Thanks in advance for welcoming me to the Amateur Extra class. I really appreciate it.
I successfully passed the Amateur Extra license exam recently and am now among the ranks of the radio amateur elite, at least on paper. As with most things in life, there are still many, many things to learn. In fact, learning never ends. For example, I recently purchased the ARRL’s Antenna Book because I’ve been focused lately on learning as much as I can about small, stealthy multiband antennas so I can work multiple bands from my home where outdoor antennas are restricted. Just thumbing through the antenna fundamentals portion of the book tells me there is much to learn still.
There is quite a bit of information covered in the exam study material for the U.S. amateur radio licenses, especially for Amateur Extra, that is related to radio design and amplifier design and the like. While I don’t think I’ll ever design and build my own transceiver (maybe from a kit, though), it is useful to have a deeper understanding of how one works and studying for the extra exam helped to deepen my existing knowledge of the topic. With that being said, I think my strongest area of focus remains with antenna design. I hope to share any antenna projects with you here on the blog as they come around.
Anyway, I felt like sharing my recent accomplishment with everyone. Perhaps we’ll chat sometime at the bottom of those HF bands.
73,
Matthew
K2MAS.net 