looking for a Foundation weekend course

[liamhere]

no 2m aerial @ home yet....hope to get sorted by next weekend
i have a handheld in the car so i can goto a high point here and call out
but have HF up and running @ home

[FakeJake]

no 2m aerial @ home yet....hope to get sorted by next weekend
i have a handheld in the car so i can goto a high point here and call out
but have HF up and running @ home

Ok, well, i have HF at home but its pants loft antennas are very noisy for HF

[porky.69]

[quote="M6TVI"]done the course this weekend....... i passed!

well done mate

[EMarkM]

Excellent news!

Due to work, I'm now hoping to take my Foundation in February. Must get hold of Dave again for the date!

[liamhere]

good luck...they are great teachers up there!
all the best for the new year
Liam

[Panteneman]

Excellent news!

Due to work, I'm now hoping to take my Foundation in February. Must get hold of Dave again for the date!

Good luck when you do. My course was done in the space of two weekends and I knew practically 90% of it in the first place - due to being into 'radio stuff' [sic] from an early age. In fact, there were instances where I asked about certain things (a lot of radio theory was missed out - sunspot cycle, meteor scatter, tropospheric ducting) and was told that 'it's outside the scope of this exam).

The only thing that worried me was the Volt, Ohm and Amp calculations (I just seen Algebra and froze; I'm terrible at Maths). Fortunately, it didn't crop up on the exam.

Fortunately, I walked the exam.

It's nice to have loads of different bands to play with. Naturally, the 'dodgy aspects' of 11m are fun (albeit far from kosher, and being dead 80% of the time) - but you'll find many users 'cut their teeth' on there anyway.

It's all good fun.

[EMarkM]

Thanks for the words of encouragement! Need to get something booked now

[EMarkM]

Squeeee! Hopefully booked for end of Feb.

[liamhere]

dave emailed me yesterday with a date for my 2nd part

[EMarkM]

Day One was yesterday. Brief report:-

Excellent instructors, a good crowd of lads doing the course and generally the whole day was a very relaxed laugh.

Lots of the basics covered, which you could tell were new to a few of the audience, but most seemed familiar enough with it all. At least one or two seem to already be club members and to have had a bit of a practice with one or two bits in the past.

So, final tutorials and practicals this morning, and the QUIZ (© Dave Wilson) last thing this afternoon.

Looking forward to getting it all done and getting my ticket. Was wondering if I was losing interest towards the end of last year when I had to cancel a couple of Foundation dates due to work commitments and just never seemed to get things going.

Being surrounded by all the enthusiasts yesterday really brought back the spark, and I am already looking forward to studying for the Intermediate licence. I was half surprised (and half not surprised at all!) that the idea of long-range HF CW contacts really caught my imagination. Despite a life-long interest I wasn't really sure that this would be the most enjoyable part of activities, but it has a certain magic!

Good luck to anyone on the forum that just happens to be on the course with me this weekend (haven't identified anyone yet, but you never know!)

Chat to some of you forumites soon, over the air, hopefully!

Thanks for reading.

[EMarkM]

Nailed it!

Hope to be choosing a call sign Wednesday/Thursday

[lukemc1980]

Hi,

It's Luke here that passed my Foundation course with you (Mark) today in Northwich - I got 100% on mine - it was very well managed and the tutors were great good place to start. I liked the operating especially on HF SSB (calling CQ) and the Morse assesment was a piece of cake! Just thinking about equipment now - any ideas I am going to get some sort of mobile unit for my bedroom with an external antenna (probably something like a Diamond X30 collinear) - any suggestions? I will consider mobile home unit to be my main station but I am now thinking of getting a cheap Chinese handheld that I could use when out and about - are those Baeofengs any good and do you need programming software with them. Just asking for suggestions of what I need to do next - should have that callsign in a few days which will make me iching to get on the air!

Luke

[EMarkM]

Hey Luke

We had a great weekend, all credit to the old hands and students alike!

Don't know much about the Baofengs, but there are plenty of people on here who do.

I'll be fooling around with my little Intek until I can get something for the house, whether it be a full base station or a mobile rig.

[EMarkM]

Call sign registered and away we go!

[FakeJake]

When can I expect to hear M6ORE on the air, then?