WooHoo

I passed the theory exam. Yeah quite pleased with myself! And not one math question. I think I got an easy paper, compared to some of the other questions that fellow candidates were stressing about. Everyone gets a random selection of 50 questions from the pool of available questions. The chance of getting exactly the same questions as another on the night are pretty slim. So I didn't get 100%, but I was pretty close, and as anything over 70% is a pass, I don't think the exact number matters.

So 16th November is the regulations exam, we have 2 weeks to learn them, and then an exam consisting of 30 questions. I am not sure of the pass mark for the regs. I will find out soon I suppose.

At the last minute..

Spent a fruitful hour at the clubrooms today asking last minute questions before the theory exam tomorrow night. Just making sure that my math was in line with the books.

Almost there

just a quick entry this week.
Last week of theory, 50 question exam next week.

We covered measurement, EMC (Electromagnetic compliance), answered general questions

8 of 12

Week 8 has been and gone, with receivers the topic of discussion tonight. Simple crystal set, single stage RF amplifier, audio amplifier etc... Single conversion, double conversion, direct conversion, SSB, CW, FM. How the IF frequency is obtained, why we use it, combinations of local oscillator and received frequency mixing. AGC and de-emphasis in an FM receiver. We finally have the theory test this Friday. This is where it all has to come together. Then regulations and safety.

Week 7

Another week down, transmission lines, antennae, and propagation were on the menu this week. The differences between a balanced feeder , (like open wire feeder, 300 and 450 ohm ribbon) and an unbalanced feeder (coaxial cable), the electromagnetic characteristics of each (and the facilitators preference).
Dipoles, horizontal, vertical, folded, 1/2 a dipole (a vertical antenna with a groundplane as the other side), as well as yagi and log periodic antennae were all discussed, feedpoints, that dreaded SWR, baluns and antenna tuning units.
One little nugget I gleaned, in respect to an OCF dipole (off centre fed) is where you feed it makes a big difference. Basically it is a windom and is traditionally fed 1/3 from one end. The disadvantage of this is that the antenna will not work very well at the 3rd harmonic of it's designed frequency. So an 3.5Mhz antenna fed at 1/3 will be a poor performer on 10.5Mhz etc.... We can't have that. It was suggested that feeding it at 1/5 will take the "useless" frequency about 18Mhz, and I can't use that one anyway. The beauty of wire antenna is that if it does not work, pull it down and build another one!!
Next week recievers!!

On the way home, I had a chat to a fellow amateur about the callsign issue, and he made a few suggestions. VK7LVM is a possibility or another linux based one. I really should have used VK7FSCK for my foundation call, but I was too overcome from passing to really think the callsign bit through.

Anyone reading this, please think of a witty 3 letter suffix, in the range of:
VK7Haa, VK7Laa, VK7Maa, VK7Paa, VK7Vaa, substituting the letters for aa. And VK7HAM is already gone!