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Hi there
Hello! My name is John. Welcome to
the N4QVM web site. This site is going through an update and it
will take a little while to add all the new pages and check out all the links, so bear with me. If
you find a link that doesn't work you can
Contact N4QVM. Please copy the page url from your browsers address bar and send it in the email
so I can go straight to the problem page. I
recently moved all the personal stuff to a separate site at
www.jdwiggins.com so this site could be solely about amateur radio.
I have an extra class Amateur Radio license, which is the
top class of three now issued in the United States. When I got my first license
in 1988 there were 5 classes and I started out by passing enough test to end up in the middle with a general
class. A month later I passed the test for Advanced class, but due to work, school, and life in general; it took me
several years to go the last step to Extra class. If you are not a ham now but would like to become one, or just want
to learn more about amateur radio, there is more information on the
Amateur Radio page.
This site is dedicated to Amateur Radio, also know as ham radio. The domain name is
actually my call sign. If you have stumbled onto this site by mistake and haven't heard of ham radio, it is
people talking to people with a radio. My personal interests are in
DX'ing,
which is talking to people in other countries on the high frequency bands, and
Contesting, which adds a competitive component to things.
Contrary to what some people think it doesn't take an awful lot of money to
get started in ham radio. It kind of depends on what you want to do, what bands
you want to operate on, what different modes, or types of transmission you are
interested in, and so on. I have always operated in the CW, or "Morse code", and
SSB, or "phone" modes until recently. It doesn't take a lot of power to talk
around the world and it is possible that you can talk to most everyone you hear if you have a radio
transmitting 100 watts or so. There are exceptions and some are noted in the
Amateur Radio section.
If you are looking for the DCARC - Davie County Amateur Radio Club - pages that were on
this site temporarily, there is now a site for DCARC at
www.ki4orw.org which is the club callsign.
So take a look around and let me know what you think.