Ignorant_Know-It-All
Newbie
- Joined
- Oct 3, 2024
- Messages
- 1
Hi everyone!
I got my Technician license about a month-ish ago, and haven't been super active yet. Still gathering more information and getting my toes wet. As of right now, I've got two newbie UV-5Rs (one for me and one for my wife), though I'm already planning to upgrade to a proper base station set-up.
Like my username suggests, even if I think I know something, I don't. There's always room for improvement, always more to be learned, and I try to maintain that attitude in myself, and it's a lesson I try to instill in my own students (though let's face it, even if I had been taught that lesson in grade school, it have stuck about as well as the eraser side of a pencil in a drop ceiling tile).
A little more background on myself, I spent four years in the US Navy as an Interior Communications technician, and went through a fairly abbreviated and accelerated crash course on basic electronic theory, followed by more specific training on equipment you wouldn't see outside of a museum. My job was mostly idle maintenance and minor hardware repairs (read "swapping out circuit cards and phone handsets"). I was technically taught how to troubleshoot components, but the last time I used an O-scope was in school. I specialized in fiber optics, but it was more of the same. If I had to repair a fiber line, there were bigger problems.
I got out in 2016, and haven't done much with electronics other than basic end-user stuff. The most troubleshooting I've done since then is "is it plugged in and turned on?" In other words, I'm waaaaay out of practice. I technically got some technical radio training in getting my Surface Warefare pin, but it was cram info: in one ear, regurgitated, and then lost immediately after. When I was preparing for my test, some of it returned, but I've still got a lot to claw back into my noggin.
Now I'm a grade school teacher (mostly 1st grade, but I have classes with 6th-8th graders as well, in addition to being the principal), and I've found it an interesting challenge to break information down into its lowest form for them. Back in the Navy, we'd call that "Barney style." And in the process, I'm becoming more and more familiar with all sorts of material and concepts that I thought I'd had a pretty good handle on before. Which has led to my finally understanding that I'm not nearly as smart as I think I am. Only took me thirty-ish years to figure that one out.
In addition to going over the ARRL handbook, I've blown the dust off the old NEETS modules and have been thumbing through them, re-educating myself on electronics and theory.
So that's me. Just your average self-aware moron, getting in way over his head for the giggles.
I got my Technician license about a month-ish ago, and haven't been super active yet. Still gathering more information and getting my toes wet. As of right now, I've got two newbie UV-5Rs (one for me and one for my wife), though I'm already planning to upgrade to a proper base station set-up.
Like my username suggests, even if I think I know something, I don't. There's always room for improvement, always more to be learned, and I try to maintain that attitude in myself, and it's a lesson I try to instill in my own students (though let's face it, even if I had been taught that lesson in grade school, it have stuck about as well as the eraser side of a pencil in a drop ceiling tile).
A little more background on myself, I spent four years in the US Navy as an Interior Communications technician, and went through a fairly abbreviated and accelerated crash course on basic electronic theory, followed by more specific training on equipment you wouldn't see outside of a museum. My job was mostly idle maintenance and minor hardware repairs (read "swapping out circuit cards and phone handsets"). I was technically taught how to troubleshoot components, but the last time I used an O-scope was in school. I specialized in fiber optics, but it was more of the same. If I had to repair a fiber line, there were bigger problems.
I got out in 2016, and haven't done much with electronics other than basic end-user stuff. The most troubleshooting I've done since then is "is it plugged in and turned on?" In other words, I'm waaaaay out of practice. I technically got some technical radio training in getting my Surface Warefare pin, but it was cram info: in one ear, regurgitated, and then lost immediately after. When I was preparing for my test, some of it returned, but I've still got a lot to claw back into my noggin.
Now I'm a grade school teacher (mostly 1st grade, but I have classes with 6th-8th graders as well, in addition to being the principal), and I've found it an interesting challenge to break information down into its lowest form for them. Back in the Navy, we'd call that "Barney style." And in the process, I'm becoming more and more familiar with all sorts of material and concepts that I thought I'd had a pretty good handle on before. Which has led to my finally understanding that I'm not nearly as smart as I think I am. Only took me thirty-ish years to figure that one out.
In addition to going over the ARRL handbook, I've blown the dust off the old NEETS modules and have been thumbing through them, re-educating myself on electronics and theory.
So that's me. Just your average self-aware moron, getting in way over his head for the giggles.
