[NFB-Hams] Question

[David Andrews]

NLS has relaxed some of its certification 
requirements, talk to your local regional library.

Dave

At 08:33 PM 7/10/2021, Travis Siegel via NFB-Hams wrote:
>NLS won't help me.  I lost my access to NLS 
>many years ago, and despite my attempts to get 
>it back, (My doctor seems to loose the form 
>every time I send it to them), I'm still without 
>NLS access. I was very disappointed when they 
>discontinued webbraille, because I still had 
>access to that, even though they weren't 
>recognizing me on any other fronts. <sigh> On 
>the other hand, I did use bookshare when they 
>were relatively new.  I even brokered a deal 
>where I could give them quite a few collections 
>of books from a particular science fiction 
>publisher. At the time, uploading of multiple 
>books wasn't permitted, but the site did say if 
>you have lots of books to upload, then you could 
>contact them, and they'd work out 
>something.  Their solution was to have me 
>continue using the process of uploading a single 
>book at a time. Needless to say, I bailed on 
>that project too, uploading hundreds of books 
>one at a time would have been unreasonable by 
>anybody's standards. I did see several years ago 
>though, that someone else negotiated the same 
>upload permissions, only that time, bookshare 
>actually took an active hand in making it 
>happen, so now that publisher does have all of 
>their books on the platform.  But, as a result 
>of that experience, I no longer support or use 
>bookshare either. If it's available in another 
>resale outlet, I'd be happy to purchase a copy 
>for myself.  I'll go check various places now, 
>and see if I can find it. Thanks for the 
>pointer, though this is hardly a comprehensive 
>guide to how to obtain a license. At least it's 
>a start. On 7/10/2021 9:02 PM, Gary Lee via 
>NFB-Hams wrote: > Other than the specific 
>blindness aspects, there is such a book. > > It 
>is called the ARRL ham radio license manual. > > 
>It is available through NLS. > An earlier 
>incarnation is also available via bookshare. > > 
>I have taught license classes for the past 15 
>years.  And, little has changed. > Some 
>additions relating to digital transmission 
>modes, and some rules and regs changes. But, 
>basic physics and electronics and the original 
>purpose for amateur radio have not changed since 
>the introduction of solid state electronics. > > 
>I’ll be happy to try and help you. > Perhaps 
>some more detail on precisely what you are 
>having trouble with getting  started will help 
>us. > > I have helped license folks from 13 to 
>75. so help us help you. > > >> On Jul 10, 2021, 
>at 7:35 PM, Travis Siegel via NFB-Hams 
><nfb-hams at nfbnet.org> wrote: >> >> What would be 
>most uplifting is to see more blind hams. >> >> 
>This could be made easier by someone (I don't 
>care who) creating a book, website, blog post, 
>email, podcast, or anything else that actually 
>contains information folks who are unfamiliar 
>with the hobby need to know to not only get 
>online, but to get licensed, and gain the 
>knowledge they need to know where/who/when to 
>ask for help for things they don't 
>understand/need additional assistance to 
>complete/understand.  I'm (now) on two ham lists 
>for the blind, and I have not seen a 
>comprehensive plan for new hams *ever*. Even 
>when I made an attempt to get licensed back 
>around the 2K timeframe, all there was, was 
>handihams, who sent me a book called Now Your 
>Talking, then left me to figure out the rest on 
>my own. Needless to say, I did not manage to get 
>licensed back then, and to this day, although 
>I've been interested in ham radio since the late 
>1980s, I am still unlicensed, largely due to the 
>fact that there just isn't a single source of 
>info a blind user can access for everything one 
>needs to accomplish the whole licensing 
>process. >> >> Generally, I'm a self starter, 
>and I have no problem learning things.  I'm self 
>taught for nearly all of the 2 dozen plus 
>programming languages I know, and I can 
>generally pick up new operating systems, (I'm 
>familiar with MacOS, Linux, Windows, Dos, 
>Android, FreeBSD, and various versions of said 
>operating systems, all learned on my own with no 
>trouble.  But, for what it's worth, I just 
>*can't* wrap my mind around the whole licensing 
>test material, and I haven't a clue why that 
>is.  Maybe I've just not found a format that 
>works for me yet, or perhaps I've not found 
>someone who can explain it all in a way I can 
>grasp, but regardless, despite more than 20 
>years of trying, I've just plain not managed to 
>accomplish the whole amateur license task thing, 
>and that's a major disappointment for me. >> >> 
>Having something that could walk someone through 
>the process, with all the reference materials 
>one might need to accomplish the task would be 
>beneficial to all kinds of folks, not just me I'm sure. >> >> >> >>