9 ms·

Amateur Radio is a great hobby if you're interested in radio wave propagation, RF engineering, radiosport, digital modes, satellites, etc. It's surprisingly ea

Amateur Radio is a great hobby if you're interested in radio wave propagation, RF engineering, radiosport, digital modes, satellites, etc. It's surprisingly easy to get a license, and you'll find that many of the older generation of radio amateurs are among the most young-at-heart oldsters you'll encounter.

kbaker 10y ago
If you are at all interested in Amateur Radio, next weekend (June 25-26) check out a Field Day site close by! http://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator http://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator Field Day is meant to be a test of emergency communications preparedness, where the idea is that hams from all over (the US at least) set up operation off-the-grid, and attempt to make contact with as many stations as possible. This is a great way to meet the local Ham community, as it is one of the biggest social/public events in Amateur Radio. It's too bad they didn't mention it in the article...
- grandalf 10y ago
  True! There are all sorts of ways people do field day. A few tips for someone planning to follow kbaker's advice: - Check out a few field day setups, different groups have different goals and culture, and you may connect with one more than another. - Stick around a while. Many hams will stop by the local field day and hang out for a bit. Someone who is interested in something that you want to learn about might stop by at any minute. - Give it a try, you can operate the gear with permission from one of the licensed operators. - Definitely check out CW (morse code). It's amazing that it's still in use but it's lots of fun.
  - Steltek 10y ago
    > - Definitely check out CW (morse code). It's amazing that it's still in use but it's lots of fun. Morse is one of those "unreasonably effective" technologies. * Short of very advanced (and likewise constrained) digital methods, it's the king of long distance. * You can whack together a radio out of $10 of scrap bits. * You can't buy it. It's not a circuit or a thing. It's a skill that you need to learn and it takes way more than just learning the alphabet.
    - grandalf 10y ago
      Yes, not to mention that doing it results in a very unique sort of flow/zen state. Highly addictive :)
- johnchristopher 10y ago
  I have the impression it's less developed in Europe. Am I wrong ?
  - tlrobinson 10y ago
    It's just one part of amateur radio, but Europe's HAMNET (mentioned in the article https://www.tapr.org/pdf/DCC2014-TheEuropeanHAMNET-DG8NGN.pdf https://www.tapr.org/pdf/DCC2014-TheEuropeanHAMNET-DG8NGN.pd... ) is a lot more developed than what we have in the US.
  - kbaker 10y ago
    I think Field Day is more of a US thing. It is really setup around an official contest put on by the ARRL, which gives extra points for operating off-grid, or portable. There are no extra points for international (DX) contacts during Field Day operation though, as opposed to some other contests. But for Amateur Radio in general, it is a very international organization, with widely different areas of interest.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    Radiosport and High Speed Telegraphy competitions are very big in Europe, and the demographic in EU is a bit younger than in the US: Some links: http://www.rufzxp.net/toplist.htm http://www.rufzxp.net/toplist.htm and http://www.wwyc.net/?p=members http://www.wwyc.net/?p=members
- scuba7183 10y ago
  Thanks for the info! I just got my license recently but have been getting a slow start. I'll have to check this out
ejcx 10y ago
Totally the truth. I got my technician license with about an hour of studying and the "experts" were great folks, and desperate for new blood. Young people aren't learning about radio as much these days. One of the old guys took me out in his brand new Tesla Model S around the time the cars had just come out and I had never seen one. It was pretty neat and a good memory I have of the community. There are some really nice and knowledgable people on the radio. Listen for me, KK4PPF!
- rhinoceraptor 10y ago
  At my license exam, I was the only one under 40 there. There's definitely room for hobbyist radio to expand, especially with the proliferation of SDR, arduino and other hobby electronics. But the stereotype of hams as old white men who use fancy radios to talk about the weather is pretty accurate in my experience.
  - tlrobinson 10y ago
    At my license exam, almost everyone was under 40. But that was at DEFCON. In general you are right. They don't only talk about weather though.... they also talk about their health problems and rant about Obama.
    - rhinoceraptor 10y ago
      Is it a good crowd there? I didn't try and find where they were doing it at DC 23. I might try for my general at 24.
  - peterkshultz 10y ago
    I'm on the board of the amateur radio club at my university. It's incredibly difficult to attract students to the club. I think it's less a problem of an age gap and more a problem of the opportunity cost from tinkering with transceivers and not, say, strongly typed programming languages.
    - lucb1e 10y ago
IgorPartola 10y ago
I am the type that would go and get a license to start messing around with something like packet radio, but the last time I looked into it I encountered two things that I thought were huge road blocks. First, the study material and sample questions were way out of my league. I studied physics in college so I am not completely ignorant when it comes to things like frequency, phase, modulation, etc. However, I could not figure out what the hell I was reading in the study guide. Second was the cost. I am ok with building my own equipment out of repurposed electronics, or spending a few bucks on some type of add on card, but the guides I found were talking about $500 beginner radios. It is quite possible that I was looking at some very advanced type of ham license and communications equipment. If so, what is the best place to start. If not, then y'all must be some kind of rich geniuses!
- solarengineer 10y ago
  I invested some time in understanding the syllabus and clearing the ARRL exams. You may want to take it one step at a time. Also, radio needn't been too expensive. Check out the Baofeng hand held units that retail for about USD 30 on Amazon. These are only for UHF and VHF. For HF (international), you could either use repeaters, or Radio gateways on the Internet, or EchoLink. I use EchoLink on my mobile phone when I'm in countries where I don't have a license to operate.
  - ConroyBumpus 10y ago
    What's nice about the Baofeng VHF/UHF handhelds is that they correspond with the frequencies available to an entry level ("technician") US amateur radio license. When combined with an online study guide, the test fees and radio combined are less than $75, providing an inexpensive introduction to learning a lot about RF systems and proper radio operating procedures.
    - grandalf 10y ago
      True -- And this is just the very tip of the iceberg. Not bad if you want to spend $35 to get started, but far less amazing than if you spend $100 on some simple HF gear.
ultramancool 10y ago
Or if you just want to screw around in the field, you can pick up RTL-SDR dongle for $10-20. One of the most fun things I've experimented with recently was trying to receive local police and bus radios, pretty interesting stuff. You can also use it to pick up amateur radio conversations on some bands and to learn some general radio stuff.
- grandalf 10y ago
  I'd also recommend SDRPlay as a great (and relatively inexpensive) SDR that lets you listen to a lot of interesting stuff. The SDRPlay also lets you listen to HF, which is where most of the interesting stuff is (in my opinion). http://www.sdrplay.com/ http://www.sdrplay.com/
  - ultramancool 10y ago
    If you're willing to pay that price though you might consider going to a more expensive device with transmit too like the HackRF, bladeRF or LimeSDR.

kbaker 10y ago

If you are at all interested in Amateur Radio, next weekend (June 25-26) check out a Field Day site close by! http://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator http://www.arrl.org/field-day-locator Field Day is meant to be a test of emergency communications preparedness, where the idea is that hams from all over (the US at least) set up operation off-the-grid, and attempt to make contact with as many stations as possible. This is a great way to meet the local Ham community, as it is one of the biggest social/public events in Amateur Radio. It's too bad they didn't mention it in the article...

grandalf 10y ago
True! There are all sorts of ways people do field day. A few tips for someone planning to follow kbaker's advice: - Check out a few field day setups, different groups have different goals and culture, and you may connect with one more than another. - Stick around a while. Many hams will stop by the local field day and hang out for a bit. Someone who is interested in something that you want to learn about might stop by at any minute. - Give it a try, you can operate the gear with permission from one of the licensed operators. - Definitely check out CW (morse code). It's amazing that it's still in use but it's lots of fun.
- Steltek 10y ago
  > - Definitely check out CW (morse code). It's amazing that it's still in use but it's lots of fun. Morse is one of those "unreasonably effective" technologies. * Short of very advanced (and likewise constrained) digital methods, it's the king of long distance. * You can whack together a radio out of $10 of scrap bits. * You can't buy it. It's not a circuit or a thing. It's a skill that you need to learn and it takes way more than just learning the alphabet.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    Yes, not to mention that doing it results in a very unique sort of flow/zen state. Highly addictive :)
johnchristopher 10y ago
I have the impression it's less developed in Europe. Am I wrong ?
- tlrobinson 10y ago
  It's just one part of amateur radio, but Europe's HAMNET (mentioned in the article https://www.tapr.org/pdf/DCC2014-TheEuropeanHAMNET-DG8NGN.pdf https://www.tapr.org/pdf/DCC2014-TheEuropeanHAMNET-DG8NGN.pd... ) is a lot more developed than what we have in the US.
- kbaker 10y ago
  I think Field Day is more of a US thing. It is really setup around an official contest put on by the ARRL, which gives extra points for operating off-grid, or portable. There are no extra points for international (DX) contacts during Field Day operation though, as opposed to some other contests. But for Amateur Radio in general, it is a very international organization, with widely different areas of interest.
- grandalf 10y ago
  Radiosport and High Speed Telegraphy competitions are very big in Europe, and the demographic in EU is a bit younger than in the US: Some links: http://www.rufzxp.net/toplist.htm http://www.rufzxp.net/toplist.htm and http://www.wwyc.net/?p=members http://www.wwyc.net/?p=members
scuba7183 10y ago
Thanks for the info! I just got my license recently but have been getting a slow start. I'll have to check this out

ejcx 10y ago

Totally the truth. I got my technician license with about an hour of studying and the "experts" were great folks, and desperate for new blood. Young people aren't learning about radio as much these days. One of the old guys took me out in his brand new Tesla Model S around the time the cars had just come out and I had never seen one. It was pretty neat and a good memory I have of the community. There are some really nice and knowledgable people on the radio. Listen for me, KK4PPF!

rhinoceraptor 10y ago
At my license exam, I was the only one under 40 there. There's definitely room for hobbyist radio to expand, especially with the proliferation of SDR, arduino and other hobby electronics. But the stereotype of hams as old white men who use fancy radios to talk about the weather is pretty accurate in my experience.
- tlrobinson 10y ago
  At my license exam, almost everyone was under 40. But that was at DEFCON. In general you are right. They don't only talk about weather though.... they also talk about their health problems and rant about Obama.
  - rhinoceraptor 10y ago
    Is it a good crowd there? I didn't try and find where they were doing it at DC 23. I might try for my general at 24.
- peterkshultz 10y ago
  I'm on the board of the amateur radio club at my university. It's incredibly difficult to attract students to the club. I think it's less a problem of an age gap and more a problem of the opportunity cost from tinkering with transceivers and not, say, strongly typed programming languages.
  - lucb1e 10y ago

IgorPartola 10y ago

I am the type that would go and get a license to start messing around with something like packet radio, but the last time I looked into it I encountered two things that I thought were huge road blocks. First, the study material and sample questions were way out of my league. I studied physics in college so I am not completely ignorant when it comes to things like frequency, phase, modulation, etc. However, I could not figure out what the hell I was reading in the study guide. Second was the cost. I am ok with building my own equipment out of repurposed electronics, or spending a few bucks on some type of add on card, but the guides I found were talking about $500 beginner radios. It is quite possible that I was looking at some very advanced type of ham license and communications equipment. If so, what is the best place to start. If not, then y'all must be some kind of rich geniuses!

solarengineer 10y ago
I invested some time in understanding the syllabus and clearing the ARRL exams. You may want to take it one step at a time. Also, radio needn't been too expensive. Check out the Baofeng hand held units that retail for about USD 30 on Amazon. These are only for UHF and VHF. For HF (international), you could either use repeaters, or Radio gateways on the Internet, or EchoLink. I use EchoLink on my mobile phone when I'm in countries where I don't have a license to operate.
- ConroyBumpus 10y ago
  What's nice about the Baofeng VHF/UHF handhelds is that they correspond with the frequencies available to an entry level ("technician") US amateur radio license. When combined with an online study guide, the test fees and radio combined are less than $75, providing an inexpensive introduction to learning a lot about RF systems and proper radio operating procedures.
  - grandalf 10y ago
    True -- And this is just the very tip of the iceberg. Not bad if you want to spend $35 to get started, but far less amazing than if you spend $100 on some simple HF gear.

ultramancool 10y ago

Or if you just want to screw around in the field, you can pick up RTL-SDR dongle for $10-20. One of the most fun things I've experimented with recently was trying to receive local police and bus radios, pretty interesting stuff. You can also use it to pick up amateur radio conversations on some bands and to learn some general radio stuff.

grandalf 10y ago
I'd also recommend SDRPlay as a great (and relatively inexpensive) SDR that lets you listen to a lot of interesting stuff. The SDRPlay also lets you listen to HF, which is where most of the interesting stuff is (in my opinion). http://www.sdrplay.com/ http://www.sdrplay.com/
- ultramancool 10y ago
  If you're willing to pay that price though you might consider going to a more expensive device with transmit too like the HackRF, bladeRF or LimeSDR.