Last night on 40m CW, I worked WB5RY. I’m pretty sure this was the call he gave me because he repeated it several times during the contact. He gave his name as Bill and his location as Fayetteville, GA.

When the call didn’t show up on QRZ.Com, I got a little suspicious. Now, I know that not everyone shows up on QRZ.Com, as they ban folks every once in a while. So, I looked up the callsign in the FCC ULS database. The database says that WB5RY was last issued on 11/14/2006 to a Richard Ybarra and was cancelled on 2/9/2007.

General Class control operator frequency privileges, primary and secondary allocations

As you know, on the 80m, 40m, 20m, and 15m bands, some frequencies are reserved for Advanced and Extra Class licensees. On the other bands, however, General Class licensees have exactly the same privileges as Advanced and Extra Class licensees.

RF safety principles, rules and guidelines, routine station evaluation

If you learn nothing else from this manual, I hope that you learn to be safe when setting up your station, building antennas, or operating a radio. It’s unfortunate, but hams every year lose their lives in accidents that could have been prevented. In this chapter, we will cover RF safety and electrical safety.