What does all this stuff I memorized actually mean??
– Many new Technician licensees
Schedule
The class will be held at the Newaygo County Emergency Operations Center (EOC) from 10:30am to noon on the second Saturday of each month, beginning April 13, 2019.
Unfortunately, due to a lack of publicity, scheduling challenges and and a battle with cancer, we only ever held one class session. With the pandemic hitting in 2020, it was apparent that reviving an in-person class in White Cloud just wasn’t going to work. However, if you would still like to learn about radio fundamentals, I would encourage you to check out “Ham Radio with Emma“, a YouTube channel.
The Newaygo County Emergency Operations Center is located at 306 S North Street in White Cloud, Michigan (blue roof building directly to the west of the Sheriff’s Office). Please use the East Door directly facing the Sheriff’s Office (or follow the signs).
Syllabus
A current trend in ham radio is that many, many new hams have earned their licenses through rote repetition with website quizzes, phone apps, Ham-in-a-Day classes, etc. But once they attain their license, they may be hesitant about jumping into the ham radio community, because they feel like they only have a shaky understanding of the real life concepts.
Others may be still struggling to earn their license, because these methods don’t work well with the way they learn.
With that in mind, we are going to be launching a series of classes intended to cover the same topics needed to pass the Technician test, but in a slower way, taking time to understand the concepts, rather than simply memorization.
“Learn Together”
It is true that this class series will be targeted at fundamentals that perhaps an experienced ham may already know, but we will be inviting local experienced hams to attend as assistant mentors. We would like to be able to draw upon the wealth of knowledge that experienced hams possess in order to answer questions. In addition, whenever possible, we’d like to provide hands-on activities. So, for example, this might be an experienced ham listening on the local repeater for students to practice calling. Or in other cases, it might be an experienced ham bringing in a piece of equipment for the students to examine.
Please contact Wes Bustraan if you are interested in helping out.