General blog post - Redux

Today was my confrontation with the Quiz Master(s).   To steal a statement from Scott - KI5OBD - "Once I take the test I CAN STOP STUDYING!"

I took the test and passed, so now I'm KI5RBT/AG for acting general.  To put the rubber on the road, I'm going to have to put some copper (wire) up into some trees, across the backyard, over a shed, along the fence-line and down the other side of the house.  Some 132 feet of wire strung out - to hopefully allow me to start bouncing radio signals off the F2 layer of the ionosphere (OMG, applied knowledge!) and talking to other hams in the range of about 2500 miles distance.

As usual for me when faced with a looming thing like a test, I over-prepared.  It's all good - I did try to go beyond just learning the exam answers and asked myself a lot of "why" questions, generally followed by flipping through the licensing manual and finding out that the math was too complex for me especially at 2am, and I just accepted that the answer was 26.5 watts.

Taking these licensing exams is a lot of regurgitating the answers from the question pool... then applying the knowledge as you put it into practice.  That's why I didn't try taking my general license exam when I got my technician license.  I wanted to get some miles under my belt first.  I wouldn't want an airline pilot flying me around who has an innate ability to answer questions, but doesn't know shit about flying.

So, it's done.  You can address me as General Dyer, or whatever.  Probably more likely General Disarray.

73




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