DCFluX in: License to Transmit
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00:00
TexteditorBroadcastingverfahrenStellenringTurm <Mathematik>SchlüsselverwaltungQuick-SortTexteditorRechenschieberNotebook-ComputerVideokonferenzFluss <Mathematik>TouchscreenZeitzoneCoxeter-GruppeNeuroinformatikBitGüte der AnpassungSmartphoneZellularer Automat
02:02
Patch <Software>SystemaufrufFrequenzDigitalsignalEinfache GenauigkeitFormation <Mathematik>CodeE-MailEntscheidungsunterstützungssystemChatten <Kommunikation>VerkehrsinformationPhysikalisches SystemSpannweite <Stochastik>Pauli-PrinzipInternetworkingURLSmartphonePatch <Software>VersionsverwaltungFrequenzSoftwareStandardabweichungTelekommunikationRechenschieberGebäude <Mathematik>DifferenteApp <Programm>Formation <Mathematik>NeuroinformatikDigitalisierungMultiplikationsoperatorSystemaufrufChatten <Kommunikation>E-MailDatenfeldBandmatrixFamilie <Mathematik>CodePortscannerKontextbezogenes SystemInternetworkingDatenflussInformationsspeicherungVorlesung/Konferenz
04:46
BroadcastingverfahrenNichtlinearer OperatorFormation <Mathematik>Kartesische KoordinatenRechter WinkelFlächeninhaltRechenschieberMereologiePaarvergleichCASE <Informatik>Nichtlinearer OperatorSystemaufrufPhysikalisches SystemDualitätstheorieFaktor <Algebra>BroadcastingverfahrenMeterHilfesystemSmartphoneEinsZahlenbereichFormation <Mathematik>Familie <Mathematik>Turm <Mathematik>Klasse <Mathematik>NP-hartes ProblemDatenfeldDatenparallelitätSoftware Development KitBetriebsmittelverwaltungPlastikkarte
09:51
Fluss <Mathematik>MenütechnikABEL <Programmiersprache>WellenpaketSpektrum <Mathematik>Wort <Informatik>TelekommunikationDivergente ReiheSatellitensystemOrbit <Mathematik>Kartesische KoordinatenTurm <Mathematik>Pay-TVPhysikalisches SystemSpannweite <Stochastik>MultiplikationsoperatorLeistung <Physik>AutorisierungKreisbogenDatenfeldLie-GruppeZusammenhängender GraphVersionsverwaltungAbenteuerspielDienst <Informatik>RöhrenflächeRechter WinkelMetropolitan area networkSchraubenlinieBesprechung/Interview
14:21
Fluss <Mathematik>PunktspektrumSpannweite <Stochastik>BandmatrixBandmatrixMeterEinsFormation <Mathematik>Spannweite <Stochastik>AggregatzustandMailing-Liste
15:45
BandmatrixATMZweiVererbungshierarchieMailing-ListeATMFreier LadungsträgerSpieltheorieCodeRechenschieberWellenlehreStandardabweichungDatenerfassungComputeranimation
16:52
DigitalsignalAnalogieschlussFormation <Mathematik>VererbungshierarchieATMTelekommunikationBroadcastingverfahrenDatentransferKryptologieWort <Informatik>ChiffrierungSatellitensystemFluss <Mathematik>BandmatrixEnterprise-Resource-PlanningPauli-PrinzipPuls <Technik>PunktspektrumLeistung <Physik>EinhüllendeHorizontaleCliquenweitep-BlockAggregatzustandLeistung <Physik>EinfügungsdämpfungFormation <Mathematik>TelekommunikationMultiplikationsoperatorBandmatrixPauli-PrinzipEinsWort <Informatik>Arithmetisches MittelKonditionszahlMeterURLSpannweite <Stochastik>CliquenweitePuls <Technik>MusterspracheSatellitensystemInstallation <Informatik>BimodulFrequenzApp <Programm>Radikal <Mathematik>AnalogieschlussWorkstation <Musikinstrument>BroadcastingverfahrenATMWasserdampftafelSynchronisierungPunktspektrumCASE <Informatik>FeuchtigkeitSoftwaretestFreier LadungsträgerVererbungshierarchieMereologieEinhüllendeWellenlehreStandardabweichungRechenschieberGebäude <Mathematik>FunktionalVorzeichen <Mathematik>SystemaufrufVorlesung/Konferenz
22:53
Aggregatzustandp-BlockKlasse <Mathematik>Nichtlinearer OperatorFluss <Mathematik>CodePauli-PrinzipSoftwaretestBandmatrixFrequenzVorzeichen <Mathematik>PunktHorizontaleMultiplikationsoperatorFrequenzZahlenbereichAggregatzustandTurm <Mathematik>BitrateMereologieSystemaufrufRechter WinkelSoftwaretestKrümmungsmaßFormation <Mathematik>MeterMinimalgradLeistung <Physik>Nichtlinearer OperatorVorzeichen <Mathematik>BitRauschenSchreib-Lese-KopfKlasse <Mathematik>GarbentheorieMailing-ListeAusnahmebehandlungMateriewelleCodeDreiecksfreier GraphInformationsspeicherungEinsSymboltabelleSpannweite <Stochastik>Spezielle unitäre GruppeKondition <Mathematik>Stellenring
28:54
SystemaufrufVorzeichen <Mathematik>Vorzeichen <Mathematik>TelekommunikationURLZahlenbereichCASE <Informatik>MultiplikationsoperatorSystemaufrufProgrammierung
30:18
FreewareMessage-PassingGradientFluss <Mathematik>Treiber <Programm>Digitale PhotographieROM <Informatik>Treiber <Programm>ZeichenvorratInformationsspeicherungRechenbuchPhysikalische TheorieProzess <Informatik>Bell and HowellCASE <Informatik>Formation <Mathematik>Rechter WinkelRegistrierung <Bildverarbeitung>Elektronischer ProgrammführerKlasse <Mathematik>SoftwaretestZahlenbereichGradientTypentheorieMultiplikationsoperatorMetropolitan area networkBeobachtungsstudieUnternehmensarchitekturHalbleiterspeicherKonfiguration <Informatik>Reelle ZahlFluss <Mathematik>DatenverwaltungSoftwareVorlesung/Konferenz
34:31
StandardabweichungSpezielle unitäre GruppeDatenfeldAusnahmebehandlungLinearisierungFormation <Mathematik>Rechter WinkelProgrammierungComputerunterstützte ÜbersetzungPolarkoordinatenSpannungsmessung <Mechanik>MeterDigitale PhotographieEinsFunktionalVersionsverwaltungViereckHackerSoftwareZweiSchnittmengeSoftwaretestNeuroinformatikNotebook-ComputerHeegaard-ZerlegungLeistung <Physik>SmartphoneZellularer AutomatSchraubenlinieOffene MengeDifferenteATMFrequenzCase-ModdingAnalogieschlussCDMACADSpannweite <Stochastik>VariableDichte <Stochastik>ZählenUmsetzung <Informatik>Strom <Mathematik>StandardabweichungEinfügungsdämpfungPlastikkarteSystemaufrufTypentheorieSchnitt <Mathematik>MehrrechnersystemLogikanalysatorBildschirmmaskeSoundverarbeitungResultanteLokales MinimumWeg <Topologie>MultiplikationsoperatorEin-AusgabeDateisystemInternetworkingStrömungsrichtungOrtsoperatorDämpfungGradient
44:37
Element <Gruppentheorie>Virtuelle RealitätHackerVirtualisierungATMGarbentheorieMultiplikationsoperatorCASE <Informatik>EichtheorieGamecontrollerSpeicherabzugART-NetzWeb SitePolygonGebäude <Mathematik>VerdeckungsrechnungHook <Programmierung>MAPWhiteboardElement <Gruppentheorie>Analogieschluss
47:15
Web SiteDruckspannungVerknüpfungsgliedRungescher ApproximationssatzRechter WinkelTurm <Mathematik>Schreib-Lese-KopfMAPFigurierte ZahlVorlesung/Konferenz
48:25
MAPBesprechung/Interview
Transkript: Englisch(automatisch erzeugt)
00:01
Las Vegas. It's great to be a winner and aren't we all? Well, we've had a few technical difficulties with this presentation this morning. First, my presentation was on an iron key. And Tuesday it decided to eat itself. So there are a few glitches in the PowerPoint. So if you see them, try not to notice. Thank you. And, yeah, this laptop
00:28
has already blue screened on me twice this morning. So let's just keep our fingers crossed. Well, a bit about me. My name is Matt Crick. My voice is my passport. Verify me. I go by DC flux. I was a teenage engineer. I'm a video editor. And I like to live
00:47
on the edge a bit and hang out on towers. It's a lot more fun than video editing at a video talks. Why am I bothering? So Chapter 1 is going to get a lot of people's feathers
01:06
ruffled because they are in love with their smart phones. But let me tell you why I named it this. This was because while I was putting these slides together, the Boy Scouts of America were doing their youth jamboree at our local Boy Scout camp.
01:25
And one of the things you can get as a Boy Scout is the radio merit badge. So here I am explaining, trying to explain to a kid just about in junior high, you know, how
01:42
cool radio is and all that. And he just sort of looks at me and yawns and pulls out one of these. Well, joke's on him because the camp is located in a cellular dead zone with spotty coverage at best. But I was like, you little bastard. When I was
02:03
your age, my computer at the time was a Commodore 64. The family's, not mine, mind you, cell phone was this Panasonic bag phone here and couldn't find a battery for it. But that's what it looked like. Cost about between two and three dollars a minute
02:25
just to use the thing. And it made calls and nothing else. And the first, you know, if I wanted personal communications in the field, my first radio was the Yezu FT709. But, you know, so everyone, you know, got their smart phone so they could make phone calls.
02:48
But guess what? An amateur radio, we've got that. We have manual phone patch and we have auto patch if you have a repeater. We've got push-to-talk, frequency modulated, amplitude modulation, digital modulation. Oh, a special note, I didn't put
03:02
D star on this. I did not put D star on this slide because even though it's all kinds of fun and IP based, the audio quality is very lacking compared to P25. Text messaging, we got it. We got Morse code, teletype, packet, PSK. What else? We got
03:23
picture mail. We got slow scan television where you can send your pictures with packet. We've got video chat. You know, full bandwidth, 6 megahertz wide amateur television. And we've got like three different versions of digital amateur television going right now. And we've got location awareness. We've got APRS, which, you know, is basically the
03:45
amateur version of LoJack. But I don't run it anymore because I don't want the nerds knowing where I am. We've got internet access. On the 2.4 gigahertz band, channels
04:00
one through six fall in the ham band. And that means as long as you don't exceed the bandwidth, you know, run like the full 22 megahertz wide on channel six and one, you can run up to 1500 watts using, you know, standard, you know, build amplifiers for standard off the shelf equipment. On 5.7 gig, channels 136 through 165
04:26
fall within the ham band. So about the only thing we don't have is an app store. But we don't really need one because the vast majority of software written for amateur radio use is free or it is shareware. And the stuff that isn't is really affordable.
04:47
But, you know, we don't have an evil empire of profiteering gluttons. Okay, quick show of hands. Who in here is paying $50 a month for their smartphone bill? I'll get to that.
05:05
All right. So about half of you put that up. Who's paying $100? Okay, the number shrunk to about a quarter of the room. But once you get your license and buy the equipment, there are no further bills required with amateur radio. My brother and I
05:25
had gotten our licenses on the same day and we were issued concurrent calls. Paul was KC7GRZ and I was KC7GSA. But because Paul was older, he got the dual bander. And
05:41
as I said earlier, my first radio was an FT709. So when I told my dad, I want a dual bander, too, like the FT727, you know what I got? He came up with the two meter radio, the FT209 and taped them together. That was my first dual bander. So I'm like, oh,
06:05
what the ‑‑ but later he would come up for me the Kenwood TH77. I love this radio to death and I probably would be paralyzed right now if I didn't have it with me when I was hiking once. This one is a little big. Usually when I'm out in the field, I'll put the radio
06:25
on my back like that. But I fell off a cliff and used my TH77 for landing gear. And the whole front panel was damaged, LCD cracked, battery scuffed. But you know what?
06:40
I turned it on and it still worked and I could make a call for help. Try that with your iPhone. Okay. Moving on to amateur radio. Now, a lot of people ‑‑ this slide was actually a quick comparison for commercial radio and television broadcasting. Well, you
07:02
know, it's really a pain in the butt to get one of these going. It's like lawyer fees. I just got charged $160 for a five minute phone call from this guy. And then the bill showed up because I was changing a license to my name from another guy's name. And it was about four grand, maybe a little more. Then you got your FCC fees, which is
07:25
at least $500 per application. And then you got to fight for the right to get a license allocation, which, you know, depending on the market and what you're going for is between $30,000 and $5 million such as ones for the Vegas market. And then you
07:44
still got the equipment to buy. And depending on the size of your transmitter, it could be $5,000 to $1 million and that doesn't include any of the studio equipment. Then there's like the mandated emergency alert system stuff that's going to add at least
08:01
three grand to your price tag. Then we got your ASCAP, BMI and RIAA fees. Who would think that the people that write the music actually want to get paid for it? But anyways, Interham radio. You just have to pay for the exams and buy equipment. And a lot of people fear amateur radio operators because they think the guy with the 75-foot
08:26
tall tower a mile down the road from them is interfering with their TV when in fact it's the Citizen's Band operator with the 16-pill amplifier running class C that lives behind them that gets into everything including the toaster. And while we're on that
08:41
note, Citizen's Band is not amateur radio. While your smart CB'er is doing something like this, our radios have that feature built in from the factory. And it always breaks my heart when I see a good radio gone bad. People beg and plead for me to repair their
09:03
radios because apparently I am the only one in the tri-state area that knows how. But when I turn it on and it comes up on a CB channel, I get really mad. It immediately goes back to the person unrepaired or I will impound it saying it can't be fixed
09:20
anymore and I'd like it for parts. Such is the case with this poor Heathkit SB200. This was butchered by some CB'er to run the bias extra hard because he wanted quote, more swang. Apparently that's some CB'er turn that indicates to how far they can
09:41
make their watt meter move. So, you know, we told the guy couldn't fix it anymore and we unmodified it. So it lives happily once again. Also, FRS, GMRS, MERS, that's not amateur radio either. FRS, you're limited to power and it's basically a UHF version of CB
10:03
radio. GMRS is a cheap way to get a commercial radio system going and I'm not even sure what MERS is. I didn't have time to look it up. So, when you mention ham radio, people often associate it with this stereotype of a bunch of fat guys sitting around
10:22
that like to talk on the radio. Well, I won't lie to you, we've got that. But the teamwork on field day, it's getting people interested in the hobby. It's about learning
10:45
how to solder and build electronics. It's about designing custom electronics for whatever application you may have. It's about volunteering. It's about putting up antennas
11:04
and towers during the day. It's hanging out on a tower during a windstorm to install a helix connector. And sometimes you have to go up the tower at night. It's a series
11:21
of tubes. Sometimes you can experiment and make those tubes glow right in your hand. It's some guy's homemade arc welder. It's using thermite to weld. It's collecting
11:46
electronics and various components and documentation in your bedroom. It's collecting equipment in your car. It's hiking up mountains for better range. It's talking through satellites
12:05
in orbit for better range. It's disaster preparedness. It's being a trained weather spotter for the National Weather Service. It's volunteering during an actual disaster.
12:27
It's an adventure that requires four-wheel drive to get to. And sometimes you need a Black Hawk helicopter to get to it. Amateur radio can turn your girlfriend from this
12:46
to this. Most of all, amateur radio is about the things that I didn't have time to show you, which you will just have to find out some of these on your own if you,
13:01
you know, do take an interest. But don't take my word for it. Here are some of the hams that you people may already know. This is Jay, K5Z Charlie. This is Bob, K2AMH. This is Joe, WB6ACU. This is Art, W6OBB. This is Nolan, W7DUK. This is
13:29
John, K2HEP. This is Steve, WA6BND. This is Clifford, K7TA. And this is Kevin, N6NHG.
13:44
Moving right along, the FCC is the man. Established by the government to be the entity that taxes people for the use of the electromagnetic spectrum, something that should otherwise be free. But anyways, these are the only people that have the authority to grant
14:01
your license and to shut you down. Now, you don't know about the league? The amateur radio relay league is ham radio's version of the NRA. They basically file legal petitions with the government on behalf of amateur radio operators, and being a member gets you a free subscription to a magazine. I was going to say QST is like guns and ammo
14:26
for hams, but surprisingly, that magazine wasn't owned by the NRA. And we've got some bands that we're allowed to use. You know, this is the HF radio spectrum, 160 meters
14:40
through 10 meters. 60 meters there is one of our newest bands, and the thing there is we're not allowed to use that whole chunk there. That is actually channelized into five channels, and you're allowed upper sideband voice only with 50 watts PEP, but I'll tell you, it works excellent. The 50 watts on a 12-foot whip is enough to
15:06
talk from Arizona to the surrounding states easy, both day and night. Here's our higher bands, 6 meters through 13 centimeters. What can I say? And we've got more. We've got
15:21
places all over the place. You know, I didn't show you all of our microwave bands, but these are the most actively used ones because equipment's readily available, and you don't have to fight with dish alignment. And while we're on that note, the narrower the bandwidth
15:41
your emission is, the longer you can make the range work. So at the top of this list is SSCW, which stands for super slow carrier wave. Now the trick there is the DITs, it's more as code, but the DITs are 10 seconds long each, and the DAs are 30 seconds long.
16:03
But because they're that slow, you know, you need special equipment to decode it. Running 5 watts looks like 50,000 on the other end. Wi-Fi data here, you know, it depends on which mode data you run. Maybe 1 megahertz to 22 megahertz wide, which is why you
16:23
might have trouble trying to make that work through a wall without antenna gain. But yeah. Oh, also FM phone here. Commercial handheld radios have gone from 16 kilohertz deviation down to 8. And I have seen 20 and 50 kilohertz FM phone on ham, but it isn't
16:45
often because a lot of that equipment was left over from the first golden age. And I'll get to that slide here in a minute. But one of the nice things about amateur radio is you can build your own mode. And, you know, super slow analog data, analog
17:00
HDTV, that worked. That was actually 3 cable television modulators on 57, 58, and 59, combined ran through an amp and decoded on 3 VHS decks. But with all things, some restrictions do apply. You have to give your call sign at the beginning and end in
17:24
every 10 minutes. You're not allowed to obscure the meaning of communications like, hey, I put that thing in that place for you that one time. No encryption unless you're commanding a satellite. No broadcasting. So that means that you have to talk to somebody unless it is a QST, as in the case of amateur radio news line. No music
17:46
unless it's part of a NASA rebroadcast. Of course, the last shuttle mission was a couple of weeks ago, so I kind of think that one's not really going to apply for a lot of other words. But the swearing thing is also dependent on the moral standards of
18:03
the community, such as the case in the Los Angeles basin. But remember to give your call sign first if you want to test the waters, and if someone will report you to the FCC. So in short, don't be an asshat on amateur radio, and you'll get along with
18:22
it just fine. If you have to, take your shenanigans down to CB where they belong. Here's the good stuff. 1500 watts pep on most bands with a few restrictions. Like I said, 50 watts on 60 meters, which is easy out of a mobile radio. 200 watts pep on 30 meters,
18:44
and also 30 meters is a CW only band. And 50 watts pep on 70 centimeters, which is UHF in some locations, and that's a paved pause thing, and I'll get to that later. But the nice thing is you can run unlimited ERP. You can, like I said, build your own
19:02
mode. They're allowed on all bands, except the pulse and spread spectrum ones are limited to pretty much 900 megahertz and above, because of those are the bands that have a lot of bandwidth to them. And also, you know, unlimited, you know, as long
19:20
as your emission falls within the amateur radio bands, you can have as much bandwidth as you want on 900 megahertz. What I talked about in the last slide was pep, peak envelope power. That's the power leaving your transmitter terminals, and it's peak because sideband and AM, they don't function with a continuous carrier, and a good
19:43
example of this is with AMTV. An AMTV signal will typically, the average power is 75%, typically below the peak power, because of the sync tips for the horizontal sync. ERP, however, is effective radiated power, which is the power you can
20:01
actually throw into the radio horizon after the feed line loss and the antenna gain. So, you know, I've seen some people, actually, this is notable because it was a Las Vegas television station that did it. They had a license for 2 million watts ERP, and they thought they were going to do it with a 10,000 watt
20:23
transmitter and make everything up in antenna gain. And I couldn't find a donut to explain this, but the higher antenna gain you use, the narrower the beam width. So if you use a very low, very low gain antenna, imagine the pattern leaving it looking something like a donut. But as you start to make that
20:44
into like 10 or 20 dB gain, that donut starts flattening out into a pancake. Now, if you put a pancake on top of a mountain, your power will fly over everyone down below the mountain and land someplace 120 miles away. And that's just, you know, they're probably not trying to watch you, but the
21:04
poor guys that are 5 and 10 miles below under you are. Here's that power restriction per 47 CFR 2.106, footnote U.S. 7. Pretty much you'll see all of Arizona's
21:22
covered most of Southern California, actually, most of California, too, and the Southern Nevada portion that Las Vegas resides in. But basically these are outlines around U.S. government Air Force installations. And pretty much we share the UHF spectrum with,
21:43
you know, the 70 centimeter spectrum with the government, and they use it for radar to look for space junk. So they don't like when one of our repeaters starts getting to them and they get all excited thinking that, you know, this guy's repeater in his backyard is some space junk over by Mars.
22:04
Estimated ranges. Okay. Whenever I tell someone about how great amateur radio is, they're always like, well, what kind of range can I get? Well, a lot of it depends on the band and conditions, but here's kind of a chart I put together, and generally the lower the frequency,
22:23
the better range you can get because of path loss. The higher the buildings, foliage, some frequencies even get absorbed by the moisture in the air. But 160 meters is the 1.8 to
22:42
2 megahertz portion. And a lot of the people that are on this will run retired broadcast transmit, AM broadcast transmitters. But the reason I put bad range on that is because you're combating with a lot of noise on 160 meters. Everything
23:02
that has a switch mode, power supply will make garbage, twisty lights, both chargers. Yeah, it can get intense. 80 to 20 meters, which is our HF range, you know, generally it works pretty good. Some bands work better at night. Other bands work better during the day.
23:22
Okay, it's a little big to put on this chart. Now, 10 meters. 10 meters I put on here has a peak and a dip because that really gets good in 11 year cycles, excuse me, that are concurrent with the sun spot activity that's going on.
23:43
And right now we're still kind of in the null because for whatever reason the sun hasn't decided to erupt again. So no one's really sure if that's a good thing or not. But during the peak of the sun spot cycle, I tell you, a 5 watt handheld, you can talk to Florida from Arizona. And
24:03
you know, a mobile rig will talk to Japan from my driveway. VHF and UHF, which are the bands that are in these handhelds here. VHF penetrates a little bit better because the wavelength is longer. UHF tends to get absorbed a little bit better. And also this is dependent on your city and
24:23
you know, what you have, skyscrapers and stuff. Now microwave, microwave you generally have to use dishes for because like I said, everything wants to absorb it. So generally we use that for point to point operations like linking between mountaintops. And yeah, if you have the right size dish, you can make a microwave
24:43
signal go 150 miles if you have the right two mountaintops. And that is because of the curvature of the earth. We call that K factor. But at 150 miles, the dishes will actually be pointing into the horizon, or you know, about 5 degrees below the horizon to get at the
25:08
surface. Okay, moving right along. So at one point in time, we did have five classes of operator. Number one novice, I could have sworn the last novice on the planet was Walter Cronkite,
25:23
KB2 GSD. He was a novice for about 25 years, but lo and behold, our radio club just found one that wanted to upgrade. So they are still out there. Same with advanced. You most likely will run into people that are advanced simply because there isn't that much difference between
25:43
advanced and extra, and you can't get it advanced anymore. So they're kind of using that as a status symbol. So nowadays we have very simple three classes of operator, technician, general, and extra. Oh, and one more thing. There's no Morris code requirement anymore. So it's very easy
26:03
to test and get your license. The requirement was dropped in 2007. The day after that happened was when I went down, studied for three hours the night before, and took my general. There were 34 people at that session, and we were at a paint
26:23
store, and I actually had to stand at a shelf in the back of the paint store to take it. And no one told me this, but I had used blue pen, and I circled the letters on the answer sheet.
26:41
This is one of our grading templates. It was almost an instant fail until the guy moved it and was like, oh, you kind of did this wrong. I'm like, well, you didn't tell me, and you didn't give me a pencil, but anyways. So let's take a look at what's in the technician package. Well, you get
27:02
all the privileges on six meters and up, and you get some HF privileges. They're very limited, but hey, we'll take what we can get. You're limited to 200 watts pet power, but the typical mobile radio does 100 watts, so you're fine there. CW only on 80, 40, and 15.
27:23
CW ready and data on 10 meters, and you do get SSB voice, upper sideband voice on 28.3 to 28.5. So there's a lot of activity that'll happen on 28.4, because that's generally the one everyone congregates to. So if you take general, well, you get all the technician privileges, plus most of
27:42
the HF privileges, except for a couple of small slivers that are reserved specifically for advanced and extra. And if you become a volunteer examiner, you get the ability to give technician tests, and I was kind of scratching my head about that, too. You know, you'd think you'd be
28:02
allowed to give the general ones, but for some reason they only give you technician. And if you get your extra, well, you get all that, plus all the other frequency privileges, the ability to administer all VE tests, and you're entitled to a class A or class B call sign. This is a class A call sign.
28:22
Also, most states offer special hand plates. Check your local listings for this. Some states they're free, some states they're discounted. Arizona kind of sucks, so you actually have to pay the same rate as a personal plate in Arizona. But, you know,
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you get the little tower on the side, and it looks so much cooler. And another thing, I always get asked this a lot. People come up, and they're like, what part of Pennsylvania are you from? Well, the number that's in a call sign represents what geographic location it was issued in. And the reason
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why I have a three in my call sign is because it is almost impossible to find a one by two or a two by one in seven land because a large number of them were reserved for Hawaii and Alaska, and people when the vanity program came out started getting them because they thought they were lucky. But anyways, also,
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American call signs only have one number in them. So right away, if you know someone, you can tell someone's not legitimate, such as the case of W6JJ4, just right away, because they'll have, when you ask them their call sign, they'll have an improperly
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formatted one. Okay, so who here recognizes these basic electronic symbols? Okay, but who of you know which one doesn't belong? I passed my novice without studying when I was
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bored at a ham fest one time, and I was twelve, and I knew what a switch looked like on a schematic, a resistor, a capacitor. So if you know anything about how to read a schematic for electronics, you can get along just fine. But, you know, if you're really interested on studying, go to this store.
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We are less than a mile from it, it's south, you can walk there if you can bear the Las Vegas summer heat, or if you can find a taxi driver that'll only take you there for a mile, go for it. But go in there, talk to a guy named Luke, he's the store manager, very cool guy, and he'll show you these books.
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Okay, so they are a little pricey, but they are extremely well written, and do a really good job going into theory. Plus, when you have your license, you can hand them down. AES typically has 25 of each type in stock at any given time. If you don't see a copy on the
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shelf, just ask and they'll find it. They also have the Gordon West study guides available there as well. And, you know, I know what you're saying. Well, Mr. Flux, I don't want to spend too much money on this. Well, if you're willing to use DEF CON's network, we have free online resources.
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I will point out, though, that when taking the QRZ practice exams, please remember to advance the test numbers. Because it will put you on test number one by default, and if you don't advance it, such as the case of Kimberly, K-E-7-P-Y-L,
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she was like, oh, look, I'm getting 100%. I'm like, really? Advance it to test two? 20. Because, you know, she kept learning the same 35 questions over and over again. This is the question pool size. So typically when you take your technician and general,
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26 right or better. Passing grade is 75% or 74% or better. And I will point out that the general question pool has changed July 1st. So make sure you have the right question pool that you're studying for.
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So which class is right for you? General. General is right for everybody. I recommend everyone become at least a general because you get privileges on all of the HF bands minus those small segments, but that's fine. You just can't talk to Art Bell and Pals on 3840.
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And the segments reserved for advanced and extra, which, you know, it's 400 kilohertz based over, what was it, 12 bands. So it's not that much. And it's real cheap to take the test via us. You know, save a little coin
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for the exam. This was the first year we actually started testing here at DEF CON and there were actually a few more of us, but they had to go before this picture got taken. Let's see. Okay, so things to bring. Obviously $15. We'd like a photocopy of your driver's license,
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a photocopy of your existing FCC license, or you can print out the reference copy if you're going to upgrade to something like general or extra. We'd also like to have your FRN, which I believe is federal registration number, but I'm not sure on my alphabet soup today. If you don't have an FRN and you trust us,
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we can use your SSN. And calculators optional, but it has to be an old school one that you can prove to us that it doesn't have the test memorized in it. So, you know, a TI-36 would be just fine, but don't show up with a TI-84 unless you can prove to me
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that the memory is 100% clear on it, okay? So, can you do it? Well, you can. Ass kicked by a blind man. This is my club's president, Bill Katie 7 M.I.A. He is legally blind from when an accident happened aboard the USS Enterprise.
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The engine on an F-14 Tomcat exploded in his face and this was the day he passed his extra. And here he is on field day in a tent with blaring wind and we're giving volunteer examinations.
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And this one just happened. This is Karen Lee. She doesn't have her call yet because she just passed on Tuesday. She didn't have a lot. Here's the impressive thing. She didn't have a laptop or a computer with the internet, couldn't afford a book, and didn't ask
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anyone to print out the questions for her. So she studied on a droid. Yes, wouldn't you know it? Smartphones are actually good for something after all. And she actually took it the month previous, but the website she was studying on, I forget which one it was,
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but their mobile version did not have the current question pool. So she failed the first time, but came back and took it on Tuesday and passed with only two wrong. Okay, so everyone's thinking, okay, show me the hacks. Well,
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we are on the verge of the second golden age of amateur radio. The first one was the first commercial narrow banding in 1963 and that's when we went from 15 kilohertz FM deviation to five. So you've got to love unfunded government mandates. So all the equipment
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that is made obsolete by mandates is worthless to everyone except hams. So you can get four and five hundred dollar handheld radios. Twenty bucks, ten bucks, sometimes even free if you find the right guy. So pretty much we're going from
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the second narrow banding that takes effect, I believe it's February 2013. Simple, we're going from five kilohertz to one kilohertz. So we're going to be able to turn the radio and turn the pot down so it doesn't deviate as much. But no, the FCC says specifically
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that the radio has to be type accepted for that emission standard and no one wants to pay 15,000 dollars to send the radio to the laboratory to prove that it's doing the emission they say it is. So as a
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dumped on eBay and ham fest like crazy right now. So what do you need to work on radios? Well, I recommend you have at least one CAD on your bench at all times, because if you do, your critter count goes down to practically nothing. Also, the messier your bench is, the more work you can get done. So what I have on my bench here, and this
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is kind of an old picture. To the left there, I have an Astrone VS35M, which is variable voltage, variable amperage power supply up to 35 amps. Very useful for working on almost any radio. Behind the cat there is my trusty HP8924C. That is actually a CDMA
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cellular test set, but they built it on top of the 8920, so it still retains all of the analog functionality of the 8920, but the difference is that test set is 2,000
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versus 12,000 for a used 8920. So it weighs a ton, but by golly it works great. Above that is a Hewlett-Packard, I believe it's 1634 logic analyzer. I believe it's got 48 inputs, but it might have a few more. But anyways, I picked that up for
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50 bucks on eBay, and it actually belonged to Connor Peripheral, so it even came with history. Also to the right of the cat is a Fluke 87. I'll tell you, spend the money now and buy a decent volt meter, because these fly-by-night ones out of China, I've actually had this happen within the last month, because I don't like my good meter
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leaving the house, but I get up on the mountain, pull it out of my backpack, and the thing promptly fries itself in my hand. And what was impressive is I didn't even have it plugged into external voltage yet. And also you're not seeing this to the right, but I do have a Dell computer there, so if I need to look up a data
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sheet on something, I can just, boom, pull it right up. Okay. Oh, here's my Motorola card extraction tool used in insertion mode. Believe it or not, Motorola actually gets like $45 for the right tool that does this, and who
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would know that you'd have one sitting right below your feet. Here's one of the hacks I did. Also, the hacks I have done do appear on the DEF CON DVD in PDF form, so if you need instructions on how to convert something that I've converted to amateur, it's right there for you. This is a GE VHF Master 3,
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and what is awesome about this is when I wrote the article on how to convert it, they put it on Repeater Builder, and it appears right below an article that somebody wrote saying you can't convert these to run in a hand band. But it's a little, this is the vast majority of the work, basically I just soldered
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brass acorn nuts onto the top of the tuning slug so I could get a little more metal and make the helicals pull down to where I want them. Here's a board out of the UHF government band, a very simple mod here, take the whole thing
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apart and cut a quarter turn off each one of these helicals. Sometimes you have the other split though, 450 to 470, and those are two down okay, but if you want that extra one or two dB, you got to take it apart and, well, this mod's real cheap because it only costs seven cents. But while you're in
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there, oh, tin whiskers. The one on the right is actually a photo I took. The one I took was about five eighths to three quarters of an inch long, and it almost looks like a scratch, it's so fine, but this thing is so fine, I had to stop breathing while I was taking
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the picture because it was moving in the wind and I was like two feet from it. What happens here is the whiskers, no one knows why they grow, not even NASA, but they'll grow and short out your stuff and then you'll be like, well, why ain't my stuff working? And I actually saw this on a mountaintop. The Master II, the drawer was
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folded open in the position, open position, and someone wrote on it in sharpie, do not close. Because as soon as you closed it, the whiskers came down and shorted out your helicals. The one, the most underutilized band in amateur radio right now is the 221 simply because
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there's only like one commercial manufacturer, you know, AM radio manufacturer that makes radios that run on it because apparently America is the only country that has a 220 amateur band. So everyone avoids it like the plague. Like, you know, you'll find
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radios that have the functionality in them like the quad and the triple bander like the THF6A does 220. So lately I've been a fire department graciously donated to our club about 50 of these things and we're like, well, great, they're on VHF, what are we going to do with them? So I did some
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research and found out it was possible to make the thing run on 220. You know, it took me about three or four weeks worth of effort to do but because it's a 45 megahertz IF radio, very simple, I just convinced the voltage control oscillator to run backwards and I hacked the software to where it would program
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that far out of range. So the transmit frequency you program true and the receive frequency you program 90 megahertz minus where you actually want it. Well, if you don't like GE, here's kind of the same thing I did in a Motorola Max Track. This one's a little
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more involved because I had to take apart a bunch of the coils and I got tired of fighting with the PA so I just took the Dremel and cut a slot out and shoved a, that's actually a linear power brick in the center there that I stole out of a amplitude commandered single
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sideband 220 rig. I knew it was wrong but I did it anyways. And wouldn't you know it, the battery for this one ran dead sometime between Wednesday and Thursday. But anyways, I swear it works on 220 but this is
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a GE PCS handheld so if you see in the photo here I actually put brass screws and the receive tuning coils and I did a little work changing coils on the power brick
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simply because the one that might work on 220 is almost impossible to find anywhere. Here's some, I always ask people this, got any 6 meter duplexers? I do. I had to pick them up and have a friend drive up and get them and they made a
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800 mile trip and came down to me and they wouldn't really tune where I wanted them until I pulled the thing apart and very simple, cut one turn off that coil and solder it back together and stretch it out. And there's been a fierce debate over old crystal controlled rigs. Which one's better, the MiCore or the Master II?
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Well, I like the MiCore because the receiver is hot but the Master II transmitter is just so good it's tough. Anyways the surplus market has a ton of these for hams that are just they were practically already worthless to commercial users but now they're really
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worthless. But they are crystal controlled and no one likes to spend $50 and wait two months for a set to grind. If only there was a solution. Well now there is. Thanks to new technology from our friends at Analog Devices we've created the virtual channel element MiCore edition. And I'll tell you when you
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solder an LFCSP24 by hand you've reached max level. Okay so moving on we have the general incompetence section. Okay we got this cable from a guy who got it from a guy who got it from another guy who then actually worked at the place that manufactured it. But what you are seeing here is a
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homemade adapter from quarter inch heliacs to a PL259 connector made from 12 gauge copper wire. Also this is what happens when you are in a site that you are not allowed to have decon at because somebody made the
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Hualapai Mexican vole an endangered species. So the thing gets in your building and it likes to hang out on hot spots and crap all over your board and the problem is that stuff will eat right through the solder mask and start dissolving the copper. So you know such as the case of this radio. This radio jammed in transmit mode and the guy was asking me
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okay find where the interference is coming from and I'm like dude it's your own stuff. And sure enough he goes up there and the thing is transmitting. This is really good. This room was at a juvenile detention facility. They had a problem that every time lightning struck within a mile of the place the door controllers would blow up.
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This room had the best indoor ground system I had ever seen with three eight foot ground radios drilled through the foundation and double zero copper all throughout the baseboard. This lone poly phaser here is our lightning arrestor is the only thing connected to it. Also I
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find it humorous because no antennas were connected to it at the time either. But yeah they never even bothered to hook the antenna to it once they got the ground system. At first this antenna looks at the top here looks like it's pointing at Las Vegas.
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Look again. Too much stress on the tower when the antenna was a popsicle and the wind speed got high enough ripped the top rungs right off the tower because it wasn't bolted low enough. All right I was scratching my head on this next picture and I'm sorry it's a little hard to see but for this is the K triple a M tower old dark one in Kingman for some reason someone bolted
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cellular antennas at the 40 foot level which it didn't make sense to me and I was scratching my head. I even called their chief engineer and he didn't know. So you know I didn't figure out why they did it until I went to the parking lot and this is what I saw across the street. Apparently cellular coverage is so lousy in our town that they couldn't
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sell cell phones. And this is a site access gate and this is kind of a double edged sword. Had it not been for the push bar on this front of this truck it probably wouldn't grab the gate. But also had it not been there this guy would have probably lost his junk. And on that note
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it has occurred to me that we have ran out of time and so I can clear the stage for the next guy. I will be entertaining your questions in the Q&A room. Thank you for attending and enjoy yourselves the rest of the day.