[Space] HAM licenses

[nils at shkoo.com]

I'd like to encourage y'all to get HAM licenses if you haven't gotten one 
already.  It'd make a lot of stuff easier, and it's not that tough to do.

It would be useful for us to have more folks who have HAM licenses, since 
they could (legally) operate the gear and provide communication services 
if we have more than one chase vehicle or whatnot.

It's really not very hard at all to get a Technician license, which allows 
you to do all the stuff that we'll be doing.  It's just rote memorization, 
and a lot of the stuff you can probably get right by guessing if you're at 
technologically knowledgable to start with.  Here are the practice 
flashcards (with the actual test questions) that I used to get a 100% 
score on the exam:

http://kb0mga.net/exams/

There are usually ham tests every Saturday morning (and occasionally at 
other times) Here is the ARRL search page for exam locations.  Most of 
them are walk-in:

http://www.arrl.org/arrlvec/examsearch.phtml

Tomorrow there's one in Fremont, and one in Lafayette.

Sunnyvale also has one going on (not affiliated with the ARRL so it 
doesn't show up on their search):

http://www.amateur-radio.org/

-nils