...is amateur (ham) radio. Over this past weekend was the ARRL November Sweepstakes. Long story short, the US and Canada are broken up in to 80 sections and the goal is to work at least one ham radio operator in each section. During a break, I was commenting on a related facebook page that
QuoteI'm sitting here looking at some of the skins for PowerSDR that K2DER and W1AEX have posted on the web. I'm not sure if I'm amazed or shocked that no one has done a Star Trek inspired LCARS skin yet.
About an hour later, Rob, W1AEX himself posts to the thread...he made one. Here it is:
http://youtu.be/wwbUXpnSFms (http://youtu.be/wwbUXpnSFms)
ooo I tried learning Ham way back when, but it was too spendy and too niche for me to really explore. Still interesting :)
King
Pretty simple to get in to now days. Entry level is 35 questions, multiple guess. You can try some practice exams at QRZ.COM for free. You no longer need to pass a Morse code test like I did when I got my license. It can be as inexpensive or as expensive as you want it to be, but I'd say that for the most part you can get yourself well involved for no more than what you would spend on a home computer system at walmart.
You can learn a bit more at http://www.arrl.org/licensing-preparation-exams (http://www.arrl.org/licensing-preparation-exams) and if you want to find a local amateur radio club, check out http://www.arrl.org/find-a-club (http://www.arrl.org/find-a-club) and punch in your zip code.
Amateur radio is a very welcoming and social hobby with the occasional opportunity to provide some community service.
Wow...pretty silent. Too geeky?