Hi! My name is June.
Soon, I’ll post more about myself with a little background on why and how I got interested in amateur radio. But for my very first post, I want to tell you about my very first day of being the owner of a Yaesu FT-60R. Thanks to Papa for the awesome gift!
Today I learned how to program my new Yaesu FT-60R… (and then looked up after-market programming cables so I never have to do that tedious task manually ever again…) I put a bunch of repeaters on there, but they have no labels yet. I know there’s a way to label them, so I plan on going through and doing that soon.
And more importantly, I got a really clear signal from EARS, a local amateur radio club’s weekly net! I stood outside with an umbrella because of the drizzle, though I put the umbrella away after awhile when I realized it wasn’t that wet. It sounded fairly casual, with the net operator asking each member what they did on leap day, and always had some sort of nice comment or joke afterwards.
Below is a short clip from a net!
I also heard some of the weekly net from a SANDRA repeater on Mt. Otay (about a 65 mile hike according to Google), all the way near the Mexican border!! It was a bit too noisy for my patience though, so I stuck with EARS for the remainder of the hour.
And that’s just with the stock “rubber ducky”? antenna! I’m excited to see how far I can receive once I (hopefully) build myself a tape measure yagi antenna. I had been overthinking my DIY yagi plans–doing all this calculating, backtracking, deep dives into theory that wasn’t even relevant to my question… I finally snapped myself out of it when I realized could just follow tried-and-true, time-tested instructions. It’ll be fine. I don’t need to be smartypants about everything! I still need to gather materials though, including a cheap tape measure.
I’m also feeling impatient about getting licensed because I already want to jump on and see if I can reach the nets with a yagi and handheld! But I really need to finish up with school (and take a test for certification in a new career) before I start studying for technician. But I’m hoping I can scratch the ham radio itch with the upcoming yagi antenna build. I might see if I can get over some anxiety and head to an in-person club meeting. For once in my life, I feel like my excitement might overcome my anxiety!
Cheers to my first 24 hours of being a proud owner of a Yaesu FT-60R.