What is amazing about amateur radio is you never know who you will talk to.

I live in Williams, Arizona. We have a Western Intertie Network (WIN) system repeater maintained by Bryan – W7BNW. He fixed the repeater after a massive snow storm knocked it out early in the season. It has been up for about two-week.

Today he got the down link radio connected and the system was complete. We can now talk to people through the western States and, at times, around the world. It is a very interesting coincidence that Bryan got the system working today.

About 2:31 AM GMT (7:31 Arizona Time), I heard a call from Richard VK6VRO in Western Australia (10:30 AM his time). I had to call him when he mentioned that he was from Bunbury, Australia.

You see, his city is a part of my history.

When I was in the Navy, I was on the Spruance Class Destroyer USS Oldendorf DD-972. I was on the crew that commissioned the ship. Our first overseas cruise we spent nearly half in Australia. Our very first stop in Australia was Bunbury on August 15, 1980. In fact, we were the second ship to moor at the new pier the city just built—the first United States Navy ship. It brought back great memories of a visit with some of the greatest friends in the world. When we left it seemed like the whole town shut down to come and see us off.

Bear in mind I spoke with him through a UHF repeater on a Baofeng BF-F9 V2+ radio which I purchased from FOSCAM for about $70.

Throughout the day I heard a couple of stations in Canada and I have talked with people in Canada, England, Spain and other States before the tragic loss of the repeater months ago.

A basic Technician license gives you access to the very high frequencies (VHF) from 144 to 148-MHz and Ultra-High Frequencies (UHF) from 420 to 450-MHz. You also have access to other frequencies in this range and above. But the frequencies I described are usually what people refer to when they speak of VHF and UHF. Most repeaters operate in this range.

As you can see, with a Technician license, you might be very surprised who you will speak with.