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Radio Silence

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Amateur Radio. Mr. Big Food is on board, too. We are going to get out amateur radio licenses and some equipment. Blog silence is thus explained.

It’s all quite interesting. I’m taking notes. SueK– I found this to be the best bird’s eye view introduction to ham radio. Almost jargon free and very accessible for someone who wants to enter ham world. Comes at it from the perspective of a prepper but not a bat-sh*t crazy TEOTWAWKI SHTF OMG THE WORLD IS ENDING prepper, which is nice.

Amateur radio is, for Mr. Big Food and I, a compromise. As you are know, I am a Full Professor in The Department of Redundancy Department and as such am leery of having only one means of connecting to the world beyond the gate. As you may also know, Mr. Big Food is a Full Professor in The Department of Don’t Waste Money Department and as such is none too happy about spending hard earned money– to the tune of about $1200 a year– on a landline phone that rings off the hook all day.

Enter ham radio. We will begin with handheld devises and once we’ve familiarized ourselves, we’ll move on to a base unit.

This could keep my little brain occupied for months!

New tag: ham radio

3 Responses

  1. We had a seldom used land line that was definitely expensive. I switched to Vonage and pay a rousting $17 per month. I bought a Panasonic phone set with 4 handsets for $85 (about) on sale at Fry’s, and have been happy with the set up. Last year when we had the bad fires in the area, the landline was down – as was my computer online connection, and the cable. Not a surprise since they’re basically the same system. Spectrum is advertising their cell phone system at a very good price, but since our cable is Spectrum, and obviously they had some sort of problem, I don’t want everything on the same system. I’ll stick with what I have – T-Mobile at the moment.
    But…I still like the idea of becoming proficient in ham radio techniques…
    You just never know…

  2. “Mr. Big Food is a Full Professor in The Department of Don’t Waste Money Department and as such is none too happy about spending hard earned money– to the tune of about $1200 a year– on a landline phone that rings off the hook all day.”

    Add ons: my Vonage line takes messages which then go to my email box. I think it can also take voice messages, but I haven’t bothered to make whatever changes to the system that takes. Most of the calls I get are junk calls. Very annoying. However, with the Panasonic phones, the screen shows me who’s calling, so I can answer or ignore. When the number starts Vxxxxxxxxxxxx, I ignore*. I’ve put in all of the family phone numbers, and those come up with the identifying info. Most legitimate numbers – doctor, dentist etc – have identifying info so I know who it is even if I haven’t saved their number.
    *The odd thing is that I’ve found that the junk callers apparently have a voice recognition feature…so…I no longer _answer_ the phone. I click it on, and say nothing. There’s normally silence as long as I say nothing…no “Hello?? hello??”…just silence. I wait 10-15 seconds and hang up. It seems to me that the calls have lessened – although election season is approaching…I can hardly wait! Another option might be to turn off the ringer entirely and just check it every couple of hours or so. The Panasonic phone also has number blocking – but only (ONLY, mind you) 50 numbers. And the junk callers seem to have unlimited phone numbers, so that doesn’t fix it. And yes…we are theoretically on the Do Not Call list. Theoretically.

    1. What a joke do not call was & is. I used to answer with “ahoy hoy!” Now I just pick it up, hold it there, put it down. The only exception to this is during bad weather. Our number is off by one digit from– get this– the electric company, the propane company, and a pharmacy in town whose customers are only old old people. So during power outages, ice storms, etc., the three places old folk might need to call. I answer nicely then b/c more often than not, they’ve called the wrong number.

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