WI3G

My name is Eric Swanson. This site details my adventures in ham radio.

Ham History

I've held an amateur radio licence since I was 12. I earned my Technician licence October 10th, 2002. My first callsign was KC8UWJ. I loved to tinker with electronics and I expected radios would be no different. But as a 12-year-old, I didn't have the funds to purchase a $300 handheld, and homebrew was above my skill level, so my radio licence went in a frame on the kitchen counter. EchoLink was about all I did in the ham radio world until coming to college in 2009.

W8YX, the University of Cincinnati's Amateur Radio Club, got me interested in ham radio again. In 2010, I bought my first radio, a Quansheng TG-UV2. It took a while to learn to program it, and it doesn't support DTMF, but it's a nice radio, with good audio and exceptional battery life.

In 2013, I decided it was time I get my General ticket and start some HF activity. I studied for my General and showed up for the test one Saturday morning. After I passed the General, the VEs suggested that I sit for the Extra as well. Why not, it's free. Well, I passed that one too. Once I got my new licence, I set out to get a low phonetic weight callsign, using the excellent tools at AE7Q.com and ended up with WI3G.

Current Interests

My interest in ham radio lately stems from my facination with all communication technologies. I love the idea that I can talk from my apartment to someone on the other side of the world with nothing but a bit of wire and the ionosphere. I'm also excited to start experimenting with various digital modes. Cheap RTL-SDR dongles have opened up a new world of receiving for me as well.