Quote:
Originally posted by Lefty
CQ CQ CQ DE WA6TKD..... brings back memories all right.
Tech+ licence is still active I think, if I could find it around here 
I was never really very active, mostly just monitoring...
The thing is the Internet does nearly everything and a whole lot more then I ever got out of Ham radio.. I was never into DX, contests, boring repeative QSOs, etc.... The targeted forum is such a better format and less restrictive of who can join in....
73
Lefty (WA6TKD)
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I just looked up your callsign on Buckmaster's HamCall server. Your license is still valid, through 2008. Why not get back on the air, if only on 2 meters? I am not terribly active myself, but I do get on the local 2m repeater every now and then (I am a member of ARRL and also of the ham club which operates that repeater). There is a club-sponsored ragchew net on that repeater every Thursday evening at 1700 UTC (7 p. m. EST/EDT), and a National Traffic System (NTS) net on another local repeater. I check into that one every once in a great while as well.
I am also set up for HF, but I don't use the system (an Icom IC-725 9-band transceiver which I won at a hamfest in 1991) as much as I once did because of RFI problems (my rig's 100-watt signal trips one of my GFCI outlets, so must operate very low power, almost QRP, on CW) and because I live in an apartment, so must use indoor antennas (my indoor HF system is a Barker & Williamson AP-10A apartment portable antenna; although it works after a fashion for local contacts on 40-meter SSB, I have yet to try it on other bands in search of out-of-state or outright DX contacts).
Renewing the license when the time comes is a snap these days, thanks to the Internet (Buckmaster's callsign server even provides a link to the W4VEC license renewal service when your ticket is within the 90-day renewal window; I used this service to renew my license about a month or two ago, and it worked great. My renewed license became effective immediately after my callsign appeared in the FCC's database; the hard-copy license document arrived in my mail a couple weeks later).
If you prefer to renew your ticket the "old fashioned" way, by filling out a Form 605 (the successor to the old 610) and mailing it to the FCC via snail mail, however, you can still do it, although the online method is much faster. In fact, the ARRL, the W5YI VEC, and possibly other organizations I am not aware of at this time offer a service whereby they will send you everything you need to renew your ticket when it is within the renewal window. You need not be an ARRL member to use the W5YI-VEC renewal service (they send a form automatically when your license is due to be renewed), but you must be a member of the League to use its renewal service.
73,