QST de N7GMT

My 11-year-old neighbor got written up in the local newspaper for earning his ham-radio ticket—and not just his Technician, but all the way to Amateur Extra!

I don’t know how long they keep the article around, so I’ll include it below.

I first learned about Adam when a neighbor called to ask about classes. By the time I managed to get through the phone-tag game, he’d already passed the Technician class and needed help picking his first HT. He then went on to earn his General and Extra class licenses in short order. He’s quite the self-starter and will go far. He occasionally comes over to my shack to operate while he saves money to buy his own HF gear.

Anyway, without further ado, here’s a reprint of the Deseret News article:

Adam Lee, 11, shows off his hand-held ham radio, which he hopes to upgrade this summer to one that can transmit and receive calls from around the world. He passed his exam for an extra-class license in February. (Photo by Jason Olson, Deseret News)

Pl. Grove 11-year-old acquires top ham-radio license

By James Davis

Deseret News

Published: Saturday, March 14, 2009 10:37 p.m. MDT

PLEASANT GROVE — Most people know him as Adam Lee, but the 11-year-old Pleasant Grove boy has another identity: KE7UZK.

The Barratt Elementary School sixth-grader isn’t a spy or secret agent. Adam is a ham radio operator, and KE7UZK is his call sign.

At BYU’s Howard W. Hunter Law Library on Feb. 18, Adam passed the Federal Communications Commission’s extra-class, amateur radio-licensing exam, making him one of the youngest ham radio operators on the airwaves. Extra is the highest of three U.S. amateur radio-licensing classes, and it gives Adam the privilege of operating any type of ham radio on any amateur band.

Adam said he caught the ham radio bug last year while working on the Boy Scout radio merit badge.

“I wanted to learn more about ham radio,” he said. “So I got my technician (license) in July, and then I just kept going and got my general and extra.”

Technician is the lowest license class for ham radio operators, and general is the middle class. Adam said the exam for the technician class focused more on logic, and the general- and extra-class exams become more technical.

For now, Adam is the man around the Lee house when it comes to radios. His dad, Sam Lee, only recently passed the technician exam.

“A lot of adults try to pass the extra,” the elder Lee said. “And it’s not an easy test to pass, so (other operators are) impressed that he’s already passed the test.”

For Christmas, Adam wanted an amateur-extra study manual full of technical information and practice test questions. Prior to taking the test, operators must understand radio-wave propagation, electrical principles, circuit components, signals and emissions, antennas and transmission lines.

From January until his test last month, Adam read the study book three times from cover to cover, evidenced by his book’s worn corners, highlighted pages and bookmarks. Sometimes his father would help by quizzing the boy.

“Without even giving him the choices, he would know the answer,” Sam Lee said. “He just knew this inside and out. It was amazing.”

With new privileges afforded him thanks to his amateur-extra license, Adam has hopes to upgrade his radio this summer. Right now, he has a small hand-held device with a maximum range of about 400 miles. He said the most distant operator he’s contacted was up in North Salt Lake.

“I’m saving for a bigger radio so I can go all the way around the world,” Adam said, adding that he particularly wants to talk to radio operators in Europe.

Also on his wish list is a new call sign. Amateur-extra operators usually have a shorter call sign than the six-digit identifier he currently uses.

“Right now my call is KE7UZK, but when I passed my extra, I told them to change it,” Adam said. “So I’m still waiting for the new call and my new license to come in the mail.”

The oldest of five kids, Adam excels at school — especially in math. The young ham radio operator participates in Alpine School District’s accelerated learning lab with classmates who learn at a faster pace than others.

School, Scouting and other activities prevent Adam from spending as much time radioing as he’d like — “probably once a week or maybe a little bit more,” he said.

E-mail: jdavis@desnews.com

Kudos, Adam! And remember, I was able to give you almost no help, ya little whipper-snapper!

Funk- — of or relating to radio.
Vergnügung — enjoyment, pleasure.
Funkvergnügung would therefore be something akin to operating pleasure.

Ahh — the K3/100 is here! All unpacked, assembled, (troubleshot, sent back, repaired, aligned, reshipped, and re-unpacked,) antennified, and energized.

Operating the K3 — Funkvergnügung!

The first weekend I had it (all healthy and whole) was the CQWW-SSB contest. This is 48 hours of pure DXer heaven — well, for those of us who don’t do CW well enough anyway. Stations from all over the world are on, trying to contact everyone else they can. I only had 58 Qs (QSOs: contacts) in the few hours I had to operate. Many were from Argentina and Brazil, with a few other South American contacts, a few Hawaii and Mexico stations, and a solid contact with a station in Spain!

The crazy thing, for me, was how wonderfully selective the K3 was, as compared to my IC-706MKIIG, and even my K2. Admittedly, I do have some nice roofing filters in the K3, but being able to tune up and down the band and have stations copyable despite the closeness to other stations … sometimes they were less than 1-kHz apart, but still workable, where all of my other radios want the more standard 2.5- to 3-kHz spacing between stations if you want to reliably understand what they’re saying.

Simply amazing.

I love my new K3. I had a chance to do some A/B testing with an IC-756 ProIII at another club-member’s home, and while there were strong similarities in capabilities between the radios, and even though his had some nice features — like the band-scope, being sexier to look at — I’ll keep my K3, and be very satisfied with it.

Thank you, Elecraft, for designing and producing such a nice radio. Not for everyone, admittedly, but I’m one happy camper — erm, ham-mer.

For those interested in the problem:
There was an intermittent solder short from the factory on one of the boards which caused one of the many micro-controllers to fail. Gary, on their tech support staff, was very good to work with, and helped me narrow the problem down over several days (email exchanges being what they are). Elecraft made good on it though, and did all the repair work. They even aligned the radio once everything was working. They want to make sure that all the parts are not just working, but working together in the system as well as they can make it work. That meant I had to be a little patient again, but that’s OK. This radio’s a joy to own and operate!

A young man in my neighborhood went down to the Utah County ARES Field Day outing. They were setup to teach the Radio merit badge. He got so excited about the whole thing that he went, found himself a book, studied, and took and passed the test!

By the time I met up with him, he had his license (Welcome aboard!) and was looking for help deciding which radio to get first. I went over to their house one evening and … well, you know me, I explained and enthused and went on about the hobby.

He and I have been corresponding via email and talking on the phone whenever he has a question. I invited him and his parents to come over anytime to get on the air to experience a little HF.

Today, about half-an-hour before we left for Day 3 of the DeHart family reunion, he called to see if this would be a good Saturday to try HF. We were pressed for time, but it gave me an excuse to <ahem> unpack my rig that had been packed since Field Day. I got it setup and we started dialing around.

We tried a little CQing on 20 meters but had no takers. (Probably a little early in the day.)

We moved down to 40 to try our luck there. We found a couple of conversations in progress, so we slid down a little further to find a free frequency. I had been doing all the calling up to this point, to show him how it was done, but now it was his turn. I wrote out how to call, using my callsign, and handed him the mic.

I think he was a little nervous, but like a trooper, he keyed up and called.

CQ CQ from N7GMT, November Seven Golf Mike Tango…

He only called two or three times when we got an answer:

N7GMT N7GMT this is KF7FA, over

I could almost read the question in his eyes, “Yikes! Now what do I say?”

I whispered to him some simple things to say, and KF7FA, Larry, was very friendly and helpful, holding up his end of the conversation. We found out he lives in Lake Davis, CA, which is about 45 miles north of Lake Tahoe. We did the basic first-contact stuff, exchanged weather and such. He encouraged my young friend to start studying for his General license, to which he responded that he already was. We thanked him for returning our call, wished him well and signed off.

Afterwards there was that little gleam in both our eyes. That is what Ham Radio is all about. Sending your voice out into the aether and having someone else answer you, and you hold a conversation. Total strangers, becoming acquainted, and sometimes becoming life-long friends — even if they never meet face-to-face.

For the log:

30.Aug.2008 16:50Z (10:50h local) – KF7FA, Larry, Lake Davis, CA; Weather 72°F and clear.

Thanks again, Larry! Congratulations and come again, A.

The last full weekend in June is ARRL’s Field Day 2008 (yes, I’m just that slow posting). This year my boys and I joined UDXA in their FD outing up on Skyline Drive near Fairview, UT. They boys aren’t yet licensed but I figured this would be a good year to have them work on the GOTA station. This station is specifically meant to let folks get acquainted with Amateur Radio … and hopefully to get them bitten by the Ham bug!

Warming up in the sun while eating breakfast.

The boys had a blast! They each made about twenty-five contacts with folks from all over the States. One YL had already worked our station, but wanted to work us again, just because we had young folk on the radio. My boys are nine and six.

My nine year-old, the Gamer, was working stations almost without prompting from the get-go. He is my Ham buddy and has worked a contest or six with me before. He’s getting quite good, actually. Once he has listened to me give a contest exchange several times, and has done a couple of them himself, he settles right down and works like a veteran. Several of the UDXAers commented on how well he did and how impressed they were with his operating skills. We <cough>I</cough> need to get him going on getting his license so he can join me more regularly.

This was the first serious radio event for my six year-old, the Etymologist. He was a bit nervous and a bit shy at first, what with everyone wanting to help him. Once he warmed up, he did really well, though — especially once he got his “outside” voice going. (Not his real outside voice, which he occasionally uses on a festering, ingrown sibling, but his normal voice with enough punch behind it to bust a pile up! I was very proud of him.) He turned out to be the darling of the GOTA tent; every shutterbug in camp wanted their turn to get pics of him with the headset and boom mic on.

The night before, my boys and I wrangled ourselves some radio time over on one of the rigs just to see if maybe we could make a few contacts for fun. Thanks to Hal, WA6ZHK up in Roseville near Sacramento, CA; and to Craig, N7CAL, up in Custer, Montanna. The boys were especially excited to talk to Craig: he lives and works on a spread up there in big sky country, where they ride four-wheelers and horse to help run about 900 head of cattle. To a couple of suburbanite boys, that sounded like heaven! (Craig was going to be having a different kind of field day; he was expecting a “water turn.” Having cousins who had to herd cattle and help with the water turns, I know it can be fun — for about one day, then fun it is&nbsp;&hellip; not quite so much. Brought back fond memories though. Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane, Craig!)

Sunrise behind the SSB tower.

The club was running 3A — which means three full-time stations running on generator power. We had a dedicated CW station (operating Morse code), a dedicated SSB station for voice contacts, and a “mixed” station for working either CW or SSB on whatever band seemed to be hopping and would help us get the most points. This group is incredible; they had two huge towers up there on Skyline Drive. Oh, and they call it Skyline for a reason. the horizon up there is (at or lower than) straight out pretty much in all directions. It’s a beautiful area. There were virtually no flying critters (we saw a few ’skeeters and a fly or three) and the temperature was pretty mild at 9100 ft. (2770 m) ASL. There were lots of ants and old mole trails, but that was just for effect.

Cereal at 9100 feet ASL.

All in all, it was a very pleasant weekend. We only stayed the one night and left about six hours into the actual operating event, but even that little bit was a bunch of fun. I certainly wouldn’t mind going up again next year; maybe this time we can stay long enough so my boys’ dad can get some operating time in himself.

Go Team!

While visiting the hospital for the birth of my son, I bumped into an employee and fellow ham who was excited to show me the new HF antenna they’ll be putting up to suppliment their VHF/UHF capabilities for major disaster situations. The series of hospitals in the valley already participate in several sets of drills, including CSEPP. We also operate for RACES test nets from the EOCs of as many as we can to make sure the equipment is functional, ready to go, and accessible. (You might be surprised what a change in administration will do to your auxiliary commo setup.)

Anyway, the point of this post was to show the mount point up on the roof. The pipe just to the left of the ladder is where the 15-ft fold-over mount will go, with a 25-ft multi-band HF vertical on top of that.

And here’s one of my favorite views, Mt. Timpanogos, as seen from just behind the antenna array in the first shot. (This is the picture I use for my QSL cards, too.)

Any time you can get somewhere like this and have these kinds of views … priceless.

We spent the weekend up at the in-laws. It was to be one of the last weeks of the open-house for the new LDS Temple in Rexburg (picture). The kids had an extra day off from school for Martin Luther King day, so it seemed like a good excuse to get out and visit family.

But there was a contest that weekend. Now, admittedly, I don’t normally make much of a fuss for Ham radio contests. I mean, I’m no contender, that’s for certain. But for some reason I decided that I was going to give it a go anyway. I couldn’t think of how I was going to get any kind of decent antenna up, and I certainly didn’t want to schlep my entire “shack” with.

With the hours-before-departure dwindling, I decided that I would take my modest collection of Hamstick-style antennas, my trusty Elecraft K2, and do my best. Oh, did I mention that Rexburg is about the coldest point in (habited) Idaho? I did take this into account as I prepared gear and clothing.

Shortly after the contest began, I bundled up and headed out to setup in the truck: trusty 12V gel-cell between my feet, K2 on my lap, 15-meter mobile whip whipping in the gentle Rexburg zephyr. After my feet started going numb from the cold, I decided that 15-meters needed some rest before I tried to find someone new. Well, lunch was calling, too. (Literally. My Sweetie called me on my cell to tell me they were eating. She wasn’t about to come out there in the cold to tell me, no sir.)

Tried to work a little 40-meter, but the band was just mish-mash from one end to the other. And no one could hear my pitiful 5W (yes, I was running frozen QRP on a mobile whip. Masochist, I know.) through the pile-ups.

Didn’t have a whip for 20-meters, but I brought along the trusty Radio Shack 102-inch stainless steel whip to see what I could do with it. I managed to get it to tune, with the help of the superb Elecraft T1 and made a surprising (to me) number of contacts.

Anyway, the total score was 20 total QSOs in 13 states (multiplier of 15 with three bands) for a grand score of 300 points. Pretty pathetic, score-wise, unless you take into account that it was QRP using a mobile whip, and I was freezing portions of my anatomy off—well, I would have been had I not taken precautions. (Hmm… seems to be pretty chilly here in the kitchen at, oh dear, 0320h local time). And if you scale my score to the 100W I would like to have been running, that would put me at 6,000 points, which isn’t at all bad. Maybe next year.

I was reminded recently that there was an entry that wanted writing. Since it’s Thanksgiving weekend and the kids are in bed I might as well get it out of the way, eh? (Now if I were really on the ball, I would have a nice new laptop, with functional WiFi so I could sit in the living room with everyone else while I write this, but I’m an anti-MS curmudgeon, and it can be difficult to convince Linux and WiFi to behave themselves on old hardware.)

Anyway…

I read a post over at my mother’s site about men up on roofs. (Shouldn’t that be “rooves?” Oh wait, this is English; it’s not supposed to make sense.) No good deed goes unpunished, so I left a comment on her entry, which stirred up memories of a weekend not too far past.

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