That’s Done—Now for Just One More Thing

Wed   28 Mar 2007   10:58 by Kevin McGehee 69° and mostly cloudy in Coweta County, GA 1 comment [AK4MC] [Yippee-Ki-Yay!]

The FCC has processed my amateur-radio license upgrade to Extra class, and printed the new license. I should have it in the next few days—Saturday, if it takes exactly as long through the postal system as my previous upgrade. And this morning as soon as I saw that the final grant of the upgrade had gone through, I submitted an application for a “vanity” callsign. The FCC started the “vanity” callsign system some years ago, and Wifey-Ki-Yay got hers at about the same time I got my initial, Technician-class license in 1999. Her original callsign, issued sequentially by the FCC in 1997, was KLØMN; she knew right away she wanted a vanity callsign, but she didn’t know for sure what to request. I think she submitted her application the very same day I suggested KLØUD—which I thought appropriate, considering her career with the National Weather Service. Obviously she agreed, and she got there not too far ahead of the sequential issues; the newest class of Alaska hams (the only hams eligible for a callsign prefix ending with the letter “L”) being processed at the time included me, and my sequentially issued callsign is KLØTY. I think the very next class would have gotten Chris’ callsign if she hadn’t moved when she did. Anyway, the callsign I want is one that starts with “A”—only hams in the Extra class qualify—and it’s far enough ahead of the sequence that I should have no trouble getting it. But I’m just superstitious enough that I’ll keep it to myself until I at least know my application is being processed. Vanity call applications generally take two to three weeks. In recent years it seems most upgrading hams don’t request new calls, preferring to keep the one by which everyone knows them, but I’ve been relatively inactive all these years so changing my call shouldn’t cause any confusion. So this whole business, which started for me in late January, isn’t over yet. The FCC will, I hope, have one more new license to print for me. Update: Harrumph. My license-class upgrade should have been included in today’s FCC database update distribution to QRZ.com but it isn’t there. This is on top of the several-days delay in approving my application because it somehow got “alert-listed”—kicked out of the system for human evaluation—on Friday and didn’t get kicked back in until yesterday. My last upgrade was in the database update the same day the new license was printed. Grrrr. ‘Nother Update, next morning: Well, the FCC now shows that my vanity callsign application is “pending.“ I’m not sure what all else is needed to complete the processing but the only thing I can think of that would stop it is if someone else got in ahead of me with the request. Anyway, the callsign I’m applying for is AK4MC. The “A” denotes a callsign that only someone with an “Amateur Extra” class of license can have. The “K” is my first initial and the “MC” refers to “McGehee.“ The “4” is the numerical indicator for the region of the country I live in. If you’re wondering why I have to have the 4 between the K and the M, I don’t—but there has to be a letter after the A, and the sequential “A” calls are about to start into the “AJ” series, and the “AL” series is restricted and the available “A” prefixes end there—thus an “AK” call is the last series of prefixes available. So I figured, why not? And it gives me an additional letter on the backside. Besides, the “AK” also serves as an unofficial reminder that I am a former Alaska ham, since I lose the official one by giving up my current callsign—the “L” in the prefix of KLØTY indicates Alaska (which is why the “AL” calls are restricted; if I still lived in Alaska I could apply for one, but I don’t so I can’t). Chris, of course, likes her Alaska call and plans to keep it when she upgrades to Extra (she’s studying to take the test, hopefully in a few weeks). Anyway, so, no more mystery—except for the question of whether I’ll get the new callsign. And that’s up to the process and whether anyone else decided they wanted it before I applied for it.

Obsolete Before It Arrived

Fri   16 Mar 2007   16:46 by Kevin McGehee 51° and cloudy in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [AK4MC] [Yippee-Ki-Yay!]

My General-class license arrived in the mail today, just three days after the upgrade was posted to the internet. By this timeline—assuming the tests conducted by the Fayette County VE team pass through the bowels of the U.S. postal system at the same rate as those conducted two weekends earlier by their Coweta County, er, counterparts—I should see my Extra upgrade online about March 27, and have ticket in hand on the 31st. I don’t remember how long the new licenses took to arrive the last time Wifey-Ki-Yay and I needed to get new ones, which was when we moved into Yippee-Ki-Yay! World Headquarters (change of address), but this less-than-three-weeks timeline does seem to be fairly common from what I understand. New hams, however, may have to wait longer; their information has to be entered into the system afresh, whereas us upgraders just need a couple of database fields updated.

/AE

Sat   10 Mar 2007   9:55 by Kevin McGehee 57° and cloudy in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [AK4MC] [Yippee-Ki-Yay!]

Background here. And this even though I’ve only ever made one HF contact—with someone else as control operator because I was still a Tech at the time. We do have an HF rig at home and Wifey-Ki-Yay says she’s finally found a microphone for it so maybe now we can do some DXing or something. Though, I won’t have any QSL cards until I’ve gotten my vanity callsign. Which I can’t apply for yet because the FCC still has me as Tech-class in their database. I have one heck of an incentive now to keep my ham license current: I don’t want to have to take all those tests again. Update, Tuesday the 13th: I’ve been an Extra for three days now, and the FCC finally has my General upgrade in the database. I guess that means my Extra upgrade will be showing on or about the 27th.

More Meat on My Sandwich?

Fri   2 Mar 2007   17:10 by Kevin McGehee 58° and sunny in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [AK4MC] [Yippee-Ki-Yay!]

Less than a week after passing the test for the General-class amateur radio license, I’ve been reading up for the Extra ham class (get it?), and I just took five randomly generated practice tests via QRZ.com. And passed every time. It almost seems a waste now that Extra is the last class ahead of me, because I’ve worked out a learning process: (1) read the Gordon West study guide, trying to identify “giveaways” in each question and its answer options (Gordo helps where he can); (2) take the practice tests, learning from the wrong answers as I go, and (3) stay in practice until test day by seeing how close I can get to a perfect score. In stage 3 of preparation for the General test, I made 100% quite a few times, and never missing more than five. On test day I missed two. In the Extra test I’ll need 37 38 right answers to pass. As before the previous test, I’m very confident.

/AG
Sun   25 Feb 2007   16:48 by Kevin McGehee 66° and sunny in Coweta County, GA 3 comments [AK4MC] [Yippee-Ki-Yay!]	Background here. Onward and upward!

Will I Be Promoted?

Tue   13 Feb 2007   19:10 by Kevin McGehee 47° and fog in Coweta County, GA 2 comments [AK4MC] [Yippee-Ki-Yay!]

Some of you know that I have an amateur radio operator’s license. I received my Technician-class license, callsign KLØTY, about eight a little more than seven years ago. I’ve tried a few times, halfheartedly I admit, to learn enough Morse code to be able to pass the 5wpm requirement to upgrade to a General-class license, but never managed to get there. I did take the written test required of those wishing to qualify for General, and passed, but without the code I was out of luck, and the test I did pass was only good for a year. Well, the FCC has dropped the Morse code requirement. And later this month I plan to take the written test again. I read through Gordon West’s General Class study guide and have been taking the QRZ.com practice test repeatedly. In fact, I started taking the practice tests before I finished the book, and failed a few times early on—but not once since finishing. West’s guides are that good. There are a few lines of questioning in the pool that I would only get right by making a lucky guess, but out of 35 questions it takes nine wrong answers to fail. I’m feeling pretty confident, and hoping that saying so doesn’t jinx me. Our local radio club could use whatever renewed interest in the hobby may result from the elimination of the code requirement. Some longtime hams may be unhappy with the change but one of the old-timers in the club made what I think is the convincing argument years ago: Hams who want to work in Morse code will have to learn it whether the FCC requires it or not. The rest need not be bothered with something they’ll never use.

‘Buggy-Whip’ Stevens to the Rescue!

Tue   14 Feb 2006   8:49 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [AK4MC] [Alaska] [Our Times] [Yippee-Ki-Yay!]

A few weeks ago I heard an official with the Georgia section of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) talk about the impact on amateur radio as a hobby, of something called BPL—broadband over power lines. ARRL even has a webpage on its site dedicated to opposing this innovation. In practical terms, it’s unlikely that amateur radio will prevent the technology outright, but the pressure they’re exerting may force the industry to develop tighter specifications to prevent the kind of full-spectrum interference that worries them. Ted Stevens, of course, wouldn’t know BPL from BFL from NFL. All he cares about is spending money. Republican Sens. Conrad Burns of Montana and Gordon Smith of Oregon have introduced bills that would help bring high-speed broadband Internet service to rural areas using the Universal Service Fund, Stevens noted. “I endorse that principle,“ Stevens said. “Without it, rural America will never make it onto the on-ramp of the information superhighway. Rural people could be left on a dirt road with dial-up Internet if they are not included in broadband through USF.“ However, the fund already is running short of the money it needs, Stevens noted. “The current contribution mechanism of assessing only interstate revenue is broken and it needs reform,“ he said. » News-Miner: Stevens promotes Internet subsidy And it sounds like the subsidy is nothing more than a crowbar to get the USF’s hands on revenue from intra-state calls. I’m not sure how that’s going to go over with most Alaskans, since—at least when we lived up there—calling from Fairbanks to Chattanooga was often cheaper than calling from Fairbanks to Anchorage. So naturally Stevens wants to pile a surcharge on top of the already exorbitant cost of an intra-state call in Alaska. Unless of course he plans to exempt Alaska-to-Alaska long-distance from the reform scheme. Which wouldn’t surprise me in the least.

A High-Tech Halloween Prank?

Sat   4 Feb 2006   6:34 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 1 comment [AK4MC] [Our Times] [Yippee-Ki-Yay!]

Sure it’s only February, but you have to plan ahead… The crew of the international space station shoved an unmanned spacesuit stuffed with discarded clothing and radio equipment out the door Friday, creating a ghostly scene that resembled a cosmonaut tumbling away from the orbiting outpost. Complete with helmet and gloves, the spacesuit floated past the Russian section of the space station, 220 miles above Earth, before rotating away feet first and beginning its orbit around the globe. “Goodbye, Mr. Smith,“ flight engineer Valery Tokarev said in Russian, giving the figure the generic nickname “Ivan Ivanovich” as he and U.S. commander Bill McArthur began a six-hour spacewalk to perform maintenance and photography tasks. The Russian suit was equipped with a radio transmitter that will send recorded messages in six languages to amateur radio operators for several days before eventually re-entering Earth’s atmosphere and burning up, NASA officials said. » AP: Worn-Out Spacesuit Becomes Earth’s Newest Satellite They don’t say when it’ll re-enter. AP—October 31, 2031: American Spacelines Flight 14 to the Moon was forced to return to Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson Franklin Perdue Elton John Interplanetary Spaceport today after being struck on the nose cone by what witnesses originally described as a “space pedestrian.“ Investigators later determined the spacesuit was a 25-year-old “orbiting scarecrow” stuffed with laundry and a few broken iPods.

Slapping Another Ounce of Sense into Time

Thu   30 Dec 2004   21:53 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 2 comments [AK4MC] [Media Ochre] [Yippee-Ki-Yay!]

Chris and I are both “hams”—licensed amateur radio operators—and she receives the e-mail newsletter from the Georgia section of the American Radio Relay League (she’s more active on the air than I am). In the most recent newsletter was a bit that referenced the honor Time Magazine bestowed on PowerLine as Blog of the Year. Seems whatever nice things they had to say about blogging, other hobbies were not so respected. Here’s the text Chris forwarded me: Kudos to JOHN ELICKER, N4FAI, who sent a well-written letter to “Time” magazine, in response to an article that described hams and stamp collectors as “an embarrassment”. This is what he wrote: In Mr. Grossman’s article honoring Time‘s Blog of the Year, he references Ham Radio as a curiosity, a cult phenomenon, a faintly embarrassing hobby.  Previous to this article I always held Mr. Grossman and Time Magazine in the highest esteem for responsible journalism with virtually guaranteed accuracy.  That is no longer the case. As you may have guessed, I’m a Ham Radio Operator and I take extreme exception to his reference to my hobby.  I’ve been a Ham Radio Operator for over 25 years and not once have I ever been embarrassed to advise friends and associates that I’m a member of this valuable community.  The public service aspect of Ham Radio, the myriad of inventions that have come out of this hobby, the valuable educational experience for our children, and the ongoing international goodwill are all things I am very proud of about my hobby. I’m sure Mr. Grossman meant no malice in his reference, however he does show his complete ignorance of the subject in this statement.  One would think a reporter of this caliber in a publication of this stature would be above this obvious level of mediocrity.  I think Mr. Grossman’s penance should be to do an article on Ham Radio and it’s ongoing value to the community, our country, and the world. But alas, that would require him to do some real research when he could be out in the grass hitting that little white ball with a stick, and then driving after it in a cute little cart.  Then hitting it again and driving after it again etc.  Now there’s a cult phenomenon if I’ve ever seen one. I would have to take issue with John about holding Time “in the highest esteem for responsible journalism with virtually guaranteed accuracy.“ It’s been over 15 years since I had any illusions about Time doing “responsible journalism”—let alone with “guaranteed accuracy.“ But I guess different people wake up and smell different brands of coffee.

The Bear’s Cage

Mon   27 May 2002   15:20 by Kevin McGehee in Coweta County, GA 0 comments [AK4MC] [Nature] [blogoSFERICS]

Yesterday after seeing on the Weather Channel radar that some garden-variety air-mass thunderstorms were starting to pop up in our area, I went storm-chasing. Given that I like to participate in the local ham radio storm nets when we have severe weather warnings, I've since decided that I'd like to be mobile rather than homebound when one of these nets convenes, so I've reinstalled my handheld 2-meter two-way in my car with a cigarette-lighter plug for power and a mag-mount antenna on the roof, and so when we had some thunder happening in the general vicinity I took an afternoon drive and went looking for storms to get close to. At first when I went out, the atmosphere was so thick I really couldn't see anything very well in the sky -- none of the normal visual cues I've been used to in other places I've lived for locating different kinds of weather. Finally, though, I decided that the sky to the southwest, down I-85, had a kind of "backlit" look that I thought might indicate weather. So I got on the interstate and headed down that way, finally getting a good view of a thunderstorm about 27 miles from home near Hogansville, a town in northeastern Troup County. I left the freeway and bypassed downtown Hogansville, aiming for a spot on U.S. 29 a few miles south of town. Before I reached the highway I began seeing lightning strikes from the storm, and was hearing sferics not only on my AM radio (tuned to 1610 KHz), but also on my two-way which was tuned to the Newnan repeater at 145.13 MHz. Lightning noise in that band indicates some fairly strong discharges, not very far away. When I reached 29 I had to decide whether to head south on that highway or find a road that would take me west to where the core of the storm seemed to be. Since I didn't know much about the roads south of Hogansville I chose to go north instead, to Mobley Bridge Road which would take me in a northwest direction and from which I knew I could turn off if necessary to more closely approach the storm. I got a little bit of rain on Mobley Bridge Road, large raindrops that sounded almost like small hail on the roof of my car, but when I reached the intersection with Youngs Mill Road I knew I had to turn southwest to get closer to the storm, so that's what I did. What I didn't realize at that time was that the storm was straddling Youngs Mill Road and headed straight for me -- and that I was headed right into the "bear's cage," the area of most intense weather. Within minutes I was getting dense, heavy rain and lightning strokes so close I couldn't even finish saying "A thou---" before the thunder reached my ears. The rain became so heavy that I could barely make out a general idea where the road was. Then the rain started letting up, just in time for me to reach a thick ground fog that made visibility even worse. By the time I made it through that I was out from under the worst of the storm, but I couldn't turn off before reaching LaGrange. Once there, there was only one way I could turn toward home without going through downtown LaGrange, and that was by turning on Hammett Road -- which would take me right back toward the thunderstorm I had just come through. Fortunately I was able to turn off Hammett onto Tin Bridge just before getting too deep into the storm again, and that took me to U.S. 29 maybe a mile or two farther south than I had been while first scouting the storm. I considered re-engaging the storm but decided instead to get closer to home and see if anything had cooked up in Coweta County. As I scouted along between Hogansville and Newnan, I could still hear sferics on the radio, so I knew there was activity in the county. Then as I reached southern Newnan I got a chance to see a larger view of the sky and saw that there seemed to be something off toward Senoia. I headed out of southern Newnan on Georgia 16, watching the dark clouds as I approached Sharpsburg and the junction with Georgia 54, and decided that to avoid punching the core again I should turn south on 54 and maybe go behind the storm via Gordon Road. As I set out on 54 I began seeing lightning strokes, and again I got rained on as I passed the outer edges of the storm. I passed well west of the core and turned on Gordon Road toward Haralson, which is a few miles south of Senoia. It didn't take long before I began to see that I was well behind the storm, so rather than go all the way to Haralson I cut off toward Senoia via Luther Bailey Road. The drive to Senoia was more or less uneventful, but when I got there and could see the storm clearly again I realized it lay pretty squarely between me and Thomas Crossroads, the area of Coweta County that is home. I didn't want to retrace my steps to circumvent the storm again, so I decided I had to take the highway (Georgia 16) west back toward Sharpsburg and hope for the best. By the time I reached Turin I had again encountered poor visibility due to rain and ground fog. When I got back to the 16/54 junction at Sharpsburg I found that the core was just moving into town. I turned north on 54 and did the best I could to outrun the storm. At one point some miles north of Sharpsburg there was another "One thou---" lightning-thunder interval. But by the time I reached the main east-west route that went through Thomas Crossroads I was well out of the weather. And my fuel gauge light was on. I stopped at a gas station at Thomas Crossroads to fill up, and as I stood pumping gas the storm was coming on, making a heck of a racket. Shortly thereafter, as I arrived home to the sound of loud thunder, I came in the door and said to my wife, "It followed me home, can I keep it?" The heavy rain was pretty spectacular at home too, and in one instance a flash of lightning was followed at a barely perceptible interval by a loud BOOM of thunder. After the storm I went into the backyard and studied the trees just beyond the property line trying to determine which had been struck. Finally I spotted a pine, the uppermost branches of which had no needles, but plenty of pine cones. In the event of severe storm warnings, I think I'll stay behind the storm, looking for damage. Let somebody else report the golf-ball-sized hail as it's falling.

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