***Thanks to www.hamtestonline.com - an excellent website for studying and just staying sharp!***
"LDG tuners rock, they will even tune a squirrel!"
Earthlings, earthworms and other (semi)carbon based lifeforms,
Greetings and salutations,
My Dad had a shortwave receiver that he used to let me tinker with as a kid and that is what started it all.
I was absolutely amazed and captivated by the static filled voices that vibrated out of the 5" paper cone speaker on the front of the unit, a majority of which was completely unintelligible and were not even english speaking but to me it was the entire world right in front of me in my parents living room.
From about the age of 10, I was abolutely driven to capture these invisible signals that I knew were all around me.
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STEP 1- CB PHASE: At the age of 11 I discovered the Radio Shack catalog. I asked for a CB radio & a 5 AMP power supply for Christmas. My Mom freaked out, because she thought 18 wheelers were going to be pulling up in front of the house, truckers ringing the doorbell and asking if "Pork & Beans" was home. Well suffice it to say, that never happened. However, I will say I did encounter some wierdoes but none drove big rigs. Around the same age I discovered the JC Penney catalog as well, but that is a completely different story.
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STEP 2 - SCANNER PHASE: Not even a year with the CB and I was on to bigger and better things. I needed a scanner! And not just any old scanner, I had to have a scanner that received 800MHZ, apparently Dekalb County and Stone Mountain Park were on this new type of communications system and I HAD to listen to it. So, I saved up some summer money and bought a Regency Scanner. It only had 20 memories, but it received this 800MHZ stuff so I was all set. I even got the bright idea to program in all of the inputs for the trunking system, so if I was near an incident - Instant "scene only" communications.
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STEP 3 - HAM PHASE: I passed my Technician when I was 14, so I saved up a little more summer money and purchased an Alinco DJ-160 2 meter handheld from Mark Holmes/KJ4VO @ HRO here in Atlanta. When I turned 17 I was hired as the shipping clerk at HRO and after 2 years there I left to work for UPS where I spent about 6 years, from there I got into the Network/IT arena. I recently wrapped up an 11 year gig with a Healthcare IT developer based out of Long Beach California, which had me remote and on the road quite a bit. I am now cooling my heels and working full time again at HRO here in Atlanta. It is nice to be back on board with my HRO family. Actively studying for my Extra, hope to have it on the next few months.
I currently operate the below equipment:
Feel free to EMAIL ME or stop into HRO and say hello if you are in Atlanta or just passing through, hopefully I will be there.
Cheers & 73's
Eric / KD4SUB
