About

Hi! I’m Josh, W1JDD.

I decided to create this blog so I’d have a place to reflect on my own experiences with the wonderful hobby of amateur/”ham” radio.

It’s always interesting to hear why people become hams, so I’ll share my story:

My father became a ham and then earned his Extra class ticket when he was a teenager. He went on to become an electrical engineer. By the time I was around, my father had kept his ham radio license renewed but hadn’t been active for quite a while. Even so, he still had a bunch of old radio equipment stored in boxes in our basement. As a kid, I was fascinated by the equipment, even though I didn’t know what any of it did.

My father ended up selling most of his radio equipment at a tag sale because he hadn’t been using it. By the time I was a little older and in middle school, it became clear that I was starting to follow in his footsteps, expressing an interest in electronics. He only had a hodgepodge of radio relics left to his name, including a Johnson Viking Match Box, a Wilson Radiotelephone (which he had modified himself by adding a DTMF pad,) and a morse code paddle key. I had already messed around with crystal radios when I was younger, so my father decided to up the ante and buy a simple HF receiver kit from Ten-Tec that we assembled together. That kit and a few previous kits had taught me about electronic components and soldering, but I still didn’t really know much about how the things I was assembling actually worked.

Nevertheless, I was really impressed with that little Ten-Tec receiver, even despite the random wire antenna we used with it. I was able to listen to hams’ RTTY, morse code, and SSB voice transmissions and was blown away by how geographically far away some of the transmissions were originating. Despite being an inactive him, morse code for my dad is still as easy as tying his shoelaces, so I’d often tune around to a morse code transmission and he’d listen to it and dictate on the spot.

I had been afraid to pursue getting a license because the receiver was certainly interesting enough, and at the time, I dreaded having to go through the process of learning Morse code (you had to pass a Morse code test to get licensed.) Once I was in college, I was exposed to the ham radio club there, and to the fact that the FCC had dropped the Morse code requirement for all license classes. I decided to pursue becoming a licensed amateur radio operator.

I studied for the Technician-class license test for a few weeks along with a friend, then went to take the test. If memory serves, I only ended up getting one or two questions wrong. Once I had passed the test, one of the volunteer examiners administering the test asked if I wanted to try taking the middle, General-class license test just for kicks, and my friend (who was my ride there) had already started taking it as well, so I figured it couldn’t hurt. I ended up passing the General class exam as well! To quote the VE, “It doesn’t have to be a pretty pass; it just has to be a pass.”

Once I was licensed, I purchased a dual-band HT (handheld transceiver, or “Handy-Talkie”) to use with my college club’s repeater. I also started dabbling in HF radio at the club shack. I found that digital operation, specifically using PSK-31, was my favorite way to communicate on HF, but that each contact made was exciting and interesting.

I’m now out of college, but I’m still an active ham. I still have my HT and have talked on local repeaters and checked into local nets. I also check into the net my college club runs using EchoLink from time to time. I’m currently working on building up an HF station for myself; it was so easy to take the college club equipment for granted!

…and that’s my story, so far! Feel free to poke around the site to learn more about what I’m currently up to with respect to amateur radio.