Category Archives: Training

Posts related to training classes given by the club. We do at least two trainings per month.

Slinging the Lingo – Understanding the Old Men – MARC Basic Topics – 2 March 2023

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Jan (KD7ZWV) lays out the language of the amateur radio operator. If you've been studying for your license (or have recently ... or not so recently ... received it), and you've been monitoring the local repeaters, you'll have heard several things that you may be unfamiliar with. This presentation will help you to gain an understanding of some of the words and phrases you are likely to hear on the air.

NOTE:  this is part one... we had so many comments and questions that we only made it about half-way through the presentation!  Tune in in two weeks for part two.

Advanced Topics – 9 February 2023 – Roles and Responsibilities at an Event

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Learn about different events and the roles and responsibilities of amateur radio operators.

Links from this presentation:

Basic Topics Class – 2 February 2023 – Using Your HT

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Dan (N7XDL) teaches us the basics of several common handheld radios.  Basic concepts are covered including turning your radio on (and off), switching between VFO and Memory Channel, and programming your radio for repeater use (including offsets and PL tones).  If you are a new ham, just getting used to your equipment, and you don't have an Elmer to ask, this presentation will get you on the local repeaters and operating your radio!

Radios covered include the typical Baofeng, Yaesu FT-60R, Yaesu VX-6R, and TYT TH-350.

Basic Topics Class – 5 January 2023 – Beginner’s Guide to HF Week 3

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Not much of a turn out for the finale of RATPAC's Beginner's Guide to HF tonight, but we had some good conversation around a lot of the points.  This week's presentation covered setting up an HF station, including things like where to put it, what equipment is needed, antennas and grounding, power, and other requirements.  You can watch the video on RATPAC's site or right here:

The slides are available here:  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zw217051om5lxtu/AACiqQxRS3DG9J9HDudQiSuIa?dl=0

 

Basic Topics Class – 3 November 2022 – RATPAC Beginner’s Guide to HF Week 1

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RATPAC Beginner's Guide to HF, Week 1

We viewed the first week's session of the excellent RATPAC presentation Beginner's Guide to HF:  HF Bands, Modes, Making Contacts & HF Activities, which was presented by Anthony Luscre, K8ZT & Dennis Kidder, W6DQ.

A link to the presentation PDF is here:  https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zw217051om5lxtu/AACiqQxRS3DG9J9HDudQiSuIa?dl=0 (this dropbox bucket contains all three presentation PDFs as well as additional notes from the Zoom session chats).

I'll add the links from the PDF later... wading through the presentation to extract all of the links is taking longer than I expected and I want to get this posted sooner rather than later.

 

Amateur Licensing, VECs, and VEs

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Last week, our own Max (AI7LG) briefed us on how licensing works and especially the history and current operation of the VEC (Volunteer Examiner Coordinator) program.  As a relatively new VE, Max had a great review of the topic and was able to present a lot of useful information.

We tried casting this meeting via Zoom, but had some technical difficulties.  Because of that, we were unable to produce a suitable recording of the meeting.  I will include a link to the slides here, though.  I may be able to sync up the audio to a copy of the slide presentation over the next few days, but I'm not going to promise anything.

Without further ado, here is the link to the presentation slides:  AARG Testing presentation.

One thing to note, Max's VE group, Aurora Amateur Radio Group based in Alaska, is offering FREE remote testing until the end of 2022.  You'll still be on the hook for the FCC fee, but the testing fee is waived until the end of the year.