VA7LIV

Victor Alpha Seven Lima India Victor

I'm a HAM!

(insert obligatory pork joke here)

After way too many hours paying for and then hardly using an online site, studying free online guide material I found randomly, then giving up trying to understand it, instead working to memorize a 1000 question bank from which I knew they would draw 100 questions and taking the practice exam with Industry Canada's exam generator until I consistently passed above 80%, I have passed the Amateur Radio Operators Basic Exam with Honours which gives me full access to the HAM bands so I can use our SSB radio for weather/email for free at sea.

This was the most studying I have done for an exam where I only needed an 80% or better since my third semester of graduate level statistics...and I'm a good test taker...and I memorize quickly. It's such a silly exam filled almost entirely with information that will be useless to someone who is simply going to use a radio at sea.

Question: If a slightly longer parasitic element is placed 0.1 wavelength away from an HF dipole antenna, what effect will this have on the antenna's radiation pattern?

Answer: A major lobe will develop in the horizontal plane, away from the parasitic element, toward the dipole.

I would tell you exactly how much I care about a parasitic element near a dipole but that kind of language doesn't suit a lady public blog.

I feel such a sense of accomplishment though because this has been a big item on our to do list since we first started a cruising to do list and this makes it particularly nice to cross off as finished.

Plus, now I can put a cool call sign on my signature like all of the other cruiser supergeeks (that I proudly consider myself part of).

My second choice for a call sign was VA7DRG because I was Dr. G in another life but it is tres clunky and so I let myself get talked out of it.

Yours truly, Livia, VA7LIV