Passed my Technician exam last week

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

And I've been given the call sign KD9IVO.

I'm kinda surprised/proud I passed given I really did not study. I am an electrical engineer, and have been listening to Hams below 30MHz for a while, but much of the procedural questions I did based on commonsense rather than knowledge. I sorta took the test on a whim at Antique radio swapmeet/hamfest in my old home county in Ill.

I'd love to read up on procedure and get things straight before I start buying/installing/building TX hardware....Though I do have an old Heath DX-60, and IIRC a tranciever intended for automotive installation, though god only knows if either presently work.

Congratulations, Tom, and welcome to the hobby. You have a Technician license which, these days, conveys privileges on all VHF bands and CW on most if not all HF Novice band segments (80, 40, 15 and 10 meters). You also have voice privileges on ten meters, though I'm not sure at the moment what the Novice/Tech voice segment is. When I got my Technician ticket in 1975 (I have had a General class license since 1985), there were no voice privileges for that license class on "10", but a few years later the FCC granted Tech licensees voice privileges from 28.3 to 28.5 MHz (IIRC).

Your DX-60 should work well on today's Novice/Tech amateur bands. However, I would suggest you load the transmitter into a dummy load first, such as a 60-watt light bulb, before trying it on a real antenna. Of course, before turning on the rig, I would also suggest going through the circuits in the transmitter and replacing, at a minimum, the power supply filter caps, just as you would before firing up an antique or vintage radio or TV.

Your mobile transceiver sounds like a 2-meter rig. Your Tech license allows 2-meter operation, so you can hook up a microphone and antenna to the rig and try it out immediately. I don't want to make this post too long, so you can look up information on 2m and HF operating procedures, antennas, etc. online. The ARRL has an excellent website at http://www.arrl.org, which has just about all the info you could want about getting into amateur radio, and even a few hints as to the things you should know before going on the air for the first time.

Again, congrats and good luck. You have entered a grand hobby, one which will give you many years of enjoyment--especially after you make your first DX (long distance) radio contact via CW (Morse code) or voice. I've been in the hobby myself almost 45 years (will be exactly 45 years on the last day of June), and would not dream of letting my license expire or of leaving the hobby for good--I like it too much. I am a member of a local radio club and use their 2m repeater from time to time, although it's been months (!) since I've checked in to their weekly roundtable net; for HF I am presently using Echolink (an amateur radio linking application developed by a New England amateur; more info on this app is available at www.echolink.org) on my computer.

73 (best of regards),