Radio Preppers

General Category => Licensing => Topic started by: White Tiger on October 13, 2012, 12:29:48 PM

Title: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: White Tiger on October 13, 2012, 12:29:48 PM
I just got back from taking my exams for Technician, General - and because Gil set the bar so high - I also took the test for Extra class!

Proud to say I passed and was told I am awaiting my license as a new little General...or something to that effect (may e that's just what the Frau called me...?)!

A big shout out to WA4STO who started me on this path about 2 months ago, and Gil - thanks for setting the bar so high - I'll have another chance to take the Extra class exam next month...and I definitely plan to re-take it...

Just wanted to share my good news - I'm now off to set-up my fan dipole/antenna mast in the backyard!
Title: Re: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: gil on October 13, 2012, 12:35:31 PM
Excellent Tim! We'll be able to chat frequently then via VHF/repeaters and of course HF via NVIS  :) Ground waves should actually work in our case... Hopefully you'll have your call sign by Friday... If the VEs send out the paperwork today...

A lot of people stop at Technician, but General opens up a lot of spectrum! No reason not to go as far as you can..

Congratulations!

Gil.
Title: Re: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: WA4STO on October 13, 2012, 12:47:56 PM
Quote from: White Tiger on October 13, 2012, 12:29:48 PM

Proud to say I passed and was told I am awaiting my license as a new little General...or something to that effect (may e that's just what the Frau called me...?)!


And a very hearty "Yay ON ya!", White Tiger.  That is SO cool. 

Now get that multi-zillion frequency antenna up in the air and continue "Tevin's Law" for all the world to hear (and see!)

73 de WA4STO
Title: Re: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: Jonas Parker on October 13, 2012, 01:01:04 PM
Well done, White Tiger... you just took the first steps on a loooong journey!  :D
Title: Re: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: StoneyHill on October 13, 2012, 01:22:30 PM
Congrats to White Tiger.  I passed my Extra this morning as well.

SH
Title: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: White Tiger on October 13, 2012, 01:26:30 PM
Thanks guys - and Jonas Parker, to your point...The only other person seeking a license today was a gentleman in his 80's...he was extending his license, and had to re-test because he was in the hospital when his last coded General expired...he didn't study and had to test as a Tech. He must have been in the DX club the VEC's were all from - as they knew his name (Old Joe) and several kept apologizing to the old guy - apparently they didn't know he was in the hospital when his license expired.

...joe didn't seem bothered by it in the least said in the last 40 years he'd only not been a ham for the 4 weeks he was in the hospital and recovering at home...but admitted it might have been easier had he actually studied for the Tech license he'd just taken!

Absolutely will look forward to making contact with Luck via HF - and as for you Gil - I'm stoked at the opportunity to work you on NVIS!

Anyway, thanks guys! Out to get that bajillion frequency dipole in the air - my son just informed me that HE's on a time limit!
Title: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: White Tiger on October 13, 2012, 01:27:18 PM
Quote from: StoneyHill on October 13, 2012, 01:22:30 PM
Congrats to White Tiger.  I passed my Extra this morning as well.

SH

Well then congratulations BACK AT YOU, Stoney!
Title: Re: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: RadioRay on October 13, 2012, 05:38:07 PM
Congratulations General!
(http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRd-Asf6cWpaiqfe4Ai8p88wS9q0decQmY5L5NfSP3OX1klGqab)

Really awsome that you went there and did it!  You DO realize there there is no cure - right?  Once bitten by raido, always smitten by radio.



'See' you on the Radio!


de RadioRay ... _ ._
Title: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: White Tiger on October 13, 2012, 07:49:52 PM
Thanks Ray! I know - maybe that's why I've been humming: "I fell into a burnin' ring of fire..." All afternoon!
Title: Re: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: Jonas Parker on October 15, 2012, 01:25:09 PM
Quote from: StoneyHill on October 13, 2012, 01:22:30 PM
Congrats to White Tiger.  I passed my Extra this morning as well.

SH

Welcome to the club, Stoney! Well done! JP
Title: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: White Tiger on October 16, 2012, 03:02:45 AM
Quote from: RadioRay on October 13, 2012, 05:38:07 PM
Congratulations General!
(http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRd-Asf6cWpaiqfe4Ai8p88wS9q0decQmY5L5NfSP3OX1klGqab)

Really awsome that you went there and did it!  You DO realize there there is no cure - right?  Once bitten by raido, always smitten by radio.



'See' you on the Radio!


de RadioRay ... _ ._

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/NathanBedfordForrest.jpg)

...and I much prefer Nathan Bedford Forest to Joseph E Johnston!

...I mean - as long as we're limiting it to Generals of the CSA! He never lost a battle, even when he was outnumbered. he once divided his troops in the middle of a battle to which he was outnumbered two to one - and won. He escaped a siege at Fort Donelson...and he was self-educated.

(But the comparison stops after the Civil War...
Title: Re: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: gil on October 16, 2012, 11:43:24 AM
Know who this was?
Title: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: White Tiger on October 16, 2012, 08:01:52 PM
Marconi?
Title: Re: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: gil on October 16, 2012, 08:11:13 PM
Jefferson Davis. I was at his house on the photo...

Gil.
Title: Re: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: raybiker73 on October 16, 2012, 08:25:42 PM
Quote from: White Tiger on October 16, 2012, 03:02:45 AM

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/NathanBedfordForrest.jpg)

...and I much prefer Nathan Bedford Forest to Joseph E Johnston!

...I mean - as long as we're limiting it to Generals of the CSA! He never lost a battle, even when he was outnumbered. he once divided his troops in the middle of a battle to which he was outnumbered two to one - and won. He escaped a siege at Fort Donelson...and he was self-educated.

(But the comparison stops after the Civil War...

I guess somebody has to step up to the plate and represent for those of us north of the Mason-Dixon, so I'd definitely congratulate the General.

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/105252/sherman.jpeg)

But then, I guess I'm a bit partial. Here's me in 1864....err, I mean, 1994.   8)

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/105252/raybiker73.jpeg)
Title: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: White Tiger on October 16, 2012, 11:25:14 PM
Yeah, that's the guy that referred to Forrest as "that devil Forest"...I hear he was itching (or was that burning?) to get to the coast...

Now, that last picture of the Union Corporal looks pretty authentic, are you a re-enactor?
Title: Re: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: gil on October 17, 2012, 12:04:50 AM
Ray, check this out... Haven't had time or money to work on it... The stone was a gift from my ex girlfriend's little girl...

Gil.

Title: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: White Tiger on October 17, 2012, 12:39:11 AM
That's a beautiful geode Gil! I believe they're prevalent out West, around the Rockies...
Title: Re: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: raybiker73 on October 17, 2012, 01:18:51 AM
Gil: What kind of rifle is it going to be? I've always wanted to build a really nice muzzleloader, but never got any more advanced than a couple basic CVA kits back when I was in college.

Tiger: I used to be. Originally 78th Pennsylvania, which was a Sons of Union Veterans group from this area, but I ended up falling in with a really hardcore authentic unit, the 66th Ohio Volunteers. We had guys from OH, PA and WV in that unit. I was 66 OVI Company I from 1992 to 1999. Good times indeed, and sometimes I miss doing it. The picture was taken at 131st Gettysburg in July of 1994. It's actually a tintype. The photographer used all period equipment for photos, and even had a wagon-based Brady-style darkroom. I remember having to stand still for about 5 seconds when he took the photo so that it wouldn't blur, because those old cameras used a really long shutter speed.
Title: Re: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: gil on October 17, 2012, 01:24:06 AM
Hi Ray, it's a Lehigh County flintlock, .50, 40" barrel.
I wonder if I'll ever finish it...

Gil.
Title: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: White Tiger on October 17, 2012, 02:17:12 AM
Gil, I think I saw what looks like a barrel in the previous picture...how much more do you need to to do to finish it?

And btw - great work so far!

Ray: that's awesome! And the 66th OVI sounds familiar...is that an original unit? Part of my family is Scotch Irish, and came to Ohio from West Virgina. The other side came to Ohio from Iowa during the Civil War.

I have an affinity for the south as I was born in Ohio - but raised and educated in The South - where many of my teachers took it upon themselves to train the little Yankee Boy (that's what they really called me)...about the truth concerning the "Second War for Independence", or "The War Against Northern Aggression". Much has changed, but I still have a slightly different view of that period of American History!

Sometime I will tell you about the local gun shop owner friend of mine who swears Lincoln was the first fascist!
Title: Re: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: gil on October 17, 2012, 11:29:43 AM
Hello Tim,

I am missing the lock, trigger and a few other small parts...

Anyway, one may wonder what America would be today if the South had won. Slavery would have been abolished, just a bit later, due to worldwide pressure. The States would be much more independent of course.. Big Brother would be Baby Brother.. Who knows..

Gil.
Title: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: White Tiger on October 17, 2012, 01:23:03 PM
Quote from: gil on October 17, 2012, 11:29:43 AM
Hello Tim,

I am missing the lock, trigger and a few other small parts...

Are these parts difficult to locate, expensive, or both?
Quote from: gil on October 17, 2012, 11:29:43 AM
Anyway, one may wonder what America would be today if the South had won. Slavery would have been abolished, just a bit later, due to worldwide pressure. The States would be much more independent of course.. Big Brother would be Baby Brother.. Who knows..

Gil.
That is exactly the point my gun shop owner friend makes; the southern economy would not have been demolished and sent backwards by about 100 years, and the political landscape may have changed.

We also would not have strengthened the power of the Federal government.

Defeating the North would not have been possible - and in the beginning it wasn't even a goal of the Southern States. They just wanted to be left alone. There weren't many people that believed the South could win a war with the Northern states, as the North had twice the manufacturing, twice the population, and twice the investment capitol. The South was only hoping to fight long enough, and make it just bloody enough, so as to cause the people of the North to lose the will to fight. And the people of the North would force Lincoln to sue for peace and grant secession, creating two separate countries. But after winning nearly every engagement with the North - a kind of arrogance developed amongst the southern political and military leadership. Until Gettysburg...and it could have ALL turned there. Robert E Lee's vision was a quick decisive battle with the North, and then turn his Southern Army towards Washington DC - only 80 miles away! He would threaten to march in as conqueror...unless they recognized the CSA as a separate nation...

... the Union had thrown everything it had at Lee at Gettysburg, there were no other troops/Armies in the area large enough to stop him.

The South came within one last charge on Little Round Top...of doing just that...interesting how "fate" played a hand.

Kind of an interesting historical twist to me: It is said that Ho Chi Mihn studied the reasoning/strategy of the American Revolutionary War and the American Civil War (fighting a superior force in a war of attrition, over extended supply lines, until the superior force loses the will to fight) before engaging the French in the Indochinese War...which later became the war in Vietnam...
Title: Re: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: raybiker73 on October 17, 2012, 01:29:40 PM
If you're interested in alternate history, pick up a copy of "If The South Had Won the Civil War," by McKinley Kantor, it's a really great book. IIRC, his divergence point was having Grant die during the siege of Vicksburg in '63, and how everything changed after that.

If you're into REALLY alternate history, pick up "For Want of a Nail" by Robert Sobel, which changes quite literally everything in the world by having Burgoyne defeat Washington at Saratoga in 1777, instead of the other way around. Really great reading.
Title: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: gil on October 17, 2012, 01:33:04 PM
I did read one entertaining book where South African time travelers bring AK47s to the South, but I forgot the author's name or title.

Gil
Title: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: White Tiger on October 17, 2012, 03:05:50 PM
Phillip Roth wrote a pretty interesting book called "The Plot Against America" and (surprisingly) Newt Gingerich's "1945"...

...I'm actually looking forward to reading a new alt history by Newt called "Never Call Retreat"...about the Civil War and specifically, Gettysburg.
Title: Re: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: gil on October 17, 2012, 05:34:46 PM
Hi Tim, the parts are not hard to find or expensive, but I've been buying radio stuff instead!

Gil.
Title: Say hello to a New General!!
Post by: White Tiger on October 18, 2012, 12:16:12 AM
Oh, I understand...have the same problem...only have a budget for one obsession at a time!