I shouldn't say anything, but I will.
I own a couple of different receivers and I am very active in listening to what is on the radio.
I was pretty dumb, because I knew there was something called the two meters, but there was no activity on the two meters and I didn't know why.
Just by accident, I was programming one of my radios one day and came across some activity on a two meters frequency.
It was a couple of people who were linking a couple two meters repeaters together.
Since I am in communications and since I knew how to look up licenses and since I was already in communications, I was able to find the email addresses of some of the people that I was listening to.
I sent some emails back and forth and ended up being invited to their club meeting and was invited to take my Technician test.
I was lucky to have met a couple of hams at a local club meeting and one of them lent me his ARRL book and I was in a situation where I had oral surgery done and had a week with nothing to do and used that time to read the book and go over the questions.
Just by accident, I heard those people talking and I heard them say that they were going to spring the test on me after their club meeting.
I went into panic mode and studied my butt off the night before the test and I passed my exam the first time I took it.
I tried taking the general exam twice that day and did not pass it.
So I went home, took back the book I borrowed and borrowed a General exam book from the same guy I borrowed the Technician book from and went back two weeks later and passed my General Exam.
I had just got my call signs for my Technician 5 days before and didn't even have a radio yet and was already a General.
So I spent a pile of money and bought a good Mobile two meters radio and a antenna and built a battery bank so I could use my new radio.
Two weeks later, when I went to the next club meeting, I asked if I could take my Extra exam that day.
It was funny that the president of their club only held a Technicians license and he looked at me and said " I thought you just passed your Technician exam last month!"
The VE's told him - yes that was true, but he worked really hard and he drove 120 miles one way - two weeks ago to attend another test session and he studied really hard and he passed his General on the first try!
The president of the club said - "Well if he could pass it, then I guess I can pass it too!"
So I sat down and took the Extra and missed it by 3 and 2 and 9, and he sat down and took the General twice and failed it.
So since then, I have been studying day and night to try to pass this extra exam.
Many people gets complacent when it comes to getting a license and getting on the air.
Some people uses their class of license like a badge of honor, and when a discussion comes up about experience, they throw it in your face.
I will say one thing about all of this.
I want to get my Extra license for two reasons, both of them are personal reasons.
The first is - because I am not a Engineer and because in order for me to pass the exam, I have to work really hard.
When I get my license, it won't be because I already knew the material on the test.
It will be because I had to study real hard and because I had to learn everything involved.
It took me 40 hours of studying to get my technician license and it took me 80 hours of studying to get my General license.
I have already studied an additional 80+ hours, trying to get my Extra license.
I am not -- nor will I ever be able to get 100% right on any of these tests.
The tests are set up to teach you things, some of which are irrelevant - due to the fact that no one builds their own radios anymore and unless you have a degree in Electrical Engineering and own a radio shop with specialized tools such as a oscilloscope - you can't work on your own stuff anymore.
The circuits are so small that you can't even see the individual components anymore.
You have to look at them through a microscope and you have to change them in modules.
BUT - if you hold a Extra license and if your character is sound, you can become a VE and give back a little of what you got and teach what you learned to those around you.
It all goes back to the beginning of my story.
We had a bunch of repeaters and no one talking on them.
Ham Radio involves a radio, I'm sorry - but that is my opinion.
There is no satisfaction in working Vo IP - voice over IP.
The disparity between the ages of the users of the radio is so great - that some of the younger people doesn't want to talk to the older people and some of the older people doesn't want to talk to the younger people.
Some of the younger people - doesn't understand HAM RADIO and all they want to talk about is computers.
They also don't understand how to talk on the radio.
They were never taught how to be courteous and the repeater owners were actually the people who drove the other people away with their ways and their attitudes.
MY ADVICE - and I am a new ham here, is to not stop at your Technician license - because that is just the Walkie Talkie band.
You have some good guys there and some riff raff.
It's mostly local, except for the repeaters that are linked together on the Echo Link, Target System, WAN repeater system etc.....
When you move up to the HF - there is a lot more to listen to and a lot more to learn.
Unless you are born into this hobby, you are going to need to buy one of everything.
It's a very expensive hobby and it takes a lot of hard work.
Its not just as simple as putting a old mag mount antenna on top of the metal cap on top of the flue of your chimney and hooking it up to a old two meters radio and broadcasting.
The original goal was to train radio operators and to teach them how to be good radio operators.
This involves learning electrical theory - YES, but it also involves understanding transmitting and receiving and wave propagation and reception.
You wouldn't believe how many stupid people there is on the radio.
Educated people who thinks that they know it all and people who have talked on the radio for 20+ years that does not understand reception and how radio waves are broadcast and how they travel through the atmosphere.
I understand the transmitting and reception part - but couldn't figure out the frequency of a circuit if my life depended on it.
You don't necessarily need to know how it works, as long as it works.
My Elmer says - fix what is broke and leave the rest alone.
You don't need to know most of what is on the EXTRA exam - because those questions are designed for RF engineers who are going to design circuits for radios and not for someone who is going to talk on radios.
There is a whole world out there.
Buy yourself a HF radio and build yourself a antenna system and enjoy.....
The satisfaction comes from building your own antenna system and being able to receive signals from all over the world.
You will continually find yourself looking at the catalogs - looking to buy better radios and looking to build yourself a better antenna that will receive more and looking to improve your hamshack set up.
There is always a abundance of things to do and things to buy and things to make and theory's to test.
One little ps is - that they are only supposed to give the exam 3 times in any one day.
If you were really close - they could let you take it a 4th time, but from what the VE people told me.
They never saw anyone pass it on the 3rd try.
The reason for me - is because if you miss it by a couple the first two times, you will get frustrated and you will start to change your right answers into wrong answers and you will end up missing more then you will get right.
Each test is different!
At the same time, it is against the rules to give the test back and let someone correct their mistakes.
Either you know this stuff or you don't.
My one piece of advice is to study real hard and don't stop trying to learn.
If you fail today, go home and study some more and take it again next time.
There is nothing that says that you have to have a license to listen.
Even after you get your license - Listen, don't talk!
This was the craziest thing I ever heard.
No one would tell me what it meant.
What it means, is that if you listen long enough - you will find out that most people on the radio is BUNG HOLES.
If you listen to them long enough, you will find out which ones are the nice people and which ones are the bung holes and which ones to associate with and which ones to avoid like the plague.
