What a great opportunity for new hams or those interested in the hobby or perhaps on the fence! I cannot applaud this enough! Now just need one for general level and HF... all joking aside, great work!
I think that any way to get a new ham on the air is a great idea. To increase the success of this initiative I would suggest that using the genius and skills of QRZ, that a local ham radio mentor can be assigned from a list of willing QRZ members local to the new ham getting the radio. I can only imagine that a new ham without help, will not be able to understand and find the local channels, PL tones, etc to set up the radio to get it working. In addition, we hams need to reply to new hams when they get on the local repeaters for the first time asking for a "radio check" (code for anyone out there? ). A good mentor will lead our new ham to HF. Fred - give us a badge that says we volunteer to be a ham radio mentor.
For Godneß sake (I do NOT believe in god btw) a mentor to teach the use of an elementary HT to hit a repeater... these years any child is able to do x100 with his/her smartphone, and even, Filipino fishermen were able to chat all day on channel 16, so, go figure, as to the tech side of R-A. What next should newbies be needing? Thread getting really interesting now, wow!! Oliver
I have a 9-year-old who hopes to pass his Technician test this fall. He doesn't have a photo ID, though. Will the photo ID thing be an obstacle to his participating in the offer?
Hi, I'm 13 and a new ham. This program looks cool! I do have one question though, I don't have an ID of my own. I was able to test virtually by showing my Parent's ID. Can I do the same for this so I can enroll? I have to make this post in a rush, so if I miss an obvious answers, I apologize.
Will it be possible to do a QRZ-2 digital handheld in the future. That is the way technology is going. Thinking about the QRX-1 Changing the chinese software was a good idea!
Interesting, my first license was issued 29 days ago (26 July) and I applied. The system responded "Sorry, this program is only available to Amateur Radio Operators whose (first) FCC license was issued within the past 30 days." Fantastic program concept, though.
My QRZ-1 Explorer arrived today. Feels solid and is working as expected. The RT programming software included in the box installed with no problems. My only point on that is the programming cable is not included in the box and must be ordered separately. Fortunately for me I noticed that when I checked on the box contents and so I ordered one. The $20 speaker/mic sounds pretty good and will keep that 5w out of my brainpan, so I won't have to wear a tinfoil hat. The charger base is required to charge, so might want to think about getting the battery eliminator thingy in the future.... A clip to hook the external mic clip to the front of the unit would be nice, maybe I can 3d print one up here at some point. I have set up a local repeater and I have heard some traffic, but still hesitant to transmit to the entire area and sound like an idiot. Happy experience so far. As I said before.... QRZ, You rock!
Nice idea, shame that it is US only. QRZ.com aim at all Hams so it would be nice that everyone is included in the future. 73 Marek SP9TKW
As stated in the GigaParts announcement. But, it's strange that the cable wasn't included in this program. What good is having programming software without the cable? The "free" 60 dollar radio becomes a not-so-free 30 dollar cable to make effective use of the radio. Many years ago, Gordon West heavily promoted the idea of amateur radio stores pre-programming the radios they sold with common frequencies for the area. The idea was that a radio that isn't programmed isn't much use to a new ham who may not know what frequencies to program or how to program the radio. Of course, the problem with the idea is that the store has to know where the radios are going in order to effectively program them. But, if you know the ZIP Code of buyer, or the recipient, of the radio, someone could easily look up frequencies in the online repeater directory of your choice in order to program the radio.
yea, I was just reinforcing that it needs to be order so nobody is disappointed. The cable only costs $12.95 and GIGA gave a 50% discount when I placed the order, so it was only around $6.50. On the plus side, the cable has an embedded CH340 usb to uart chip so it could be used to program like an ESP32 MCU or any simple other serial port device if you take the time to figure out what pins of the radio end are rx/tx and use an appropriate jack to attach it. The usb cable also come with a cd, which I am guessing is the drivers for the usb chip, but I don't have player to read it in my computer. I noticed that the radio speaker is disabled when the programmer cable is plugged in, but the radio appears to still transmit. Haven't had the chance to play with it much yet...
