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ABOUT HAMUNIVERSE.COM
Hi! Thanks for stopping in and WELCOME to Hamuniverse.com
JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT!
(Comes complete with all the spellin errrors at no xtra charge!)


(Updated 09-17-2013)

My Name is Don Butler. I have been an Amateur Radio Operator since 1988.
My Amateur Radio Station callsign is N4UJW and I am the publisher of Hamuniverse.com.

TAKE A BREAK FROM SURFING AND READ MI STORY ( <<<just saw a spellin misstake!)

How I Got Interested in Ham Radio and how Hamuniverse.com was born:

I have been interested in Ham Radio and most forms of communication since early childhood when my Dad got me interested by teaching me how to use one of the old huge wooden box radios that were almost half the size of a modern sub-compact car!

Although crude by today's technology, you could hear the local radio stations on the AM band very clearly and it had some other very strange bands called  "Shortwave" that enabled you to hear other radio stations from around the world!
It must have been about a hundred pounds of wood and looked like a very beautiful piece of furniture.

THE SPARK!


I was "playing around" with it one day, still a youngster, and happened to notice a connector on the back that was labeled "Outside Aerial".
I asked my dad about it and he said that it was a connection to add a long wire, outside the house, to it so the radio would "pick up" more stations.
I asked him if we could do that and he found a long length of wire and proceeded to connect the radio to the "outside world". He connected it to the radio, ran the wire thru a window and then pitched the coil of wire up as high as he could into a tree.
He came back inside and said "OK, see what you can get on it".

He left the room and I started twisting the knobs and turning the dials.
I had remembered the writing above one of the switchs that said "Shortwave 1", so I turned to it and started tuning around.

I heard lots static, strange noises and sounds that I had never heard before and soon I tuned into two men talking. After listening a short time, one of them asked the other what state he was in and where he was located and the other man returned with his location. The other then said he was in a different state and then he said "You are 5 9 here" and then started to tell the other guy about his equipment using strange sounding terms that were new to my ears!

My curiosity got the best of me, so I called to my dad, who was, (without me knowing it), standing behind me. I asked him what I was hearing and he looked at the dial, listened for a while and then said......HAM RADIO OPERATORS!

I had no idea what he was talking about so I asked several questions and with a gleam in his eye, Dad would answer me with just enough information to make me want more and more, and over a period of 40 years of self study and getting my questions answered by my Dad, I finally got off my duff and decided to get my license and become a HAM RADIO OPERATOR!

Dad had sparked the interest a long time ago and he kept my interest and answered my thousands of questions, always saying,
"YOU CAN DO IT, YOU CAN GET YOUR HAM LICENSE!"
 
Sorry Daddy for taking so long!

The above was just a shortened version of an article on the site dedicated to my Dad who sparked my interest in Ham Radio, communications and electronics in general.
You can read the entire article by
clicking here

www.geocities.com/n4ujw How it all started!

In October of 2000, after having about 12 years of fun with ham radio as a Technician Plus and enjoying every minute of it, I was thinking about my Dad, now passed away, and how he had gotten me started in this fantastic "hobby".
I learned that you could have a personal web site on Geocities and that it was easy to get a free site on the internet thru them so I signed up and started to put together a couple of pages on my new "site" about how to get into ham radio and as a "Ham Help Site" and dedicated the site to my Dad!
(As a note of interest, my Mom was supporting me all the way as Mom's do in there own ways along with the rest of my family.)

Over the next year or so, with the kind assistance of various hams sharing "ham stuff" with me, I kept adding more and more Ham Radio "stuff" to it with just a bit of "Ham Humor" thrown in from time to time, and it started to get more popular as time went by until one day I received an email from one of my ham friends saying that he could not get the site to "come up".....he kept getting popups....something about it being shut down due to exceeding bandwidth limits.

I assumed Geocities was having technical problems so I did not let it worry me. This happened several times over the course of about a week....one day it would be up....the next day it would be down or up and down on the same day! Then I received an email from Geocities informing me that my web site at www.geocities.com/n4ujw was being shut down from time to time due to it exceeding their BANDWIDTH limits for a personal site!
In other words, the site was getting TOO POPULAR!


A new Ham Radio Universe is formed!


WWW.HAMUNIVERSE.COM

This was the turning point for me!
Now, after thinking about my Dad again and upgrading to General on my birthday, with his,"You Can Do It", pounding in my head, (or was that due to higher blood pressure due to excitement), I had to decide whether to go with the flow and continue to let them shut the site down just when someone was downloading those free plans for that new antenna that they had been dreaming of putting up, or..........
GO DOT COM!
You guessed it........WWW.HAMUNIVERSE.COM WAS BORN on Oct, 2001!


Actually, the old site at the old url and the new site are now one and the same as far as the content. By going dot com, this allowed the site to have lots more bandwidth (unlimited now) and lots more server space, (also unlimited) for lots more hams to see! A good portion of the content from the old web address still remains but the site nows contains hundreds of pages and millions of visitors since October, 2001 and sites around the world link to it. It now contains loads of popular free information for all classes of Ham Radio Operators or those wanting to learn more about our fantastic "hobby"! (<<<<<Tooting my horn a bit in this paragraph!)
NOT THE END......YET!

Some of you may say that since this is a DOT COM web address, that this is a commercial $$$ite!
Only in URL LINGO..... due to the "dot com"...... at the end.
This site was not..... and is not..... designed as a money maker for me!
I would love for it to make me a MILLION DOLLAR$!!!.........
BUT,

One of the main reasons for this site and it's FREE content is due to the fact that I know a lot of you out there have a very hard time making ends meet but want to learn more about Ham Radio without having to pay out those hard earned $$$ that should go for more important things such as food and shelter!. Sometimes, we have more ends than means!

Finding good information about Ham Radio, when I was learning and growing up, required you to have lots of money to buy the books every time you wanted to learn about a different topic within Ham Radio or have a good "Elmer" down the street. There was no internet and it was difficult to find the info I needed at the local library!
 
My dad was my "Elmer" in lots of ways due to his background in electronics and life, but lots of you may not have an "Elmer" like my Dad to get FREE information or lots of spare money to throw at an antenna book just to get one design or whatever bit of information you are wanting to learn.

So, my friends, see if you can guess the Philosophy at Hamuniverse DOT COM........
(Hint....it includes the word FREE...... no S&H added!

CHANGING!
Hamuniverse.com is in a constant state of change and is evolving on literally a daily basis as is Ham Radio. The site is here for your information and fun.
Hopefully it will evolve with Ham Radio in a way that will be useful to all Hams and newcomers to Ham Radio...please bear with us as we evolve with it!

Those of you who are frequent visitors to the site will have seen some of these changes....hopefully they are for the good of all visitors and we welcome your input.

THE HAMUNIVERSE.COM PHILOSOPHY!
FREE TO MEMBERS ONLY!?? (ONLY OVER MY DEAD BODY!)

There are a lot of Ham Radio related sites out there...thousands of them..... that have free information and they are quality sites with quality information and my hat is off to them for their dedication to shared Ham Radio information!........There are also those that require you to be a "MEMBERS ONLY", (which means you pay, one way or the other, to get the info) which in my opinion should be free to all hams if it is not a real.........
"COMMERCIAL PRODUCT IN THE FORM OF A BOOK OR VIDEO, DISC, ETC, TYPE SITE DESIGNED TO MAKE MILLIONS OF DOLLAR$" from your hard earned money!
Correct me if I'm wrong......but I thought you were already a MEMBER.....
   YOU ARE A HAM RADIO OPERATOR!
 
Yes, I know, some of these sites, because of their internal structure, size, investors, etc, have to turn a "profit" in order to stay in "business".
BUT!..... if it is a site "of, by, and for the Amateur Radio Operator", then.........why?........ is there a cost to you for a few bits of info that should be free?
Is Ham Radio turning into GREED RADIO or WHAT? THE HORROR!

Sorry about that! I'll get off my soap box and get back down to "The Real [Business] of Ham Radio" on Hamuniverse.com.
You will never.....I repeat......NEVER!......have to be a paid "MEMBER" in order to get information from Hamuniverse.com. The information on this site is free......
and will remain free as long as I have anything to do with it!

If you agree with my Philosophy.....then all I ask..... is that those of you whose Call begins with any letter of the alphabet, or has a number in it, to send me a few hundred dollars each.........(Is this a bit of that humor I was talking about?????)

AND I WILL MAKE SURE HAMUNIVERSE STAYS FREE TO YOU!
I'm not GREEDY! HI!


MORE OF YOUR (FREE) HAMUNIVERSE TO COME ON THIS FREQUENCY AT
www.hamuniverse.com

NOW....... SEND MONEY!
(A new Hf rig would be nice too, and a new amp and a new tuner and a.......Oh Shut up!)
"OK".......also a new.......... (Hay!....I thought you said it was FREE! (MoRe HuMoR?) 73 DON ~ N4UJW


Take me back to something else........PleEEase! <<<<(ANOTHUR SPELLEN ERRER)

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