Author: Tommy

edit:I just passed my Amateur Extra class license test!
As most of you know, I got my General class license for ham radio. This allows me to operate on the HF (<50Mhz) bands. These are the bands that are what most people associate with ham radio: talking around the world. I have been logging my contacts in my log book and have decided to start trying for the ARRL Worked All States Award.
As you can see from the map, I have quite a ways to go, but it should prove to be a fun goal. This is only using the 20m band, which is what my dipole was contructed for. The limitation to this is that it is virtually dead at night.

As far as distance goes, I have logged contacts from my apartment with a station in the Cook Islands (in the South Pacific), the island of Trinidad (in the south Carribean) and 2 contacts in Canada (one in BC, the other in SK). At the SFA radio club station, I have logged various states, Canada, England and even Serbia!

While I'm on the subject of ham radio, I attended a "Hamfest" (ham radio swapmeet) this weekend in Orange, TX. I picked up some radio odds and ends, and an Extra Class study manual. I hope to take this test at the end of next month, but more realistically, it will be in the coming months. The Extra Class test (Element 4) is the highest level test for amateur radio, as well as the hardest and most technically challenging. By passing the test, I will be afforded access to certain portions of the spectrum reserved for other Extra class operators. Big whoop, I know.

update: still making contacts...

Tonight I passed both the written and code section of the FCC Amateur Radio Licensing tests to gain my General license. I had studied Morse Code off and on for the past few months. I thought I was ready back in December, but failed at that attempt. Tonight I passed, not perfect, but a good showing, nonetheless. I was sure I would walk away defeated once more, but after Army, AE5P, counted up more than 35 characters in a row, I was elated to find out I passed.

I also gave the written portion of the test a try and found out I remembered more of it than I thought - I hadn't studied since December! (...and that was studying with a slightly outdated book!) I passed with a 24/30, not as good as I'd liked to have made, but a passing score is a passing score.

It will take a few weeks for the FCC to process the paperwork to officially grant my General class standing, but in the meantime, I can still operate as a General license holder by appending "/AG" to my call. (I think it stands for Awaiting General)

I was really shocked, I was only expecting to eek by on the Element 1 code test, but, in the end, I got both. Very glad to have accomplished this.

We all have those cool links. And I'm not talking about those lame-o funny flash animations. I mean links that provide something useful: a service, information, weather, some kind of search.
Yeah, those kinds of links. I figure it's high time we share those links. So posts your favorite links in the comments.

Sites like:

Slickdeals.net

Houston area traffic

PriceWatch

The Linux Documentation Project

While talking to Notorious online today, we somehow got on the subject of ranking interest groups. Some groups are useful and just fun, but as with any hobby, when you meet and gather for one idea or one interest, you are instantly transformed into a geek. This is true for all hobbies, nothing is above this simple rule. A group of friends is seperate from this, however. You are all friends, plain and simple - there is no underlying reasoning for you hanging out. There are only so many people that will fit into your clique.

I know it's natural for any hobby to spring into knowing other people with similar interests. The only hobbies I can think of that you could see other people and not be labeled a total dork are things that are inherently social. Such things as seeing your favorite band in concert, seeing your favorite sports team, or auto and boat shows.
The problem with every hobby is there are extremists. (Even those "safe", inehrently social events have extremists.) It's the extremists that show you how bad things can get if you don't balance your life with something grounded in reality. You know the extremists, for movie-goers and book readers it involves dressing the part of their favorite characters. Any time your hobby moves you to dress the part, you're in too deep. You need to stop your hobby and do something else for a while. Get a job, get a girlfriend/boyfriend, spend more time in public.

When your hobby takes you past that threshold, you must realize: no matter how many other people are also dressing the part, they're just as gay as you are. To be all into D&D or RPGs is one thing, but when you move into Live Action Role Playing (LARP), you have just catapulted yourself into utter faggotry. Enjoying anime is also a hobby that many people enjoy, but when you start dressing as such, you too have just taken the plunge into the Canyon Gay. Star Wars fans and Trekkies are not immune either. There are dress up extremists here too, even extremists that know how gay they are!

But let us not look only at fiction. There are also other "non-ficion" hobbies that can be take just a bit too far. Most of you know I'm into ham radio. This can be taken to the extreme as well. Other over-the-top hobbyists include:

LAN Partiers - why can't they just attend and play?

Civil War Re-enactors - We need more s'mores schnapps, cap'n!

Gun shows - "teeeen, hut!"

...and whatever the crap these people are doing.

Pray tell me you see the difference in enjoying something and taking it too far. Dressing up to a convention is like wearing a thong to go to a Sumo wrestling match. Or dressing up as a clown to eat at McDonald's. "Hey look everyone, I'm dressed like a cow so I can buy milk at the grocery store!"

It's okay to have a hobby, and to enjoy your hobby, but you must, for the love of all things right, do all things in moderation.

Lastly, what is not okay, and should be punishable by death is the act of being a furry. There is no excuse for this, for the hobby itself requires the participant to both dress up, and fornicate, usually homosexually, since most females never stoop to such low levels for acceptance.

I have added decency filters on neodux now. "Naughty words" are now changed into pointless and silly phrases.

Also added, for admins with access level of 100 or more only, a shoutbox editor to better keep a handle on shoutbox entries. If someone screws up the shoutbox, it's usually a missing or a quotes on a URL. Now, you can go to the shout management to add/edit the shouts.

Finally, a better version of the url vbCode has been added. Thanks to Valt over at Xulphlux for the improved regex. Syntax for urls is still the same, but you can now use
[ url sitename.here] text [/ url]
(remove the space before url and you're set!)