United States, and more than 25,000 in Canada. Each one has a unique "callsign" issued by his/her government. No two hams share the same callsign. HOW DO I BECOME A HAM? In order to operate a ham radio, you need an Amateur Radio license. Each country has its own rules and procedures regarding amateur licenses. In the United States, ham licenses are issued by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the following information applies to the US only: There are three amateur radio license classes available in the United States, the entry-level Technician Class, the mid-level General Class, and the top-level Extra Class. Ham licenses are earned by passing fill-in-the-blank and multiple-choice exams, which are offered regularly by volunteers across the country. There is no longer a Morse code requirement for any level of U.S. Amateur Radio license. The "pools" of questions from which the exams are made -- along with their correct answers -- are printed in virtually every license manual. Even so, you'll need to study in order to pass. Why are licenses needed? Radio signals travel great distances and improperly-adjusted transmitters could cause interference to other radio services. It’s important that hams, who are permitted to transmit with high power, understand the basics of how radios work and how radio signals behave. Hams are also encouraged to design and build their own gear (although there’s plenty of commercially-built equipment available if that’s not your thing), and again, it’s important to have a basic knowledge of electronic circuits before trying to design a radio! Don’t worry, though, the tests start out quite easy. The Technician Class license is the most popular way to start. It gives you full access to all ham radio frequencies and activities above 50 MHz (the VHF & UHF bands), as well as limited access to the high-frequency, or HF, bands below 30 MHz. Things you can do on VHF and UHF include FM repeaters (automatic relay stations), computer-to-computer "packet radio," on-air contests, amateur TV, amateur satellites and even things like "moonbounce," microwave and laser communications. Long-distance communications, also called "DX," may be “worked” on satellites and the 6-meter band. A Technician license also gets you voice privileges on part of the 10-meter band (28.3-28.5 MHz), plus Morse code privileges on the 80, 40, 15 and 10 meter bands. Passing a 35-question test to upgrade from Technician to General Class will give you operating privileges - including voice - on all amateur frequency bands. Another written exam for Extra Class gives you all privileges on all ham radio bands. Many radio clubs and other groups offer licensing and upgrading courses, and a variety of study guides are commercially available. (Two of the most popular guides, the ARRL's "Ham Radio License Manual" and Gordon West's "Technician Class 2006-2010" guide, are available from CQ and from many ham dealers.) The ARRL also offers licensing guides on videotape.