This summer I was supposed to go on a week long backcountry hike with a youth group. The youth would be split into multiple teams and they wanted an adult with a ham radio to be with each team. I volunteered to get a license since there was only one adult who already had his license and was experienced with ham radio. Getting the license was interesting. I’ve never studied engineering or electronics and a lot of the test was things like being able to read circuit schematics, understanding how inductors/capacitors/tranformers/etc. work, learning ohms law and the power law and being able to solve equations with them, learning laws around ham radio, etc.
What you don’t learn as part of getting a license is what do you do after you have a license. Where do you buy equipment? What kind of equipment do you need? How do you use a radio? What do all the buttons on the radio do? Etc.
I asked someone about this and they said I needed to join my local club to learn this stuff. But, I don’t want to join a club. I have a family, 2 jobs, home remodeling, and various hobbies (woodworking, drawing, reading, board games, baking, gardening, etc.) The last thing I have time for is to join a club ;-)
So I’m in this weird spot where I have a license, but don’t actually know what to do with it. Due to the pandemic, the youth trip was cancelled. But it may be rescheduled for a future year. I’ll need to figure all this stuff out before then.
I'm not sure ham radio is the right choice for that application. My first thought would be FRS (Family Radio Service). No licensing or testing is required to use them
The radios are small hand held transceivers with 22 channels. The radios are $10-40 each.
A step up from FRS is GMRS (General Mobile Radio Service). It is similar to FRS, but had 30 channels (the 22 of FRS plus 8 more), higher power limits, and does require a licenses. GMRS users are allowed to talk with FRS users on their shared channels.
A GMRS license does not require any testing. You just fill out a form and pay a fee (around $85, I believe). It's good for 10 years.
Ah yeah I was thinking of that as well (FRS/GMRS), but it's a bit less versatile as someone else mentioned (no repeaters, less range). A full-on HT isn't much more pricy, and in fact you can transmit/receive on all the same frequencies anyways (IIRC). That said, in Canada you don't need a license to use GMRS (up to 2 watts) which is pretty awesome. A family member of mine has a bunch of GMRS radios which they take up for offroading, hunting, etc. They do have fairly decent range (~2km), especially in more open fields and so on. In mountainous or heavily-forested areas, not so much haha :) The low barrier to entry here in Canada makes them a great solution for casual use, going on a family getaway in the outdoors or so on.
The big advantage of ham radios over FRS is repeaters, which greatly increase your ability to contact somebody in an emergency if you are hiking. Of course, this depends on a repeater being line of sight.
I've actually learned quite a lot just by listening into my local VHF/UHF repeaters with a USB-connected Software-Defined Radio (SDR). Very easy to set up and you can pick up lots of neat stuff other than voice (like weather satellites and image transmissions (SSTV)). If you use Twitter or the like there are lots of people regularly posting about neat stuff as well (look for hashtags like #amateurradio, #vhf, #hamradio etc.) ...
Thing is, amateur radio is a really deep universe and there's almost no end to how much stuff you can learn or experiment with or try, so it takes a while to get a feel for things and know what you want out of it. You say you have a lot of hobbies - this can so easily be another one, a potentially massively-time-consuming one hahaha :)
Since you're probably intending just fairly short-range group<->group communication you probably want a typical handheld VHF radio. An "HT" as it's often called, or "handie-talkie". You can get cheap ones as low as like $50 but more often around $100. Baofeng makes the cheapest ones (I got one for $20), but they may not be legal to transmit with in your region, depends on where you're located. I only use one to listen for trucks on logging roads, or as a backup emergency radio. You won't really need digital modes like DMR or D-Star, in my opinion. In terms of how to use, the radios always come with comprehensive manuals that explain all the functions and how to use them. I learned everything I need to know to use my radio from the manual. You can probably buy one used, or scour some forums to know what the most reputable radio equipment vendors are. It's definitely a lot easier to get into this stuff if you know someone who's already into it, as everyone is into radio for different things. That said, ARRL has a decent "Get on the Air" site which you might find useful! Check it: http://www.arrl.org/get-on-the-air
Hope this helps a bit, even if it's just some general info... Can answer other questions if you have some. :)
I think any of them, Yaesu is really popular as they are affordable and good quality, I could easily recommend them (not that I have firsthand experience, just purely going by what I've heard). I hear people talking about the Yaesu FT-65R pretty often and it should be around $100. It covers the usual VHF (2m) and UHF (70cm) bands. Icom and Kenwood are popular as well, but usually a bit more pricy (though probably for good reason, they seem great). Anyone else who sees this comment feel free to chip in with your experience with HTs in that price range! :)
Wow, didn't except a downvote for that comment. This isn't reddit folks. Having seen a demo of digital voice on HF by Bruce Perns K6BP, I'm sold that digital voice is a good addition to Amateur Radio.
fwiw, I also got into radio for the same reason as you. A few years ago, on our trip to Isle Royale National Park, one of the other adult leaders had an emergency (broken foot; needing National Park Service rescue...) and we didn't have a ham radio. We did have a satellite communicator (Garmin inReach), so we weren't completely screwed. But from now on, I'd like to always have a ham radio (in addition to the inReach) on me for future trips.
> What’s the actual point for the license in the first place?
The electromagnetic spectrum is a limited resource; an amateur radio license is a license to do certain kinds of experiments in the spectrum. The kind of activity that makes up these experiments when done by someone who doesn't know what they're doing has the potential to cause harm which is hugely disproportionate to the amount of effort it would take to do it. While it's possible to pinpoint individual offenders, if unlicensed activity was widespread then the ability to do so would be overwhelmed.
In practice though lots of 'HAM's' use their license as an access ticket to a slightly more elitist version of CB radio. The number of people that actually move the needle by doing experiments is dwindling year by year.
Not just more elitist, also a lot more capable of course. With 4W FM on 11m you're not going to make it across the world (unless in exceptional conditions).
But I agree this was never the intention of the license.
CB = Citizens band, it does not actually prescribe a modulation method unless you want to apply some geographical limitation. Nothing technical stops CB from being FM (in many places it is), and SSB is technically just another (improved) form of AM.
The main technical restriction is simply that at the frequencies that CB typically operates at an FM modulation mode would use too much bandwidth. Enter the UHF version of CB which allows for FM modulation.
"Nothing technical stops CB from being FM (in many places it is), and SSB is technically just another (improved) form of AM."
No, FM is not allowed, see below.
SSB is basically AM with a suppressed carrier. (i.e. In SSB, Frequency deviation is the demodulated frequency, whereas with FM frequency deviation is the demodulated amplitude.) (You're not wrong in calling it improved, I'm just expanding on how for anyone else reading.)
FWIW, You're not allowed to broadcast music on CB, but that doesn't stop people either.
§ 95.971 CBRS emission types.
Each CBRS transmitter type must be designed such that its capabilities are in compliance with the emission type rules in this section.
(a) Permitted emission types. CBRS transmitter types may transmit only AM voice emission type A3E and SSB voice emission types J3E, R3E, or H3E.
(b) SSB requirements. Each CBRS transmitter type that transmits emission type J3E, R3E, or H3E must be capable of transmitting only the upper sideband with suppressed, reduced or full carrier, respectively, but may additionally be capable of transmitting only the lower sideband, with suppressed, reduced or full carrier, respectively.
A3E or A3EG -Ordinary amplitude modulation used for low frequency and medium frequency AM broadcasting
J3E - SSB speech communication, used on HF bands by marine, aeronautical and amateur users
R3E - SSB with reduced carrier (AME) speech communication, primarily used on HF bands by the military (a.k.a. compatible sideband)
H3E - AM, single sideband, full carrier
But yes, even narrow FM would be too wide at 10-15kHz.
§ 95.973 CBRS authorized bandwidth.
Each CBRS transmitter type must be designed such that the occupied bandwidth does not exceed the authorized bandwidth for the emission type under test.
(a) AM. The authorized bandwidth for emission type A3E is 8 kHz.
(b) SSB. The authorized bandwidth for emission types J3E, R3E, and H3E is 4 kHz.
"Enter the UHF version of CB which allows for FM modulation." That could be interesting, but would be even more line-of-sight than CB is.
Or perhaps since the article is about the us, I simply assumed we were talking about the us. I also often hear that (us) cb has this allowed when in reality it's not, so I simply wanted to clarify.
If we want to nitpick, it's pointless to talk about cb outside the context of a country. The frequency ranges, power, and allowed modulation are all different. You can do any modulation you want at a cb frequency, whether that's allowed is entirely specific to the country.
Ahh I suppose it is in the US. Here in EU it's FM actually. AM and SSB are forbidden. But I know some people import "President" rigs to use it anyway, as the band is hardly policed at all these days.
The license is an FCC requirement. They are also the ones who come up with the test questions. You would have to ask them. I can understand why they would want me to understand the laws governing ham radio. I don’t understand why I need to be able to read a schematic diagram to get a license. I assume that if I was going to build my own equipment that I would need to know a lot more than what I needed to learn to pass the test.
> I can understand why they would want me to understand the laws governing ham radio. I don’t understand why I need to be able to read a schematic diagram to get a license.
You need to consider the big picture. Ham radio is just one of several radio services. They have different licensing requirements depending on their purpose and/or who is meant to use them.
For services that are aimed at people who just want to communicate, getting a license won't involve anything like schematic diagrams--if a license is even required.
The ham radio service's target is radio geeks. Hams are given considerably more leeway in what they can do with radio than are users of most other services, and so the licensing requirements include more things concerning the underlying technology than you need to just operate a radio reasonably.
>For services that are aimed at people who just want to communicate, getting a license won't involve anything like schematic diagrams--if a license is even required.
For people who might be interested in what those 'unlicensed' services are, they include:
- FRS (the Family Radio Service[0]), which is typified by the sort of $20 bubble pack radios you can buy at a sporting goods store;
- MURS (the Multi-Use Radio Service[1]), which is common in commercial radios used by e.g. staff at big box stores;
- CBRS (the Citizens Band Radio Service[2]), which is probably familiar to most from "any movie involving truck drivers".
These services may have licensing/approval rules for equipment, but not for individuals using them.
Being able to read schematics and have basic electronics equipment is likely tested because getting a license gives you the legal right to build your own radio equipment that can transmit on amateur radio frequencies, potentially worldwide. They make some effort to ensure you know some of the basics so you aren't stomping around on the frequencies and ruining the airwaves for others. Plus it's a good way to introduce some of the necessary concepts to tinker in the amateur radio space. When I was trying to pick up signals from as far as possible, I used the knowledge I gained from studying for a license to inform how I needed to alter my setup (knowledge of antenna construction, impedance and basic circuits like a balun for example). The license studying material actually provided an excellent starting point which helped me know exactly what I needed to search about online :) I think the overall point is, if people don't grasp those basic concepts, they are probably not well-suited to the world of amateur radio and will cause trouble when they buy some expensive radios and misconfigure them, or start making seriously questionable DIY radio equipment, or so on.
The FAA private pilot's license is often described as a "license to learn", for example: it gives you the technical permission to fly aircraft that are entirely unsuitable for someone who has as few as 40 hours flight time; even the right to be the test pilot for an aircraft that you built for yourself!
Both licenses are intended to help you with the foundational framework for success, like: what are the regulatory limits? how should I think about my personal limits? what's potentially dangerous? where and how can I learn more than the basics?
Technically yes, but these requirements are pretty much the same globally, because they're copy-pasted from the ITU. Ham radio is practically governed by international law and quite possibly the field with the least diverse regulations in the world.
One of the arguments for allowing operators to have part of the spectrum is to help build a pool of technically knowledgable, and practically capable, people in the population.
Speaking for France, but I suspect it is the same elsewhere: back in the day, the license exam was to build your own radio and operate it in front of an inspector, so it might be a remnant of that era. You also need to know this stuff to set up antennas.
Dad always told me the smartest people he knew were Hams so I figured why not. Skimmed the book, used the flash cards, and got a tech license.
In short, it sucks. Some observations:
- the exams are oriented towards RF knowledge and will weed out anyone who just wants to go on the air to talk. They should really restore the novice license. Give it the same privileges as technician with no rights to broadcast over 10w or construct towers
- there is MASSIVE underutilization of spectrum. not just at the tech level due to inefficient coding but in general, the airwaves are not busy at all whatsoever. I live in NYC and there are rarely more than a dozen or so people on across the entire tech band at any given time.
- conversations are dull. the weekly nets can be interesting but pretty much the subject of conversation always revolves around call quality or someone's rig or something to do with radio. It's boring!
- proprietary. all the digital modes employ proprietary protocols or proprietary codecs. brandmeister is closed-source. echolink is closed sourced and rarely updated. DSTAR is proprietary. DMR isn't proprietary but the vocoder is. want to setup a repeater? sure, go pay a shady motorola VAR a few bucks and he'll sneak you a unit and user manual.
HAM still has some interesting practical uses. Up here in the PNW rally racing events use them to coordinate stage start and emergency/sweeper vehicles. The races are up in the mountains where cell phone service can be quite spotty, but a truck with a repeater parked on one of the higher foothills covers the whole area just fine.
I agree. I hold an Extra class license for work with microwave RF equipment, years ago.
Today, the argument for getting a ham license for use as a general communications tool seems to boil down to: "It's like the Internet, except that it's synchronous, slow, requires special (moderately expensive) equipment to access -- and to join, you have to take a test using high school math. Sign up here!".
If you're interested in the tech of radio, then a license gives you the ability to legally operate interesting equipment. Or, you might be active in another hobby that has special communcations needs, or you might want to provide a public service in the event of disaster. All legit, but definitely niche.
If you just want to talk, why not use a phone where you can reach more people? I think HAM is more about experimenting with equipment, antennas, etc...
The internet and podcasts and services like twitch live streaming got mass adoption by having the lowest barrier to entry with the least tech savvy audiences.
> oriented towards RF knowledge and will weed out anyone who just wants to go on the air to talk.
Works as intended.
> all the digital modes employ proprietary protocols or proprietary codecs.
Saying "all" is a serious mischaracterization. I think you need to look deeper.
Proprietary protocols are widely used, but many amateur radio operators with FOSS background are also active Bruce Perens, the founder of Open Source Initiative, is most vocal critic of proprietary protocols in the amateur radio community.
FOSS projects in amateur radio:
* WSJT (inc. JT65, FT8) - the standard of weak signal communication on the shortwave band and moonbounce, using state-of-the-art encoding such as LDPC error-correction, GPLv3.
* Fldigi - a general-purpose voice modem for common digital modes like PSK31, MFSK, RTTY, Olivia, and CW, GPLv3.
* Codec2 - Low-bitrate speech audio codec, free and open source alternative to the proprietary AMBE codec in STAR, bitrate from 450 bps to 3200 bps, LGPL.
* FreeDV - digital image transmission, alternative to analog SSTV, LGPL.
* GNU Radio - The all-in-one digital signal processing package for software defined radio applications.
Not to mention a great number of FOSS software-defined radio receiver/transceiver designs, such as HackRF, LimeSDR, etc.
Finally, some famous personalities,
Some famous personalities:
* Bruce Perens - cofounder of Open Source Initiative, major critic of proprietary standards and proponents of FOSS innovation. His campaign successfully lobbied regulatory agencies to abandon Morse Code requirements.
* John Gilmore - cofounder of the EFF, GNU Project. Founded GNU Radio in 1998.
* Phil Karn - major contributor of the Internet. Authored many RFCs, including Karn's algorithm, an early implementation of TCP congestion control. On the amateur radio side, he wrote KA9Q NOS, the earliest implementation of TCP/IP over amateur radio, source code included.
You see the pattern: Amateur radio doesn't have to be proprietary, but most of the non-proprietary parts of the activity is technical experimentation. To experimenters, an amateur radio license is merely an entry ticket for using the spectrum legally. Just like the world of free and open source software where a skilled user is expected to solve problems by reading and patching source code, in amateur radio, you are expected to solve problems by reading schematics and datasheets.
Of course, it's not the only way to participate in amateur radio, many find chatting on the air or exchanging QSL cards are fun. I'm just pointing out that doing technical experimentation is the to stay free and open.
I got into ham radio almost a year ago. I did so as my software and web development hobby became my career.
Ham radio is a very interesting hobby with a large variety of activities and operating techniques. It's been great to learn about how to make direct contacts across the world using just a small antenna and coil using the HF bands.
I certainly understand the potential commercial value of spectrum currently allocated to amateurs, though it's a shame to see it constantly under threat, with little regard to its usefulness as an emergency communication service.
While it's true that most amateurs are older, I'm 24 and I would encourage anyone looking for something else to do to get licensed and get on the air. There's always something more to learn and do, and many hams are happy to help with choosing and setting up equipment.
Check out hamstudy.org if you want to get licensed. It's pretty easy, especially to get a basic Technician class license, and online testing has begun due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are amateur radio activities that don't necessarily fit into the "session" scope that are still interesting. For example, there is the AMPRNet [1], a TCP/IP over AX.25 block of the Internet on 44.0.0.0/8. There is a similar effort called Hamwan with its Puget Sound Data Ring [2].
There are many different types of activities depending on your interests. I write a lot, so if you're not keen on reading, check out the included YouTube videos.
One common type of activity is attempting to make direct contact with a distant station. This could be using a voice mode, digital mode (text), or CW, which just means using Morse code and a keyer to communicate.
Operators can make contacts all over the world using the Earth's ionosphere as a mirror, to reflect signals, and send them further than any method of terrestrial propagation can achieve. This is called skywave propagation as opposed to groundwave propagation, which is like how cell phones work.
The caveat being that skywave propagation appears to have a degree of randomness to it. It isn't totally random but we collectively do not understand it enough to fully predict when and where our signals will end up.
So there's an opportunity to make direct contact with another station somewhere else on Earth, depending on the propagation conditions.
So to now actually answer your question, there's novelty in getting your station working, and then using it to have a brief conversation with a random person at least hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles away. This is known as a QSO.
At different times, for example, with my station being located in North Carolina, I might suddenly be able to reach stations in Europe around sunset. Usually, it's more limited to random areas within the United States with a basic antenna, but not always.
If I announce my presence over the radio (call CQ), and someone comes back to me, we'll exchange some basic signal quality info. Afterwards, if the other person wants, you can ask about their radio setup, and talk about common interests, while avoiding some topics like local politics, etc.
That's only one activity while there are many others. Another activity would be pointing a beam antenna at low earth orbit amateur radio satellites to make as many quick contacts with other operators as possible while the satellite is above the horizon. This is a very physically and mentally challenging activity. Here's a video of that:
https://youtu.be/QWtdyT4PYMw
There are also digital modes as well. FT8 is a common digital mode for making contacts with much less personal interaction using a PC. This one is easier to just watch and see than to explain:
https://youtu.be/bSpyYV-xz5c
Hopefully that gives you some ideas about what it's like to make contacts over the radio. Some people like the social aspects and others (like me) like the technical and experimental aspects of making contacts and seeing where and how far my signals will go.
FT8 is amazing and would be an amazing way to suck people on HN in. It's fun without transmitting. I'm at the bottom of New Zealand and get transmissions from all over the world including our antipode, Europe. And that's with a crappy short wave receiver with a tiny built in antenna that you can get for <$100.
The fact that someone made the FT8 modulation scheme up out or the blue and people started adopting it and using it and having fun shows the spirit of ham radio.
I bet there are folk on here who would be able to come up with some interesting new modulation schemes to push the envelope even further.
It's a shame that the venn diagram intersection between the modern tech world and ham radio isn't larger.
Yeah I've had WSJT-X (or JTDX) listening here in western Canada and I've picked up FT8 messages from New Zealand, Japan, Russia, Brazil... it's crazy! I just used a random piece of wire laying around on my balcony! So cool :D
If anyone fancies having a play with FT8 without any ham equipment, I was surprised to find I could do so using a regular "world band" shortwave receiver. It does need to have SSB (single sideband) mode, I'm not sure how common that is.
Just tune in to 14.074Mhz and listen for the strangely melodic modem-like tones. Download WSJT-X and pipe one into the other.
It was at this point I was annoyed to find my new PC doesn't have a mic socket (what's that all about?), but in fact holding my usb webcam up to the radio's loudspeaker was enough to get reports from all over the continent appearing.
Cool stuff, thanks for the info! I'll watch the videos when I'm no longer on a metered connection. I've always found the physics and technology behind radio fascinating but was never really clear what sort of activities amateur radio operators actually do.
Where are you seeing results for online testing? Seems to be tricky to find as most of the ones I have seen have been cancelled or "no walk-in / call ahead". Also thanks for prompting this and keep ham radio alive :)
Someone in my local area told me about them. Apparently you normally have to go to a community college for 2 days of classes and then take the exam in person. But they did the classes over zoom and the testing over zoom too. I didn’t even need to leave my home to get my license. Nice.
The exam system was figured out by some group in Texas. Their system was approved by the FCC so my local group piggybacked off of the Texas group to do the online exam.
There was a zoom call at a certain time. You had to do certain things to your computer ahead of time to get it ready. When it was time they had me turn the laptop all around to show my room to prove there was no one and nothing other than a plain sheet of paper, a basic calculator, and a pencil nearby. I had to prove the paper was blank and the calculators memory was wiped. I had to have all family members leave the house during the exam. There were five other people on the call all watching me over my camera while I took the test. The proctor took control of my computer to see what I had running and to start the exam. Then I took the exam. I missed one question, but they can’t tell you which one you missed. I really thought I got them all right and it still bothers me not knowing which one I got wrong ;-)
Afterwards the Texas group was given my information and they submitted it to the FCC. I got my license a few weeks later in an email.
I've heard about various VECs experimenting with online testing by reading the news on QRZ.com or eham.net, though another ham recently mentioned that hamstudy.org now lists online test sessions:
https://hamstudy.org/sessions/online
I haven't tried online testing yet. I've been putting off upgrading to Amateur Extra class, though I'll probably try one of those online test sessions eventually.
I've had an amateur radio license since I was 14, and I got it through a collaboration with our local radio club and the boy scouts. I don't use my license enough, but I love having it.
One of my absolute favorite memories growing up was when we did a camping trip during a field day. A field day is basically an annual global contest to see who you can contact and how far you can reach out. We setup a massive portable antenna in the woods, and I stayed up ALL NIGHT on one of our more powerful SSB radios reaching out to people all across the world. Like Ukraine, Denmark, Ireland, Australia, and more (I'm in the US). Young me was so fascinated with talking with those people, that I'm pretty certain it was one of the first times I experienced sonder.
SDR is fun, but no where near as rewarding as using analog.
1000% this. Same story - was one of the highest of highlights of my ham youth. The local club’s field day operation happened literally a day after my license arrived in the mail and I vividly remember staying up all night totally immersed in this crazy hobby that I’d only been reading about.
Huge fancy Kenwood and Icon HF rigs (the amazing ones I could only dream about buying as a 12 y/o), tons of people having fun, and CQ Field Day CQ Field Day into the wee hours. Super fun experience and memory.
ARRL Field Day is the best! I just got back from this years Field Day two weeks ago and its still really active and a large event even though band conditions are really very poor.
One year I setup a VHF/UHF log periodic and was able to get 5-10 people to get confirmed contacts with astronauts on the ISS. It was probably the most exciting time I've had in amateur radio, and definitely not something everyone gets to do in life.
Personally as a HAM I think our technology is becoming too stale.
Commercial tech is now migrating towards high-speed data networks to be used even for voice. With HAM radio we're still stuck with analog voice and very low-bitrate voice codecs in the digital standards. None of which really offer much that analog (and linking tech) didn't. APRS is a joke with its low speeds.
The whole idea about ham radio was to innovate... We're not doing that at all, at best we're just using commercial technology. Some advancements to adapt firmware of commercial rigs (MD-380tools, OpenGD77) are amazing, but we're still lifting on what's commercially possible. This is not the ham spirit :(
We really need something good to offer and at the moment we haven't. It used to be so cool you could talk to people around the world for free. Now anyone with a phone in their pocket can do that.
There’s still plenty of innovation left to do. Low bandwidth, low power, long distance signalling is interesting. As are ridiculously high frequencies. Also new modes and repurposing some of the modern radio ICs you can get.
But the issue I found is that the technical community is about as dead as it gets. It created a stereotype and then proceeded to get stuck in a hole. This was around 1970. Any newer thinking made it into appliances which cover the 95% of the rest of the user base. Most hams can barely solder a PL259 without destroying it. Even talking modulation schemes solicits a glazed look and some mumbling about 80m QRM. I was about done.
This year I didn’t renew my RSGB sub and sold all my radio equipment and test gear. I spent the money on an iPad Pro with Procreate and and a new Mac and am in a better place with respect to personal satisfaction and have some cash left over to spend on experiences and not things.
Compared to innovation in radios for commercial telecom microwave and millimeter wave radios (2.4 all the way up to 86 GHz), ham radio is moribund.
There's a whole lot more on the ground real world innovation happening in people building WISPs in very rural, challenging locations with no pre-existing telecom services (except by two-way satellite) than there is happening in ham radio.
I don't personally find a need for digital voice communications on HAM. Analog is perfectly fine. You get much more reliability and stability from analog voice. There's not really a rush to move away from it, especially on HF. Digital voice unless in a stable environment or with multiple expensive tower sites, you'll be dropping packets and not be able to either make out a conversation as you get scambled robot voices, or simply dont decode it at all. Analog, you can still pick voices out of deep noise and some people are very very good at analog low signal reception with their ears/brain in combination with the receiver. It's also nearly impossible to get huge bandwidth rates on HF with major fading and unpredictable communications.
Non-voice digital modes are certainly innovating especially on HF, picking out signals well below the noise floor.
Since we're currently in a solar minimum (which reduces the propagation of radio signals here on Earth, and generally makes it more difficult to make long-range contacts), you would expect innovation to be happening in... making contacts in high-noise conditions! That's exactly what is happening with FT-8, WSPR, etc. The thing that excites me most about FT8 is that its implementation (https://www.physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/k1jt/wsjtx.html) is open source, which means you can decide to modify or improve it without asking permission. That's exactly what the author of JS8CALL did -- he took FT8, which was designed for short "call sign and signal" contacts, and turned it into a conversational protocol (http://js8call.com/). The ability of FT8 and its descendants to transmit information waaaaay down in the noise is pretty awesome, and I hope it spawns at thousand imitators.
not if you combine it with new tech. for example long range UAV. as a hobby it's good fun to experiment with different frequencies, antennas and other electronics. quite some innovation done last 10 years.
I wasn't aware of that development, but wouldn't the ban on data encryption on HAM bands hurt that usecase? You wouldn't want someone else controlling your drone.
Here in Europe long-range drones are forbidden anyway.. You must have line of sight at all times.
eg, for the UK; “ 11(2) The Licensee shall only address Messages to other Amateurs or to the stations of those Amateurs and shall not encrypt these Messages for the purpose of rendering the Message unintelligible to other radio spectrum users.”
You can sign a message to authenticate it, without making it unintelligible. (compare pgp signing, snmp AuthNoPriv, etc)
I got a general license in the US since it seemed like an interesting hobby, but haven't used it much. Sometimes I feel bad about that, and I've thought a bit about it.
Radios are fascinating to learn about, but our HAM regulations seem mired in the past and overly restrictive. You simply aren't allowed to do much on the amateur bands besides chatting with people.
For example, I don't believe you can cipher communications unless they're being used to control an RC vehicle. That rules out a lot of DIY-style projects. The regulations and terminology around automated "beacons" are also a tad confusing, and the potential fines are quite heavy.
And if you do spend the time reading rules, going to a class or doing flash cards, taking your test, buying a starter radio, and finally talking with some people on a local repeater...then what? Try to contact a different country or continent? You can, but talking to someone across the world feels very pedestrian in this day and age.
And while it is technically possible to set up a beacon for something like data collection or remote monitoring on HAM frequencies, it's much easier these days to use an off-the-shelf radio module. You don't need a license to use a $5 LoRa module with an arduino or raspberry pi, and there's no red tape.
It's too bad, because I really admire the amateur operators who step in during disasters to keep information flowing. But I can also see why HAM radio is sort of a dying art in the US; like many relics of an optimistic past, it's been left to rot for decades.
> You simply aren't allowed to do much on the amateur bands besides chatting with people.
Here's a fun thing you can do: 802.11b channel 1 is in the amateur band, so as long as you don't use encryption, you can use quite a lot more power than the 802.11 band would normally allow. (Remember that you should only use the amount of power you need, though.)
Our amateur rocketry group used ordinary wifi, amplified to 1W and run through a custom cylindrical antenna, to communicate between the rocket (breaking the sound barrier) and the ground.
When a social network is so thin, you need some way to bootstrap it. On the internet, a lot of that was random people making websites that were basically shouting into the void. A lot of it was bad, but some of it was interesting and it gave you enough reason to hang around long enough that you found other people or other people found you.
But on HAM, broadcasting is not allowed, so you can't shout into the void. Maybe there's some other way to get a baseline of chatter going on?
If you're reading this and you're thinking about getting into radio, you can get a Baofeng UV-5R handheld radio which works on the 2m and 70cm bands for $25. It has never been cheaper or easier to get into radio than it is now. These radios are completely portable and will let you "work" the repeaters local to you and can be received 10-15 miles away even without a repeater at 5W power https://www.amazon.com/BaoFeng-UV-5R-Dual-Radio-Black/dp/B00...
Do I need a license, you ask. Yes, you'll need to get a technician's license to transmit, though you can receive on the radio without it. The test has no morse code requirement, and it's entirely multiple choice. The entire question pool is freely available and it only takes a couple weekends to prep for and pass. It'd be an easy task for anyone here. Most of the questions pertain to FCC policy as well as radio safety, just enough to make sure you don't injure yourself or interfere with other radio users.
Do not listen to this person. The baofengs are perfectly fine radios which have gotten thousands of people re interested in ham radio. I have probably a dozen various models of them and use them for all sorts of things and love every part of it.
What are your needs? eBay/hamswap/craigslist. You shouldn't; handing out a radio designed for licensed radio spectrum to random people would be irresponsible.
Hmmmm, a fair point, though at the same time most countries allow you to use any radio without a license for emergency purposes -- I don't have an amateur radio license yet, but keep a cheapo Baofeng on me when we go offroading or hiking outside of cell-reception. Could honestly save a life. If it's all you have, hang on to it!
Emergency use is explicitly allowed by the FCC. And thank god. We’ve had to call 911 over the baofengs for life threatening emergencies in the past and have very probably saved at least one persons life.
I know that in the US "amateur stations" may use "any means at its disposal to attract attention..." as allowed under part 97. I'm a ham, so I'm qualified under those rules.
I've never heard of permission for unlicensed operators. Do you have a source you could point me towards? Preferably something from the FCC, or a law that pertains to them.
> § 97.403 Safety of life and protection of property.
No provision of these rules prevents the use by an amateur station of any means of radiocommunication at its disposal to provide essential communication needs in connection with the immediate safety of human life and immediate protection of property when normal communication systems are not available.
It defines as amateur station as:
> (5) Amateur station. A station in an amateur radio service consisting of the apparatus necessary for carrying on radiocommunications.
Which I read is being related to the physical equipment.
I’m also almost positive that this was a question my license test.
At the risk of becoming a totally-internet-lawyer, `amateur radio service` is defined in `(2) amateur radio service` which refers to `(4) amateur service` which has the wording `duly authorized persons`.
I don't think it breaks down the way you read it. /But/ in an emergency, it probably won't matter to you if it helps you live through the emergency.
Quite apart from their quality, a VHF handheld is possibly the most boring possible introduction to amateur radio. There is so much more you can do that is so much more interesting than hearing 80 year old retirees talk about their prostates on the local repeaters.
Does this imply there's a radio frequency that's not dominated by retirees? ;)
HF feels considerably harder to get into. If you're a city dweller your only antenna choice is probably a magloop. VHF has options for things like satellite and ISS contacts, and the fact that it's local makes it seem a bit more relevant and community-driven.
Hmm not sure I agree, I was able to pick up SSTV transmissions from local amateurs and from the freakin' International Space Station, by decoding the audio signal with my iPhone.... That was pretty amazing and fun, with just a cheapo HT. That said, for even less $$ you can get an RTL-SDR and pick up soooooo much cool stuff :)
I have one, but I only listen with it. Cheapest radio ever. It's better than having no radio at all! For example in an emergency, or when you're on forest service roads that logging trucks drive down (where they are required to broadcast their position over radio) :)
Nah, it's pretty fair to recommend against Baofeng if the person wants to actually make regular, long-term use of their radio, especially for transmission. This guy did some tests with a UV5R to show just how out of [FCC] spec it is https://imgur.com/a/up2ne -- the spurious emissions are clearly noticable. Or watch this video, it's almost scary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs8twTaO62Y Anyways, you can get a totally capable HT for $100. In general I don't think anyone is intentionally gatekeeping. Maybe a couple people, but overall most amateur radio operators just want quality signals coming in :)
Is there anything near their price that can get people up and making QSOs that is much better? Possibly the Yaesu FT-4X but that's $85, so considerably more than the UV-5R.
I am working on my HAM General-class license. I have young and non-engineer friends who are into it. It is mostly interesting to them because they have never done something highly technical, and here is a relatively approachable technical hobby.
However, I'm decreasingly enthused about HAM. I got my license so I could interact with devices that I wanted to build. However, there are almost no use cases where HAM helps. I cannot build something cheaper, or make it more effective than a commercially available product. It's only at the extreme, un-useful cases that HAM becomes a thing. (Want to bounce signals off the moon?)
What I'd like to see from HAM:
- More, different competitions. Long-term monitoring, stealthy side-channel transmissions, digital and analog networking competitions (like hackathons: Get a signal from A to B with minimal loss / delay using teams in disparate areas of the country --- internet OK), recovery games (set up a network serving x users with max datarate or voice capacity using this equipment), or encoding / decoding games, and so on.
- More support from local governments and infrastructure. I want to know where to sign up to be useful if telecommunications suffers a hiccup. If that is not useful, I want to know and be told how to be useful (esp studying different technology). Some certifications beyond HAM, and specializing in different niche areas would be nice.
- More training on HAM-adjacent technologies. To be useful / innovative requires knowing the telecommunications space, and sticking to SSB voice + FT8 for DXs is great, but not helpful when trying to understand telecommunications and make an impact on the world. God forbid a disaster did happen and the HAMs showed up with their 10m antennas and were useful for 30 minutes until the Verizon tech arrived. It'd be more useful if they could bridge 3G / UHF by setting up an adhoc repeater network to actually extend the range of whatever equipment didn't die in the zombie apocalypse.
For example:
In the IoT area, I thought for sure HAMs would be front-and-center with new mesh networking technologies, WAN, etc. But no, we got another AWS product with minimal device-device communication and called it a day.
> I cannot build something cheaper, or make it more effective than a commercially available product.
Not sure what you are looking to do, but there are plenty of inexpensive radio designs. Consider the Pixie or the SMT version, the Knight SMiTe, either can be built very cheaply.
Onr could also put an amplifier on inexpensive IMS chips for really inexpensive radio projects.
A Raspberry Pi Zero can be bitbanged into a transciever using PWM and SDR and can operate pretty much any mode. It's a very noisy, low power output signal and will need filtering and amplification. Still better than a spark gap transmitter, the ultimate low cost radio.
For cheap recievers, look into foxhole radio designs.
I made it across the pond to UK from NY on WSPR 20 meter amateur band using the ~10dBm output of a Raspberry Pi on its IO pins. It's quite capable. That was ~7 years ago when the atmosphere/sun was a bit more ham friendly however.
There is something soul destroying that comes with the demographic. Long, ill informed, right- wing speeches. Politics is supposed to be a taboo subject, of course.
I was listening to a repeater in the UK one day and heard this,
"I don't follow the news, I don't follow politics, I don't know the first thing about it. But in my opinion... blah blah Brexit blah"
Or another on air every night without fail on 2m FM in the SSB segment...
" These modern planes are all auto-pilots, the pilot is just sat there. No skill at all."
That's the reality that greets us after we get our licence. You would also be hard pressed to join in with them either, they are just chatting to their mate up the road. I tried to get my boys interested, but they heard this stuff and now make their own jokes about ham operators.
HAM radio is a complete luxury with today's networks right up until the point that you really need it, for instance during some kind of natural disaster. With high speed satellite internet maybe even that function will be superseded.
Natural disasters happen all the time, and HAM radio in the past has traditionally been the last to go down and the first to be back up in those situations because it needs no infrastructure at all to work.
> […] HAM radio in the past has traditionally been […]
You know what’s not like the past? The present, and, even less so, the future. 3G/4G/5G/Satellite phones are rapidly progressing, and everybody already has one.
But even if you were right, how does that address my point that arguing for HAM radio with the argument “it might be useful in a disaster” is basically being a prepper?
In my country (Luxembourg) is only one place where you can take the courses. That place is in the south of the country and the courses are held in the evening. Their schedule is impossible to combine it with public transportation and their sessions/courses are only done once per year, meaning that I'd have to wait an entire year to be able to apply to their courses. As a young person, it is nearly inpossible to participate without relying on somebody with a car or living somewhere closer.
It seems easier in Canada but what always puts me off is that there isn't any formal resting center. You need to find an examiner and they set the price. A bunch of them insist on lessons which be useful for some but if like to just write the test.
One thing I noticed when getting my license was that broadcasting is not allowed. That makes sense, because you're not supposed to hog the airwaves.
But I think they could create room for some kind of amateur programming. For instance, you have to pause every 5 minutes so people can either join the conversation or ask questions. And maybe it would have to be a human speaking live, not a recording or machine. And I'm sure you'd need certain channels and parts of the spectrum for this.
The advantage is that this gets content on the airwaves and gives people a chance to get involved. After the program, you can jump onto another part of the spectrum for free-form chat. Like: "That's all for now, but join the discussion starting right now on [callsign of repeater]".
It would have to be non-commercial, but people like talking about their hobbies, etc. I could easily see a lot of people doing scheduled 30-minute programs about cars or gardening or whatever.
This isn't precluded under US regulations. Broadcasting means transmissions intended for the general public, as opposed to other amateurs. One way communications are generally prohibited too (except in certain cases like beacon stations and remote control), but as you note-- what you want doesn't need to be one way.
It's not even uncommon on HF for people to blather on for many minutes at a time without pause.
People could totally do lectures with Q&A, and I imagine many repeaters would be perfectly fine with that use.
Yeah also many people have been duplexing over the years, upstreaming on 2m and downstreaming on 70cm for example. That is allowed as long as you mention your call every few minutes.
Got the Baofeng and the callsign, in that order. Got licensed because it costs around $10 for the exam with no mandatory classes and to use Echolink. Don't see much point in it as I don't like to talk and the funny chatter is on the unlicensed bands anyway.
Seriously, PMR446 near hotels and nightclubs is pure gold. Local gangsters' seating preferences, awkward staff romance, weird room service orders, you name it.
I got my ham license at 16, later used it at work extensively (non-commercial, research projects), but mostly set it aside in 2016 due to the incessant discussion of hateful politics on the local 2m band. I upgraded to general but my HF setup is portable (no permanent antenna) so it’s harder to hop on, but I hope those bands are less bigoted, or at least, the bigots keep to themselves.
I am a paper HAM, that is a derogatory term in the amateur radio community for us operators who only have a license and don't use it.
In short, it sucks. HAM radio is full of old weird people, talking about bodily functions. Wanna go to a HAMfest? If you're under 50years old, you well get weird looks. And weird interactions. The learning curve is brutal to do anything other than exchange callsigns with randos, or talk to old people about communism and their bodily functions.
HAM radio has outlived its usefulness. It is really sad, and I regret that. But there is just no point to it.
I wonder if Negativland tracks documenting the history and art of "jamming" might be a way of sparking the interest of young people. Track and sound arts are popular new sounds and radio is a great way to expose lots of people to compositions.
The original article talks about attracting newcommers to the ham radio community, on the other hand I'm here to complain about the trouble of staying in the community.
From my experience, one major killer of ham radio is the horrible and dehumanizing electromagnetic interference in modern cities from 0 to 30 MHz. HF/shortwave remains the most interesting spectrum in ham radio - it's the only spectrum capable of international communication without specialized equipment or infrastructure, just throw a random wire out of the window, how wonderful it is.
Unfortunately, 0 to 30 MHz is also where most electrical and electronics devices operate at. A cheap bike charger with PWM control can easily disable all HF communication around it, so can a cheap switched-mode power supply, also, yes, builders of transparent PCs without metal enclosures, I'm looking at you (although it's not much of a problem compared to commercial devices)! Government regulations on EMI/RFI is useless when tons and tons of nonconforming devices made by the cheapest vendors are flooding the market. While it's easy to add filters or stop using them if they are yours, but in cities, you often cannot possibly know where they are coming from. And even worse, nobody cares - without a spectrum analyzer (or an SDR equivalent), nobody can see or smell it. Remember those stories about car key fobs being jammed? The media makes them sound almost mysterious, because EMI/RFI is unknown to the general public. Car keys are only a tip of the iceberg, VHF is actually pretty clean, HF is horrible. And even to some people with respective knowledge on the subject, many still don't care - the worst offenders, such as VDSL and Ethernet over Powerlines technologies, are fundamentally harmful to radio communication and can disable all HF receivers in sight. In an ideal world where telecommunication regulations are faithfully enforced, nobody should be allowed to use them, yet the interests of ISP trumps HF amateur services and governments allowed their deployment.
Even with all these jammers, HF is still somewhat usable, but only for picking up powerful stations, or using slow, digital modes designed for weak-signal communications. It's better than none, but quite limited (this includes digital modes that requires a higher signal-to-noise radio). When HF becomes a lost battle, the enjoyment and capabilities of amateur radio is reduced greatly. So one is forced to go somewhere else, either physical moving your home or your radio (not an option for most), or moving the spectrum of your operation: VHF (without special setups) is only capable of local communication. Then the only remaining choices for international communication are satellite communication, meteor scatters, and tropospheric scatter. They are interesting technical challenges much in line with the tradition of amateur radios, but far from easy like HF. For example, satellites at Low Earth Orbit are only usable when they are passing your location.
With the launch of the first geostationary amateur radio satellite, QO-100 (Es’hail 2), I can only hope the situation of amateur radio without HF will continue becoming better at the next decade and enjoy global coverage by geostationary satellites.
Noise is pretty bad in the city. You have to realize that you are going to be responding to other people's CQs, not calling your own. There is just too high a risk of the receiver being able to hear you, but you not being able to hear the reply.
I routinely operate out of my 1st floor apartment in Brooklyn with 5W into a magloop antenna and can make contacts across the country. I've had the best luck on 40m, and 30m works well too. 20m is pretty much unusable for me, and it's a popular band, so that kind of hurts. Using FT8 or CW works better than voice (par for the course when running QRP). If you take your rig out to a park, the noise floor drops dramatically.
You certainly have to make more of an effort than someone in the country with a 5 element beam on a tower, but you can still make a lot of QSOs in subpar conditions.
(Also worth noting is that we're at the bottom of a solar cycle, so HF isn't amazing for anyone right now. A few years ago, I could reliably listen to WWV and WWVH at the same time. But I haven't heard WWVH for ages. Aloha!)
Yeah, I got my general license a couple of years ago, and was really trying to get into it, but where I live in the SF bay area, there is just too much interference.
I am looking forward to when I eventually move and hopefully have some more electronically quieter spaces. Its really fun and exciting doing digital modes to see how far you can send / receive on simple antennas.
If anyone in the UK is thinking about getting a foundation license, you might like to know you can now sit the exam entirely online, as the practical assessment component is currently waived.
As a guy in his 30s who got his ham license last year, there are two major things I think the ham radio community needs to change if they want to increase membership. Firstly, they need to target the right demographic for recruitment. Right now they're laser-focused on targeting teens, since that's the age many of these older guys originally got into the hobby, however (as the article acknowledges) what draws people to amateur radio today is very different to what drew people back then. I think the demographic they need to be targeting is engineers and scientists of all types and electronics hobbyists in their 20s-40s, i.e. people who have an aptitude/knowedge base to build off and who can imagine applications for radio, and who have the income and physical space to invest in the hobby. (Don't get me wrong, if younger people want to get involved they absolutely should be encouraged to do so, but I don't think there is enough interest there to rebuild the base the hobby needs to continue.)
Secondly, the ham community needs a much better presence on the web. ARRL's site has a lot of information but if you don't know what you are looking for it can be a bit of a maze to navigate. Also, they really want to sell you their books, which means some of that vital information about being an amateur radio operator is not available for free on their site.
The web presence of local clubs is highly variable but often poor. For example, the club I took my license exam through has two different web sites with different information in them, one of which is apparently no longer maintained and the other of which is "temporary". I got a free 1-year membership to the club when I passed my exam so I get a ~monthly newsletter from them, but it's sent from a personal e-mail account in the form of a PDF attachment. I actually deleted those newsletters for the first few months because I didn't know who was sending them or why I was getting them!
The club doesn't have any social media presence and meetings were strictly in-person before the Coronavirus. Because I live a 45-minute (in good traffic) drive away from where they hold meetings I hadn't attended any before they held those online ones.
Clubs really need to invest in their online presence as that's where people under the age of 50 will first encounter them. They should have a decent-looking site with a dedicated domain, photos/blog posts about activities they do and, if possible, recordings of their meetings so people can see what joining the club brings them. They should also maintain a presence on Facebook and Twitter, if only to post the occasional updates and links to their main site.
Online forums aren't much better. QRZ Forums, the largest English-language online amateur radio community, has such a reputation for being hostile to newcomers to the hobby that I haven't even bothered looking at it. r/amateurradio, by nature of being on Reddit, has a much younger and more welcoming demographic than QRZ Forums, but it has the problem of being on Reddit which is not conducive to any kind of long-running discussions which makes forming a community hard.
On YouTube channels that focus on amateur radio rarely seem to cover topics related to getting people interested in the hobby or the basics of the hobby, and those that do generally seem tsrgetted at the "prepper" community (which is not me). What got me to take the time to get my license was a guy on a programming forum I follow posting that he was going to do live streams of himself making contacts and otherwise doing projects related to radio. Just seeing the practical side of the hobby was enough to push me from a vague interest to getting my license. Unfortunately he stopped streaming after a few months, but this is exactly the type of content organizations like ARRL or local clubs should be putting out to get people interested.
r/amateurradio & Han Radio Crash Course on YouTube are about the only thing that keeps me interested in HAM; everything else is octogenarians with Angelfire-esq websites.
For myself, late 30’s IT profesional, I’ve found the European Twitter scene of Satnogs, Amateur TV, QO-100, and microwave comms much more interesting than anything that’s come out of the LF OMs in the states. Hell, I saw a French person create a high speed VHF/UHF system that’s technically illegal in the US due to regulations/encryption.
What I have seen from Reddit is there’s a lot of “listener” trans operators and one huge roadblock is the FCC open database of full names and addresses, past and present. Even myself, I almost never give out my call sign online since it has my government name and home addresses, even If I’ve updated to a PO Box it still has historical info. I can only imagine what it’s like for a LGBTQ person in the Midwest calling CQ and being deadnamed, or worse in return.
In my ideal world Amateur Radio would be packed to the gills by people of all stripes using it as free communication for ad-hoc cell phone networks, free WiFi/internet, and DIY wireless systems. I know there’s limitations but politically I want it to become available and free for everyone against the oppression of paying for communications.
The law says you have to get a license from the FCC to operate your radio, and getting the license requires sending them your name and addresses. It's that simple.
Then they shouldn't complain too loud that HAM is dying.
Between us privacy minded geeks who don't want our records out in the public, and the queer teens who don't want their old names out in the public as explained by the parent poster, it doesn't leave much of a demography.
Nobody wants their archaic rules. It's that simple.
It's self reported. When you move you're required to update your address.
It is unfortunate that it's public, but you should also keep in mind that I can buy a CD of tax records with names, phone numbers, and addresses of the tax holder and the last sale price (and often previous owners and sales) for every property in the county for $50. Our names and addresses are much less private than most people think.
I had my reservations about becoming a HAM, mostly because of the FCC snitching mentality. Now I know this, I will never do HAM. I don't compromise on privacy, regardless the bells and whistles. A Baofeng is $25 and more in line with my ethics.
> tax records with names, phone numbers, and addresses of the tax holder and the last sale price
Good thing I don't own property then!
> Our names and addresses are much less private than most people think.
Some people rent a small flat where they don't live, just to have a postal address
Other people form a NV company to register their assets and protect their identity and address.
I agree with the very general principle -- but in practice, this public list of all licensed amateur radio operators is about the least interesting (public) database I'm on.
Public records are a legitimate service.
I might even argue that any license issued by the government that gives individual citizens additional rights, should be publicly disclosed. Not necessarily all the details, but the existence of the grant of super-citizen rights.
Hairdressers, plumbers, property owners, drivers (caveat: DL for ID makes this tricky), gun owners, ...
Basically, if you have a special set of laws applied to you, I think it's reasonable for that to be public information.
What you don’t learn as part of getting a license is what do you do after you have a license. Where do you buy equipment? What kind of equipment do you need? How do you use a radio? What do all the buttons on the radio do? Etc.
I asked someone about this and they said I needed to join my local club to learn this stuff. But, I don’t want to join a club. I have a family, 2 jobs, home remodeling, and various hobbies (woodworking, drawing, reading, board games, baking, gardening, etc.) The last thing I have time for is to join a club ;-)
So I’m in this weird spot where I have a license, but don’t actually know what to do with it. Due to the pandemic, the youth trip was cancelled. But it may be rescheduled for a future year. I’ll need to figure all this stuff out before then.