Through a series of events culminating in, "this was something I thought was really cool as a kid and still do so why not" I am strongly considering driving an hour on Saturday to get a ham radio license. I do not have a radio. I probably don't "need" another easily-becomes-a-technical rabbit hole hobby, especially one that can get expensive depending on what use I find most fun. But learning new hobbies may very well be my actual hobby and also: oh snap this is not nearly as hard as I thought it would be??
So oops, maybe I'm doing another hobby
I am browsing a manual geared towards testing for the base Technician license and so far I'm thinking this will be a breeze: 1) multiple choice tests are supremely easy for me and 2) I think the scariest part is mega easy actually??
There are questions on the test that are math questions, with formulas to memorize. I generally consider myself middling at best with math and extremely poor with mental math, but maybe I underestimate myself cuz doing flashcards of the questions in the pool[1] is showing me I probably don't even need a calculator if I go ahead and try this on Saturday??
maybe I need to revise my self image wrt math: maybe I am not bad at math, I just had several bad experiences with learning it in HS. I'm still not totally sure if I'm gonna forge ahead and get the license this month or if I wanna chat with my local-ish club/try tuning in to their repeater for a bit before getting a Technicians and trying transmitting but: even if I wait I like knowing how obtainable this is. I can do it. you could do it. We could be talking to each other thru radios[2]
which is public, for the record; they want you to get your license. That's the secret 3) to why this could be a breeze ↩︎
uh. I think. I'm only hours into this and there seems to be a lot that goes into transmitting any further than 50ish miles. You also need the General class license; I am told that's not much of a lift vs the Technician tho ↩︎