Stay tuned to BeJackRadio for an interview with Sam I Am on Ham Radio. He is an expert in the field and I think you'll find the interview very entertaining and very informative. Is this Sam I Am? This is Sam I Am.
Hey Sam, this is B.Jack Buster Jack from BeJackRadio. Absolutely, how are you doing? I'm doing fine, how about you? Wonderful, wonderful.
Well, Sam I am, I've known, I've heard of you, people told me about you, and I just wanted to call you. If you have time, if you have time to tell me right now. I certainly do. Okay, now the topic that we're going to be discussing today, Sam is Ham Radio.
And the reason that I want to discuss this is that I've had a question from other people about Ham Radio. And I also have an interest in it myself. So what I'd like to do is ask you some questions about Ham Radio and then you can answer my few questions that I haven't anything else that you want to tell us that you think we need to know or would be interesting. Would be interesting.
I'd like to hear it. Is that all right? Yes, sir. All right.
Now the first thing I'd like to ask you is, I understand that you have to have a license to have a radio. Is this correct? That's correct, yes. How many different types of licenses are the Sam?
There are three. There is the technician, the general, and the extra. Okay, now can you briefly tell us the difference and what they're for and just tell us about each type that you mentioned? Well, it's just different privileges.
The technician, for example, is 10 meters, which is 28, 23, 23, 23, 28, 25 megahertz. And that's 10 meters. And then 30 megahertz and above is strictly a technician. Now your general and your extra get into much more.
You have a lot of bar and band and more privileges. Actually, there's not a whole lot of difference in the extra in the general, except that actually gives you a little bit more to talk with. But they're all just all different classes. There's three different classes and I'm hoping eventually they're going to just put it down to one or two, but we'll see.
What license do you have? I have a general. Okay. Now, what did you have to do to get that license?
Well, I studied first at my technicians license in 95 and then in 09 after they did away with the code completely. I decided to take my general. I just was not interested in Morse code, but you know, some people do and some people don't. But I studied and I would say the best way to study is probably to contact handy hams.
It's a toll free number. You get it from direct resistance and they would assist you in anything that you might need as far as studying to take your test. Do they have study materials that are accessible to people who are visually impaired? Yeah, they have CDs and tapes.
Well, CDs, I think they've gone away from tapes now, but there's also websites that you can go to. I don't specifically know any because it's been a long time. I had people braid on my own for me, but it's getting hard to do that nowadays. But that's how I studied it.
Now, how complicated or how demanding is the test? Well, it's really nothing bad. It's like 55 question tests and it costs 1450 to take each test. No, just a minute.
Say that again. It's a 1450 to take the actual test. Take the test, the general test. Well, either the technician or general, whichever class you decide on.
Now, you could take them all together. If you studied it enough, it wouldn't cost you 1450. Now, if a person wanted to get in on the ground floor, what would you suggest that he do in order to get a license to operate a hand radio? I would say he would need to contact.
If he's blind, he could contact handy hams and they would certainly help him. Would you suggest? Excuse me. Go ahead.
That's the organization that's been helping blind people for years and years. Now, would you suggest that a person go for a technician's license or a general license? What would you do? What would you recommend?
I would probably believe myself. I would do the technician first. I guess it depends on how smart you are. It's a general test.
More difficult than the technician test. It's a little harder. It's certainly not near as hard as the extra. Now, the extra, you're going to have to really use the brain power to do that extra.
Okay. Now, as I understand it, hand-operators, police themselves, is that correct? Yes, that is correct. For the most part.
It's getting away from it now more so that the longer that they go, the more how that's not for misgus exactly, but the less they care, there are some frequencies you wouldn't really want to probably go to, but you just have to use your own discretion. Can I TV you know? Are there a, what kind of equipment and what is the cost of the equipment if you want to operate a ham station and you have a license? What kind of equipment do you need?
Well, depends on if you're strictly a tech, you would, you could get a mobile for a couple hundred dollars, a portable for like 70 or 80. Depends on what you want to buy. How hard are you? It's got like buying a stereo system.
You know, you can get a deluxe model or you can get an average. Well, let me, let's go. What do you have? Well, now I have, right now I have some portable, a couple of portables.
There are ones about the four, five hundred and the other one is probably about 80, 80 or the other. That's when you get into big money. It's about $1,600 for the radio and then I've got an amplifier that probably about another 2000. Now when you say portable, are you talking about something similar to a whole deal?
Yeah. Handheld. Yeah. Right.
Handheld. I'm sorry. Right. And you say yours is about 80 dollars?
Yeah, for the one of them. Now the other one is a little bit more expensive, but it's a lot better unit. You know? Where do you, where do you obtain ham equipment if you want to buy something?
There's all kinds of AES out of Milwaukee. There's a ham station. There's there's all kinds of ham radio outlet. There's a main trading company.
There's gigaparts. There's all kinds of ham equipment. The right, Rob, you know, once you once you get your license. Now Sam, I am.
Can you buy this equipment before you get a license? I mean, anybody going check you and see if you've got a license or not? No, not necessarily. You could actually you can go online with Amazon and you could get a new sheen.
We call it a wooks on, but they're like $82 at Walmart. You couldn't go to the store again, but you could order it and pick it up at store. Now, if you how much did you say your more expensive radio was? Well, brand new was 1600.
How about the portable? The good for I've got a portable that cost me $400 it was slightly used there. I think they're about 500, but that's a digital radio. That's what they call DMR.
It's digital and the other's analog. The the cheap ones analog. Yeah. Now you're going to have to explain me the difference between analog and digital because I've heard the terms, but I'm well, it's just like your TV.
You know, you remember when the the TV's in 20, I think it was 2011, they went from analog to digital. Right. And it's the same basically the same except we're we still have analog and they didn't with TV. They had to convert everything.
But we have both. You can still operate. I am a radio. Yes.
Yes. Oh, yes. Okay. That's your one that sells for about $400.
Will it do analog and digital or just yes? Yes. But it's strictly on one band. It's not it's not dual band.
I do a band. I mean, it doesn't do two meter and 440. It just does the 440. They do make a two meter, but I don't have one.
So I didn't want to pay for two radios. Oh, gosh, I'm, I'm, this is a lot to absorb and yeah, it is. Tell me about 440 and two meters. What are you talking about?
Well, 440 is considered 70 centimeters. It's just a much higher frequency. It's called UHF. If you remember right back in the 70s when when they first got TV UHF, it's the same basically the same frequencies.
Does one transmit further than the other one are? Well, I find that the two meter analog is 150, 150, well, 146 and 147. They generally it's kind of it's sort of line of sight. Now the other one, the 440 transmits in buildings a little bit better.
Oh, it does. Yes. Now, what is the distance that you can talk on hand radio generally? I mean, depends on the depends on the hand radio and what frequency you're on.
I mean, I've talked all the way around the world, you know, what are repeaters, Sammy? Repeaters are well, they're actually devices. They're on the same frequency, but they rebroadcast the signal of the radio that it's hearing and makes it go out further. And that's your little handheld.
If you had a repeater, you know, the repeater would rebroadcast the signal of your handheld machine so that everybody else could hear it. Otherwise, the little handheld wouldn't go far. So does the repeater, does it pick up the signal automatically if you're close to one or do you have a contact? Yes.
If you can, if you can key it and you can program it into your radio, then yes, if it can hear you, then it will re transmit, rebroadcast it. So I'm assuming then that you you connect the repeaters in order to get out. Is that correct? Well, yeah, I just thought we program our radios and we can, if we can key the repeater, then we can talk on it.
Okay. Well, it's kind of like your police, you know, your police have repeaters that they've broadcast on that rebroadcast their signal. Police firing all that. Right.
So back to my first question or my original question, I guess. So if I got a license and as I understand it, you can buy a radio without having a license. Is that correct? Oh, yeah, you can listen to the radio without a license.
You just can't talk on it. I see. So, but you can purchase one if you want to. Oh, yeah.
Okay. And then once you get the license, then your eligible to broadcast. Yes. Okay.
You know, my only experience with this, Sammy, is back when I was in high school. They had what they called novice license back then. Yes. And I got an office license, which was good.
I think for a year, I don't remember how long it was good for it. But I never did have a radio to use it on. So I never got the broadcast. Well, your typical FCC license is good for 10 years.
Would you excuse me? Go ahead. They're hoping there there's rumors in the rumor may also speak that that they're going to eventually you're not going to have to re resubmit your license after 10 years once you get it, you've got it for life. But so far, they have done that.
But they say they're going to I've heard that they're going to. Or is there any other any complications in renewing a license rather than submitting it? No, just resubmit it on the computer, you know, through online. You can do it online, you know, just go to the FCC website and give them your ID number.
And it just comes up and every your password, whatever, whichever one. And it's pretty, pretty easy to to renew it. Mine's good to 23 now. So what you'd have, I'm interested in this, which I am.
I'm very interested in it. Always have been. I just never did your talk to anyone. Oh, you'd love it.
So you would suggest what it give me, give me some suggestions. What would you do the first, second, and so forth? I would contact Handy Ham's. And you might you might also look on your computer under ham radio studies study.
And you know, but I would contact Handy Ham's first. They could give you some really great information. They have all kinds of study guides and all that stuff. Go ahead and then after I've contacted them, what do I do?
Well, when they send you the materials, you can study it. And then when you get ready, you could call somebody like myself or a ham operator. And we would we would set up a test for you. And they would either come to you or you could go to them or however it was comfortable for you.
We have several what we call VE, their volunteer examiners. And they can actually take three people to give you the test. Three VEs. And they grade it.
And once they grade it, they send it in and you get your license if you pass. And they can tell you what you passed before you're relieved. Are you a VE? No, I'm not.
Do you know any VEs? Oh, yeah, no several. There's quite a few in the bright area. Colleagues Bobby Livingston is one and he has two people that he used to go with him.
Sometimes it's his wife and sometimes it's a fellow named Mike Porter and there are other people. So how do you get to be a VE? Well, you have to take a test. It's free.
But once you get your whatever license like, if you're a technician, you can only do technicians. But now if you're if you're a general, then you know, whatever class you have, well, actually a technician cannot know. I'm sorry about that. You have to be a general in order to give a tech or a general.
I'd say if you want to be a VE. Right. Okay. The best thing to do if you were VE is to be an extra and that way you could do all the classes and wouldn't have to worry about it.
But I just don't have any desire to. I don't have the transportation or the you know, the inclination to do that. But there are people that really like to do that. But you could set up a test for me that is you could Yes.
You could contact the VEs and tell them that. Yes. Absolutely. You could set it up and I could.
Yes. Schedule it and so forth. Yes. Yes.
Absolutely. And would the VEs contact me or what what I would. Yeah. Yeah.
They would either that or you could contact them. It doesn't really matter which. I see whichever one is convenient for you. Now once again, you've answered this question before but which bands are open to the the technician?
Well, mainly your 146 and 147 anything above 30 megahertz or the 10 meter band which is 28.3 to 28.5 megahertz. It's the upper fm or the fm lower fm. I'm sorry. So if I'm looking for let's say I want to.
Well, actually it's not that it's not fm on the 10 meters. It's it's sideband. But sideband is strictly strictly modulation more than carrier strength. And then of course your two meter and 440 gets into carriers and all that kind of stuff.
You worry about signals more there too. Is the two meter band open to technicians? Yes, two meter and 440. I see.
And one one small spot spot on the 10 meter which is the 28.3 to 28.5 band. That's also the technician. So they could talk all the way around the world if the band is open. I see.
Well Sam, this is fascinating to me and I'm going to I don't want to take up all your time. I realize you got other things to do. Oh no, I'm fine. As long as you need.
Well, I really do appreciate your knowledge. Basically, I need to I need to think about this for a little while and try to absorb all that you told me and you listen to it again so I can end up so with everything. But would you be interested in taking my email also that if anybody anybody let them email me if they if they are interested in I could give them some more information. I certainly would and this is going to be a podcast.
I'm going to write this podcast real soon and it's all going to be on my website. So why don't you give us your email address and then I may have to I may need to contact you myself. Be glad to. All right.
It's my him call which is in five s r b and the rest of it is in five s r b s r b. Okay. Four five four four five four at gmail.com. Okay.
All right. That sounds that sounds easy enough. I'm going to put the now the in five s r b is actually my call sign. Right.
So you will be issued a call sign once you pass your test. You will be issued a call sign. Now if you don't like it, you can apply for another one. If it's available and they'll they'll give it to you free charge to use calls, but it's free now.
Right. Okay. So probably it might be helpful to me to listen to some ham to you know, just to get a feel for you know what it's like. Yeah.
Well, if you've got it if you've got a short way radio, you could tune into some ham frequencies down there, you know, in the 75 meter range or 40 meter range. Right. Or I could go ahead and get one of those. $80.
You go. Yes. And what's the what's the name of that Sam? What's it's it's a it's a Ushin and I don't know how to spell it, but it's we pronounce it whoops on because it's easier to but it's a Japanese made radio.
You can I'm sorry, Chinese Chinese made radio and you can order from Amazon. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Well, Sam, this is fascinating and I really do I knew I was talking to the right person. People said, Oh, damn, I am. I said, call Sam, I am and he can give you the lowdown on the portable radios and you certainly have done it. And I very much appreciate your your kindness.
I'm glad to do it. I'm if I could be of any further assistance, be sure let me know. Well, next time we don't have a follow up interview and on the next interview, I'd like to talk to you about what your experience in other words, things that you have done as a ham operator and I'll be glad to. Yeah.
Yeah, we need to do that. You need to I know that well, I won't I won't spoil it for people, but I know that you've had lots of experiences that you could tell us about. So, oh, absolutely. We'll set up another another interview real soon.
Great. And you can do that for us if you don't mind. I would love to. All right, Sam.
Well, I'm going to say goodbye to you. I'm going to let you say goodbye to everybody and you can repeat that email address and then I'm going to let you go and I'm going to get this on the internet just as soon as I can. Well, goodbye folks. And if you would care to correspond with me, my email address is in as in November 5 SRB 454 at gmail.com.
And so I'll be glad to hear from any of you that would be interested in contacting me for anything. Take care, Sam. I am this is B. Jack signing off.
Goodbye.