Welcome

Hello fellow hams and amateur radio enthusiasts, and welcome to my website

Did you spend months, like my class mates and I, rediscovering long-unused buttons on your calculator and learning about aspects of electricity you've never even heard of before?

After months of study and homework, math problems you struggle through with your classmates, things to learn, to memorize and to read; you're so focused on the license test you don't think much about what comes next. For the week before the test I crammed every day, did practice tests twice a day. There's no pressure except what you load on yourself - our instructor repeatedly reassured us that if we don't pass the first time we can just try again, but by the time I was passing the practice tests reliably, I was determined to make the honours pass on the real test.

Testing day; our instructor smiles kindly at us as we arrive, in various states of nervous anxiety and determination, to sit the license exam.

Passing the license test was very gratifying, I hope you remember that moment fondly too! I'd spent several months working towards that moment, but didn't think much beyond it apparently. Once the initial thrill passes, you're left wondering 'now what?'.

And apparently the answer to that is 'acquire your first radio'.

Actually, you probably had your first radio as a kid, maybe you built a crystal radio set, or you saved up for a shortwave set, and it may not even be your first transmitter really, since you might have started with CB or FRS/GMRS. But choosing your first HAM Rig is a big decision none the less.

I'm fortunate enough to have an older radio on loan from my local amateur radio club, so I can get 'on the air' and keep learning while I'm making that big 'first radio' decision.

And that's about where I am in my progress as a new HAM, as I launch this website.

Update 2021

Thanks for visiting... hope to meet you on the air! 73
~ Andrea VA7ALG