Good Event #2 - A New Ham Out Of The Blue
Following my strange Saturday this is the other event that really surprised me. I have been really busy lately, and if you saw my last two posts, have been hit with a pretty big topic on top of some other things.
I got a phone call while I was in the Mirror Lab at Perkins Observatory. I had my ringer turned off so I wasn't interrupted. I saw at some point that I missed a call and had a voicemail so I tried to find out what it was all about. Being down in the basement I had no cell service and I wasn't going to let that distract me too much - I was way too engrossed in what I was doing!
In fact, I didn't check my voicemail until about an hour after I got home. I talked to Jason, N8XE all the way home on the radio and then just relaxed after my long day.
Once I finally got around to checking that voicemail... it turned out to be a friend of mine from back in high school! He and I are good friends, we both were in the engineering program at the school I went to (he was from another school but was enrolled in our program - part of an education sharing program between different schools). We have been in different cities and haven't kept up with each other too much. He just so happened to be passing through the Columbus area, and also happened to have is Technician class ham radio license! So he called to find out what frequency to get on so we could chat!
Unfortunately, I got his voicemail about five hours after he passed through. I did call him back and got in touch with him.
He came back through town yesterday so I was able to talk on the radio for quite a while with him. He has been studying Mechanical Engineering in college (which I knew) and in one of the courses he took built a high-altitude balloon. The balloon's control was done through DTMF and it also used APRS for tracking. Several members of the team got their Ham radio licenses so they could run the equipment, and he was one of them.
I remember, in the first car I ever had (a 1988 Nissan Maxima), I was over at his house. We got on the subject of Ham radio and what you can do with it. At the time I was a General and I had HF in there - my IC-718 and a Tarheel Model 200 Screwdriver antenna (the same original antenna I use on my truck every day, minus a hundred thousand miles, scratches, paint chips, and a few coatings of bugs).
I was telling him and his dad "I can talk all over the planet with this thing." I don't quite know if they believed me back then or not, but I remember being over there just like it was yesterday.
Gosh, that has to be back in 2002 - seven years ago! I graduated high school in 2004 and got my current truck the winter before. I had an S-10 for about a year before that, so that would have been 2003. Wow. Where has time gone?
Anyway, I was quite surprised that he called. I am sorry I didn't catch his phone call, but then again I was busy with one of the most awesome opportunities I have had in a LONG time!
So who is he? Jack - KD8KNJ. Welcome to the nut house! (or, ham radio fraternity)
Now... lets see if I can get him up on HF too.
I got a phone call while I was in the Mirror Lab at Perkins Observatory. I had my ringer turned off so I wasn't interrupted. I saw at some point that I missed a call and had a voicemail so I tried to find out what it was all about. Being down in the basement I had no cell service and I wasn't going to let that distract me too much - I was way too engrossed in what I was doing!
In fact, I didn't check my voicemail until about an hour after I got home. I talked to Jason, N8XE all the way home on the radio and then just relaxed after my long day.
Once I finally got around to checking that voicemail... it turned out to be a friend of mine from back in high school! He and I are good friends, we both were in the engineering program at the school I went to (he was from another school but was enrolled in our program - part of an education sharing program between different schools). We have been in different cities and haven't kept up with each other too much. He just so happened to be passing through the Columbus area, and also happened to have is Technician class ham radio license! So he called to find out what frequency to get on so we could chat!
Unfortunately, I got his voicemail about five hours after he passed through. I did call him back and got in touch with him.
He came back through town yesterday so I was able to talk on the radio for quite a while with him. He has been studying Mechanical Engineering in college (which I knew) and in one of the courses he took built a high-altitude balloon. The balloon's control was done through DTMF and it also used APRS for tracking. Several members of the team got their Ham radio licenses so they could run the equipment, and he was one of them.
I remember, in the first car I ever had (a 1988 Nissan Maxima), I was over at his house. We got on the subject of Ham radio and what you can do with it. At the time I was a General and I had HF in there - my IC-718 and a Tarheel Model 200 Screwdriver antenna (the same original antenna I use on my truck every day, minus a hundred thousand miles, scratches, paint chips, and a few coatings of bugs).
I was telling him and his dad "I can talk all over the planet with this thing." I don't quite know if they believed me back then or not, but I remember being over there just like it was yesterday.
Gosh, that has to be back in 2002 - seven years ago! I graduated high school in 2004 and got my current truck the winter before. I had an S-10 for about a year before that, so that would have been 2003. Wow. Where has time gone?
Anyway, I was quite surprised that he called. I am sorry I didn't catch his phone call, but then again I was busy with one of the most awesome opportunities I have had in a LONG time!
So who is he? Jack - KD8KNJ. Welcome to the nut house! (or, ham radio fraternity)
Now... lets see if I can get him up on HF too.
posted by Steve at
1:41 AM
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