Because I’ve been home the past three weeks on a medically-induced vacation, I’ve found some reinterest in amateur radio. I haven’t been this interested since about 2000, at which time I’d been a ham radio operator for about five years.  While using what I have access to with my level of FCC license, I’ve been able to use some of the newer technology.  But still, there’s a lot I can’t do.  And frankly, while I don’t have the equipment I’d need if I had a higher class of license, I have ample time to study and progress in the hobby.  In other words, I don’t have much else to do right now.

My first exposure to ham radio was through a coworker at the Ace Hardware I worked at (the one I have dreams about all the time).  He was an older man, very intelligent, very technically-minded, and quite peculiar.  I was young and interested in electronics and anything else I could learn, and in time I found enough interest in amateur radio to test for it.

About the same time, Richard was also finding some interest in the hobby.  We basically found interest in it at the same time.  We studied, and we tested.  He passed - I failed.

The test comprised of a number of multiple choice questions.  I had to get a certain number right in order to obtain an amateur radio operator’s license from the FCC, and I failed by only a couple questions.  Richard was assigned his amateur operator’s call sign, KF4EAH.  I already had some equipment, so I could only listen to him and others chatting on the radio.

I had been studying with a book from Radio Shack, back in the last few years they were still a radio-oriented company.  I hit that book hard, studying any time I could.  A month later, I had an opportunity to take the test again.  That time, I passed.

Weeks went by, waiting to know what my call sign was going to be.  Back in 1995, things weren’t as computerized as they are now.  I’m sure a new operator today knows their call sign within a week or so.  For me, it was two or three agonizing weeks.  I had to call a semi-automated system through the FCC, where I’d be fighting to talk to someone with everything else under the sun, not just amateur operators.  I’d call every other day, waiting on hold almost 30 minutes each time.  Eventually, I had good news.

I was given KF4EZX.  I liked the call sign, really, even though some years later I abandoned it.

The second I could use the radio, I did.  I talked for hours on end.  I made some new friends.  I learned a lot in those first few years.  But admittedly, I didn’t learn a bit of it while studying for the license test.

The questions were standardized, even enumerated, to simplify studying.  I memorized the answers, as best I could.  I passed simply because I could remember the questions and their answers, not because I knew any of the information.  I hadn’t learned anything, aside from some of the most basic facts that anyone could pick up.

Learning came with time, and with patient silence as people conversed on radio and in person.  Slowly, I pieced together some of the basics of electronics and radio technology.  But still, I couldn’t tell the difference between an upper and a lower sideband.

Now, it’s 15 years later.  Since turning 30, I’ve learned a lot about how I learn.  If I’d known how to learn in school and while testing for my FCC license, I would have progressed through the ham radio license ranks sooner.

The only problem is, it’s a lot easier to find testing aids that simply run through questions and answers than actually teach you anything - the same it’s been since 1995, and probably much sooner.  I need to actually learn what some of the questions I’m reading are referring to, rather than knowing the answer.

So I’m on a quest to find information.  Short of buying books and paying for courses, I can learn this all on my own with the right resources.  I might have found a decent way of figuring all this out, using Wikipedia and Google to find answers I don’t know.  Once I read them, write them, talk about them, or test on them, I’ll learn most of what I’m testing on.  It’s learning through absorbsion.  It reminds me of the old poster of Garfield learning by osmosis.  Except there’s no liquid transfer here.

I can only study and give it time.  The next available test in my area is July 21, unless you count the one tomorrow in Salt Lake (yeah, not going to make it to that one).  By then I could either be as close to understanding the precepts of amateur radio as I’ve ever been, or back at the same level I was a month ago.

It’s up to me now.  It’s time to learn new lessons.  Maybe this will open my brain to more in the future.

Maybe my current K2EZX is the step to something more.

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