It’s been a week, since I got on the air. I’ve stumbled through a couple QSOs during the week, and there’s still a lot I have to learn. I got my Alinco rig set up and running. Although, I am a little worried about the audio equipment in my apartment and neighboring apartments, since when I powered it up for the first time, I left my desktop speakers powered on and they screeched loudly with noise when I tried to transmit. I’ve since moved my antenna, however there is a hiss when I transmit. I’m not too worried about damaging anything since I moved the antenna, but I hope I’m not annoying anyone around me.

Last night was the first night of Winter Carnival here at Michigan Tech. While my friends and I were busy away building an 8 ft Companion Cube snow sculpture, a number of us were carrying our handy talkies. And with three feet to go in the mold, a friend of mine stops the operation announcing that he cannot find his radio. I pulled out mine and sent out a test message over a local repeater he was last tuned into. And we mix of relief and concern, when a slight sound could be heard coming from beneath the snow. I kept transmitting for a little while to help out, and after some digging, the radio was recovered.

Last weekend I took the HAM test and got Technician Class License, almost on a spur-of-the-moment. The night before test I heard about the exam and decided I’d give it a go, and crammed for it in a few hours. I didn’t pass the first test I took, but I did make Technician on my second try.

That Thursday, I popped in the Michigan Tech HAM-Shack for a weekly meeting of the Husky Amateur Radio Club (HARC),  and joined the club.

Finally on Friday and I was checking the FFC call-sign directory compulsively all day until just before the end of the day when it finally appeared; I was exuberant. I couldn’t wait for work to get. When I did get out, I headed straight up the HAM-Shack and checked out a Handy-Talkie. I started monitoring the Eighty-Eight (146.88 MHz), and finally around 11PM, I made contact with a fellow named Terry, but who’s call-sign I fail to remember. He was nice enough to give me (and two friends that were with me at the time), a heads up on a swap meet that was planned to take place the next morning a little over two hours away. Needless to say I went straight to an ATM and then straight to bed.

The next morning I woke up at 5:45 AM and was on the road by 6:30 AM. By 9:15 AM we were at the Swap and I was busy negotiating a deal on an Alinco DR-600T Twin Band Transceiver. And just like that, I License, Letters, and Radio all in a little under a week.

Interestingly enough, I ran into a lot of interesting folk at the Swap: A HARC Alum, A couple of the Testers from my examination, and even Terry. All in all, it’s been a pretty cool week.