The easiest thing if you want to learn and play about with RF is to go and
get the limited amateur radio operators license. That will let you use
pretty much any amateur band from VHF upwards, and I don't think Morse code
is a requirement anymore. You need to do some study and take an exam but
it's not too tricky and you can get plenty of help from other operators in
the ACT. You can then muck with satellites and whatnot from your back
yard. This way you can learn about RF, have a large scope for
experimentation on all sorts of frequencies and power levels and you can do
it at your own pace. And the theory isn't all that tricky (no calculus,
just a bit of algebra), it's applied versus the evil and nasty theoretical.

Check out http://www.wia.org.au/ for more information.

I knew a guy in the ACT who made his own dual stacked helical antennas for
his UHF rig and quite easily talked to other operators in Sydney. And a
friend of mine (before he got a girlfriend) had a big rhombic antenna on
his garage for working various amateur satellites on the 2m band. I think
he was pinging it to test the true round trip time as the satellite passed
overhead.

That's the sort of thing you can do and you'll learn a lot.

jASON

At 11:29 AM 7/01/2002 +1100, you wrote:
>thats cool ... but i was kinda looking for some 3rd party thing, even if
>its onlythe basics of RF using only one certain products. I have seen some
>lucent
>courses around...
>
>Id prefer not to have to do a 4 year uni degree as im a IT Security geek
>at themoment. Id prefer to find something I can pick up on the side...
>
>btw. I am playing, just need to find someone in the ACT area i can point
>my kitat now...
>
>thanks for your input :)

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