236 karma · joined August 28, 2017
Even with Technician you may be able to do POTA or SOTA successfully on VHF.
Summits on the Air - take your gear to a mountain summit and attempt to make at least 4 contacts.
Parks on the Air - take your gear to a state/federal/provincial/national park and attempt to make at least 10 contacts.
Check out Ham Radio Crash Course on YouTube. He has a bunch of great stuff for people interested. From there hopefully one of the areas will pique your interest and you can go down the rabbit hole from there.
I'm using the FT8CN Android app and a truSDX radio. USB cable from the radio into my phone powers the radio as well as sends/receives the audio.
For antenna I'm just using a hamstick on the roof.
This only puts out about half a watt but I was getting out about 2500-3000km away. You could then have an alternative power source like a battery to get around 5 watts.
The AliExpress link is one of the official suppliers listed on the site: https://dl2man.de/where-to-buy-trusdx/
Another cheap option is the truSDX https://dl2man.de/
I have it working with my Android Phone using https://github.com/N0BOY/FT8CN
It makes for a super lightweight pack. I usually bring a 17foot whip antenna to a park or summit and get contacts all over the world.
You don't need very expensive radio equipment to transmit FT8 so if you do get your licence back it is worth looking into.
- It is relaxing and something outside to do. - You can meet others locally who are into it as well and also meet people as you make radio contacts. - You'll need an amateur radio licence which can be a new skill to challenge you.
Can quickly spin up a Snake using an AWS lambda. It can be a lot of fun.
How did you make the text readable from the links?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_signs_in_North_America
In Canada they all start with C.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4866.How_to_Stop_Worryin...
It's by Dale Carnegie who also wrote "How to Win Friends and Influence People".