I awoke to sun and partially cloudy skies. The wind is blowing at 12 to 15 knots from the west northwest. The cabin temperature is 65 which is down almost 3 degrees from yesterday. It is noticeably cooler than it has been. I pulled out a second blanket to keep warm last night.
I listened to both the Amigo and Sonrisa nets this morning with the goal of getting a weather update. I learned that Geary, who normally gives the weather on the Sonrisa net, has been sick with “tourista” for the past two days and could not provide weather information. One of the other cruisers on the Amigo net read the weather information he got from Saildocs, which is an online source of weather information. The problem with the single sideband nets is that it is often hard to hear other boats on the net due to propagation problems, static, and interference from other sources. Often you can hear fairly clearly for a few seconds, and then the signal fades into the static, and then it slowly emerges from the static again. If you are lucky, you can hear the weather for the area you are in, but fairly often the signal fades out just as the area you care about is being discussed. Using the SSB nets to get weather is a hit or miss affair. It is very helpful but not terribly reliable.
I spent the day reading Gordon West’s “Technician Class Amateur Radio License Preparation” study guide. Barlavento is equipped with an ICOM M-802 marine radio. This radio is capable of transmitting and receiving worldwide on both the marine single side band (SSB) radio channels and the amateur or Ham radio channels. I have an FCC license to transmit and receive on the marine SSB radio channels. I do not have a Ham license, which is required to transmit on the Ham radio channels. Fortunately, no Ham license is needed to listen to the Ham radio channels, so I can listen to the cruising nets where I obtain weather reports. Still, I would like to be able to transmit on the Ham radio channels. To do that, I must first obtain a Technician Class Ham radio license, and then a General Class Ham radio license. The Technician Class license only allows extremely limited use the Ham frequencies, but it is required before obtaining a General Class license, which allows use of the Ham frequencies I really need.
To obtain a Technician Class license, I need to memorize the answers to 394 multiple choice questions. I must then take a Technician Class exam that will contain 35 of these randomly selected questions and pass the Technician Class exam by getting at least 74% of the questions right. Once I have done that, I can obtain a General Class license by memorizing the answers to 456 multiple choice questions. I must then take a General Class exam that will contain 35 of these randomly selected questions and pass the General Class exam by getting at least 74% of the questions right. It is like passing your written driving test but significantly harder because many of the questions are technical and require knowledge of how radios and antennas work.
The questions and answers are all published. Gordon West’s book lists all of the questions and provides all of the answers along with a brief explanation for each question. I got through over half of the Technician Class questions yesterday. It is a fair amount of work to memorize all of the questions and answers, but it seems possible. I may give it a try.
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