For 3 Mondays in December, the West Seattle Amateur Radio Club has hosted the new Hams in the area at the West Seattle Senior Center for an in person session during our weekly radio check in (every Monday night at 6:30) on the West Seattle Repeater W7AW. Input frequencies, output frequencies and PL tones can all be intimidating terms, and every brand of radio has a different way to program them. Pressing that big button on the left side of the radio and knowing your voice will be broadcast throughout the entire Puget Sound Basin is somewhat daunting as well. So these “post license test” sessions have been intended to introduce the nicknamed KJ7s to their radio operation and on air etiquette. The FCC passes out licenses in systemic order, so all the new hams in this most recent class have license call signs starting with the prefix and region code of KJ7. There will be one more Ham Jam Session this Monday the 17th, for any new hams, or anyone who has received a license previously, but hasn’t figured how to program that darn radio yet.

     

Dec 10th session, Mei Bri goes over basic equipment info

Dec 17th session, Brian Nozynski, standing, worked the crowd and controlled desensing issues

Dec 17th session, it was a full house!