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Originally Posted by Haoleb
Hey Jeffhs, you must have me mistaken with someone else because i have never been on the air before. Never even used a peice of ham equipment really. I had just taken the test because my college electronics instructor wanted us to get the training and to pass the test to get our licenses. He is very into ham radio and i believe takes care of the repeaters and stuff around his side of the island.
I didnt mean that we had to take the GROL exam to upgrade our license, just that it was another certification that we are supposed to attain. But we will have the chance to upgrade our ham license's if we so choose. But personally i doubt i would ever get into the hobby since its just so much easier to communicate with the internet and i dont have any of the equipment i would need. Although a transciever would be cool to just listen in on police/fire bands and air traffic control.
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Brandon (Haoleb), NH7XJ,
Oooops! My sincere apologies. I thought about that (that I might have mistaken you for someone else in this forum); ah, now I think I know who I was thinking of when I made the comment about you being on the air. There is a member of AK using the member name Millerdog (I don't think he frequents this particular forum, though) who is also a ham and also lives in Hawaii; I must have been thinking of him, as his transceiver was out of order and his antenna was down (at least that was my understanding the last time I saw one of his posts in AK, in one of the audio forums).
Communicating via the Internet is good if you don't want to (or cannot) use the radio for any reason. With the Internet there is no interference, fading or other problems associated with radio, shortwave or any other kind. No FCC rules to be concerned with either.
BTW, you don't need a full-fledged transceiver simply to listen in on police, fire, CAP (Civil Air Patrol) or the aircraft band. A synthesized all-band scanner will do the job just as well, and it won't cost you an arm and a leg. Amateur Electronic Supply in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (
www.aesham.com; if you have access to toll-free 800 numbers in Hawaii, theirs is 1-800-558-0411) has these receivers; if you have any electronics stores in your area, they will probably have them as well.
Again, Brandon, I apologize for the mixup. In the back of my mind I thought I had goofed, but by the time I realized the mistake I had already posted the message.
73,