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At age 17, I am one of the few young (extra class) hams of the world. Other than ham radio, I enjoy playing the guitar, piano, and marching snare in the drumline, as well as gaming, stumbling the internet, writing, reading and participating in school activities--I'm in Scholar Quiz, Speech and Debate, National Honors Society, International Club, and Student Council. Anything a teen does.

Station Equipment

My station consists of an Icom IC-746, a True Talk 102' G5RV flattop about 50' up in post oaks, A Radio Works Carolina Windom about the same height, an Icom V-8000 in the car (with a huge birdie on my club freq), an Icom IC-T7H (5w dual band HT), a 4 element 2 meter arrow antenna , an MFJ 2/70cm mobile antenna that worked incredibly well until I burnt the capacitor, a handheld arrow LEO satellite antenna.

Upgrade: I just got a diamond 7500SG and the TinyTrak4 APRS tracker along with a APRSWorld APO-3, that automatically turns the radio off after a set time. Now I am on the APRS-IS network; follow me: N0SSC-9

I also recently homebrewed a 2 meter ground plane, but it is a failure, so I ended up putting my Arrow back together just so I can work the nets on 2 meters--now full quieting with 10 watts and a 9 dBi antenna in my 1st floor room into a repeater 20 miles away...hihi. I hope that I’m going to be getting some length of rohn 25 or aluminum pipe to hang up more metal.

On-Air Activities

            My favorite activity in ham radio is listening. I usually listen to CW conversations (using a decoder to actually know what’s being said) and Nets or ragchewers, and often shortwave broadcasts. I also talk on the radio...hi hi...usually on my clubs repeater or during contests or days of contest. I'm terrible at ragchewing because i can relate nothing of my life to ragchewers and therefore the rag cannot be chewed...

I also enjoy contesting. My first contest was the ARRL CW Sweepstakes (even though i don't know CW...again). I used my computer to code and decode, and used my brain to fill in what DM780 couldn't. I now know how to send every letter and number at perhaps 20 wpm, but receiving is a different story. Every weekend I try to make a few QSOs...I never really set a goal, but just try to have fun. For example, for the MO QSO party, I went down to the clubs schoolhouse where it had a triband beam. Nicole KD0BCX's family came down and we had a weenie roast. The contest was a dud, making only 5 QSOs since 20 meters was dead and the beam could barely tune 40...we also couldn't rotate it since the controller was locked up in an RV. Nevertheless, it was fun and not disappointing at all.

I also like RDFing...when I’m bored I take out my handheld yagi and search for area repeaters and other things that radiate. I find it fun and successful when you locate the source, and i enjoy the looks i get from confused people watching me like my antenna is the transmitter to some sort of detonator.

Both DXing and contesting is difficult with my mediocre setup. When conditions are good, I can easily bust through piles and work what I can hear. However times like now, when QRN is 20 over and the sun is being as lazy as it is, it’s near impossible to compete with big guns.

Memberships

• ARRL
• WA0FYA ZeroBeaters ARC
• FISTS (13905)
• NAQCC (3389)
• Missouri DX/Contest Club
  

How I Came To Be a Radio Nerd

(Skip If You Don't Want To Read a Novel)

Back in the day, when I was around five years old, I got my first pair of walkie-talkies. They were fun until I got mad at them. I asked my Mom how it throws my voice some 500 feet away, and she said "magic." I cracked it open and colored on it, added a bit of dihydrogen oxide, and replaced the batteries with baby carrots, just to name a few methods of experimentation.

About 3 or 4 years later, I got FRS radios. I constantly experimented how far i can get them to transceive. I found the measurement of RF power is watts, so I thought light bulbs. A bigger bulb is brighter, so a bigger antenna is more efficient. But all I saw was the plastic duckie on top...I cut the top off and put a clothes hanger in it. Surprisingly, I was now able to transmit about 3 miles, as opposed to 1.4 miles.

During the 12th summer of my life, I went to my grandparents for a week. I was looking for a football to play catch with, and in the cabinet where my grandpa stores his sports equipment, I saw a small CB radio. I asked him repeatedly, "can I have it, can I have it?" He finally allowed me to take it home. 

Back at home, I could now talk to one of my friends. He also had interest in radio, like me, except he was learning for this thing called Ham radio. Once he taught me the basics and the whys, he lent me his ARRL Now You're Talking amateur radio study book. I studied for about two years, when I went to the radio club I joined at age 16 to take my test. I passed it with one wrong answer, only because I circled the wrong letter.

After passing it, I waited and waited until my license came in. Finally, after two weeks, I got it, KD0BZE. Now that it was legal to use the VHF bands, I tried to teach my dad about antennas and feed lines and estimated radiated power, and eventually convinced him to spend about $600 on 15 feet of aluminum pipe, 80 feet of Buryflex coax, an Arrow beam, a roof mount tripod and 4 ground rods and an a 75 watt IC-V8000. It all went up on my garage roof, with the antenna about 40' above the ground.

Being a new and naive ham, the only thing i did was kerchunk, or key up repeaters to see how far I can transmit. Surprisingly, I had a grasp on every repeater in an 80-mile radius, and sometimes ones as far as 500 miles away. How well of a grasp was unknown, because of mic fright i wouldn't talk. I finally started talking during the nets on 147.240, my clubs frequency, and met a fellow young ham, Nicole, KD0BCX. She taught me not to fear the mic, even though sometimes she still does. In addition, I was getting mad at my call sign, KD0BZE. It was too long and the ZE was hard to say and copy by many (even though I used zed e). I got it changed to N0SSC, much more intelligible and personalized...also quite short on CW.

During our club’s Field day ops, Nicole and I got to get our feet wet in HF and work in the SSB trailer under the call sign WA0FYA. It was AWESOME! I found my niche, tuning quickly and pouncing on every station I heard or calling CQ and making a QSO a second. Nicole, the logger, was astonished yet frightened at my craze and found her fingers to be slower than the speed at which I made contacts. It was much fun for the both of us.

Having a short call sign and contest experience, I was very eager for solo HF at this time. After I passed the Tech test, I began studying for the General license. Having finished it, I felt ready for the test. I went to Granite City's Egyptianfest ham fest, over 70 miles away. I took time to look at all the junk and other stuff being sold in the swap meet. At 10 am, I went to take the test. The questions were easy. There weren’t many calculations, and I knew nearly all of the questions well. For the three I didn't know, I put a little dash next to the number to see if I really did get those wrong. When I finished, I got up and turned it in. Two of the VECs began grading it, one saying my answers in phonetics, the other checking it in the answer book. "One, bravo. Wrong." First, I was shocked that was wrong. Second, they were saying it aloud. Oh well I guess, I only missed three.

I was wrong. After they were done grading, I had missed 20. I was infuriated, because it was obviously a grading error--there is no way I missed the really easy ones. They checked it about 8 times over, but ended up getting my missed number down to 18. Even more proof of grading error!

A month later, I took the test at our ZeroBeaters hamfest and MISSED NOT A ONE! I was so happy that I took the AmEx test free. I got mad again, because I MISSED PASSING BY ONE! But in reality, I wasn't as mad because I now have HF privileges.

Now I had to persuade my parents to get me an HF rig. To me, finding the right HF transceiver was like trying to look for a college. So many benefits, disadvantages, buttons, knobs, dsps, ATUs, band scopes...on and on and on. After voluntarily writing my parents a 10-page report on the various antenna and radio combinations that I wanted, they finally gave in. I had to narrow it down to one antenna and one radio. I finally chose an IC-746 I saw on eBay, and the True-Talk G5RV antenna, from its rave eHam reviews and unbeatable price.

Setting up all the equipment went quick. I used a slingshot to shoot fishing line over the highest parts of the post oaks, and tied that to 1/8" Dacron rope to hoist the G5RV. The ends are anchored into eyehooks in the host trees, with the antenna at a max height of 50' or so. Inside, I bought a 25A power supply from RadioShack and some grounding equipment...In a matter of 5 minutes I had the radio connected to the computer, antenna and everything to ground. 

I had many doubts in the effectiveness of my antenna system. However, the November sweepstakes quickly swayed my doubts. I was all ready to work the contest. By the next day, I was three provinces and one state away from getting my broom. Unfortunately, they didn't show, but I came through with a respectable score.

Obviously, the final step in amateur radio licensing is passing the Amateur Extra Exam. I declared I was done reading the AMEX License manual once I got to chapter 8. At this point, I think I got encephalitis from all the information overload. The one thing I couldn't remember was the math. Polar coordinates, complex impedance, capacitive reactance, half-power bandwidth...so on and so forth. I began to write equations in a yellow notepad...but I rather went overboard. When I was finished writing notes, i filled the entire 50-page notepad with everything from class A amplifiers to Zener diodes...and with well-drawn schematics too! So being done with all that, i took some practice tests, with scores ranging from 80-100%...pretty good. So today on February 8, I went to an class/exam session in Bridgeton, MO hosted by the St. Louis and Suburban Radio Club. It was a two-day thing, where they had classes for the tech and general classes. I went on the second day, hung out with the techies, and met the club members until the time has came to take the tests.

The time has come to take the tests.

The bright pink test they handed me was of intermediate difficulty. There were some questions on which I had no clue about, some math, and finally some simple, common sense questions. Every question i was unsure about, i put a little tick next to the number. After filling in all 50 answers, i counted about 18 unsure, worst case, and about 10 best case. I went back, checked all the answers, and found I made some idiotic mistakes, thereby decreasing my worst-case incorrect answers to 14. A sure pass, by my own grading.

And it was! I could see all the faces of jealousy in the fledging “piggies” who know they just were beaten by a 17 year old. Now I could go home and sleep...save the DX for Thursday when Desecheo Island gets on the air.