Amateur Radio Service

Hams have been in Davis for a long time. From the March 16, 1916 edition of the Weekly Agricola The Amateur Radio Service is a FCC licensed radio service. In order to get a license, you must take a written, multiple guess test. You used to need to pass a morse code test to get a license, then you just needed it for long distance transmissions (shortwave bands). As of February 2007 the morse code requirement has been completely dropped. But, you should learn it anyway if you get a license because morse code is for cool people! You can learn more about Amateur Radio from the National ARRL organization, the local Yolo Amateur Radio Society or from the Yolo County Amateur Radio Emergency Service organization. You can find a list of upcoming exam sessions here.

If you are a Local Davis resident with a license or used to be active in the Davis area, feel free to add your name to this list:

Amateur operators have traditionally also been referred to as HAM Operators.

Local Talk

Local HAMs who frequently chat in the Davis Wiki IRC chat-room have generally agreed to listen to the Vacaville repeater at freq: 147.000 MHz, tx offset: -.6 MHz, PL 136.5 Hz for Davis specific "rag-chewing". This repeater generally gets good coverage in Davis and is frequently available.

UC Davis established the UC Davis Amateur Radio Communcations (UCDARC) and installed a repeater on campus. You can read more about it on the UC Davis Safety Services announcement.

Here is info about the weekly Nets in the immediate area:

Chatting about local HAM online

In addition to the many local HAMs hanging out in the Davis Wiki IRC chat room, there is also a #ham channel on the irc.slashnet.org IRC server that was created by WesHardaker.