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Thursday, September 22, 2011

Got my License

This past weekend I took a little road trip and passed my Technician's exam! Hello de KK4EHJ! As a bonus, I made another road trip last night and passed my General, so I should say KK4EHJ/AG. Awesome!

I told my wife that I would make her address me with my call sign. She took one look at it and started calling me Kiki. Now that I passed my General exam, she's calling me General Kiki. Wonderful, eh?

I'm planning on getting my Extra, but the next exam session within 100 miles isn't until next month. That means I have plenty of time to study and pass with flying colors.

The next step, though, is to actually install my Kenwood TM-D710A since I haven't actually been on the air. I've got the radio, a power supply, a J-pole attena, LMR-240UF cable, and connectors, but I'm still waiting on reducers. It's kind of hard to run a radio without any way to hook up the antenna, though, so I'm left waiting. They should be in today, though.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Bandwidths of Common Modes

Here is a short list of the bandwidth requirement for some common modes when using your amateur radio. Bandwidth is the width of your signal compared against the band. When you're sending any signal, it uses more than just the dialed frequency, so you need to know exactly which frequencies you're using.

CW : 150 Hz
AM: 6 kHz
SSB, RTTY, PSK31, AMTOR, PACTOR : 2 -3 kHz
FM, Packet: 5 -15 MHz