This week we recap the 2013 Charlotte Hamfest and cover the basics of amateur radio.
The Two Way Radio Show TWRS-54 - An Introduction to Amateur radio
We also review the Baofeng UV-5R Dual Band UHF/VHF Amateur Radio.
This one was pretty good also - but it was a lot of the Blind Leading the Blind.
Its hard for a new ham to talk about ham radio when they don’t really know much about ham radio.
Some of the answers to the questions asked were not correct - but who wants to nit pick - that is what the manual is for.
I know I am more then a little **** =- but being a VE I like to make sure that no one propogates the misconceptions because once it becomes truck stop lingo - it isn’t very long before those myths and folk lore becomes factual.
Kind of like how you need 18’ of coax for a CB radio - because they think that it is a half wave length piece of coax - just because the radio wave length is 36 feet long.
It might help you guys to have some more knowledgeable hams help you out the next time you make a program like this.
Then again - age / length of license / sex - nothing seems to matter anymore - because there are not many REAL HAMS - out there anymore.
The age of having to be technicially inclined are over.
Even you spoke of the individual - 5 years old - that has a amateur radio license.
The question then becomes - would you trust a 5 year old child with 1000’s of volts of electricity? The Technician Class License allows a person to operate with as much as 1500 watts of transmit power on some bands.
That would be very dangerous to allow children to play with amateur radio equipment. I am sure they can parrot the answers - but for them to understand what they are doing - isn’t comprehensible for a 5 year old childs mind…