| Joined: | Sun Apr 22nd, 2012 |
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Have thought many times about taking up Ham radio but don't like tests so have never gone further than buying a book once. The Morse requirement never bothered me as I was a High Speed radio operator in the Army. Just don't like tests and see little need for all the Govt requires for Ham Radio. If you could just apply and pay a fee it would be fun I imagine. When I was in the Army we were permitted to use our radios in off hours and communicated with many other operators in many remote places.Had a SSB CB that worked sometime on skip but was never reliable,but fun when it did.
Slightly different nowadays in England, we no longer have stuffy tests. In fact it's never been easier.
If the US is anything like what England used to be at one time, I'd guess it isn't the US government responsible for bullsht test criteria, but probably amateurs themselves lobbying for ridiculous criteria.....usually the old farts.
We still have loads of old farts here involved in the activity, fortunately OFCOM banged 'em to right years ago and they no longer have influence.
Our novice licence give us 10 Watts, but does allow HF too. Not that I know any novices who run 100W from a TS520 lol
The only annoying restrictions we have are in transmission mode, if it's RTTY it' supposed to be standard baudot or packet so they know what you are up to.
The government here likes to give GCHQ as much immunity as possible to poke it's nose in other people's business, and this will eventually extend to all UK internet traffic.
....not that I know anyone who transmits ENIGMA or FISH he he
which annoys the crap out of the state eavesdroppers.....cannot be decrypted if you know what not to transmit.Last edited on Thu Aug 23rd, 2012 13:14 by steve of oxford