Hello America, and all ships at sea...

Yesterday was a good day in the radio hobby. I took my Extra Class test and passed it. The Extra Class license is the highest one a Ham operator can get and gives the operator quite a bit of growth room in terms of radio frequencies. Basically I now have a broader group of frequencies on which I can talk, look for other hams, and continue my efforts to "talk" to someone in every state. This also opens up the international search as the areas where the internationals often talk with us Yanks are less crowded at these new frequencies. So far, I have talked to a ham in Bulgaria and one in Romania, but now I'm gonna see what's out there. Also, I have also talked to a guy on an island off the coast of Maine, but I guess there are some who probably wouldn't consider that area as a foreign country.

I was a bit disappointed last night, however, as I fired up the rig when I got home from the club meeting thinking I would hear lots of Extra Class guys on the new frequencies. Ran through the dial a few times and switched to several bands, but nobody was on the air. Then I remembered, most of the Extra Class guys are pretty old. It was about 2230 hrs. Most of those guys have been in bed for 3 or 4 hours by now!!

Well, I'm looking forward to cruising the airwaves a bit more now. This is a pretty cool winter escape and it's good to talk to people in other areas.



Travels, whether mental or physical, are fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. (Mark Twain)

Hooah

One sidebar -- at the meeting last night, we were reviewing some communications from ham guys who went to Haiti last week to serve as emergency communications guys until they got their cell towers functional again. It seems that the one group was going around the country side looking for people and they were attacked by bandits who shot at them and tried to get their money and any other goods they could get to sell later. No one in the group was hurt, and they didn't lose anything to the bandits, but it certainly screwed up their efforts at helping people. I guess you have to be there to understand the situation.