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One thing about HAM that I didn't see in perusing the comments is how many tools HAM operators have developed that integrate with the internet. There are a bunc
by slr555 9y ago
One thing about HAM that I didn't see in perusing the comments is how many tools HAM operators have developed that integrate with the internet. There are a bunch of tools that let you start out on HF and hit a receiver or repeater that puts your traffic into the internet. In an environment with the right kind of repeaters you can hit the internet with a handheld (Puerto Rico likely has had it's repeaters decimated with all other towers). On HF you can go around the world to hit a link to the internet. I imagine the Red Cross and ARRL will be selecting an HF mode and band to take the shortest hop they can into more modern data systems.
The secret sauce in HF is that unlike the web, conditions matter to the operator. Things like sunspot activity, the position of the day/night line, if you are near water etc. can greatly affect your ability to successfully communicate.
DXpeditions, which are trips HAMs take with their gear to try to hit very distant stations are often based in island locations because HF tends to propagate significantly better with the antenna is near water as opposed to irregular ground.
I would just say to all of you who are into tech as I imagine HN readers to be, to give HAM a try. A lot of us are old and HAM sites regularly feature a list of "silent keys" because so many of the hardcore operators are dying off. Yes it's a bit antiquated but the younger generation will be able to marry all the amazing things you've invented to HAM to serve populations where the new tech either hasn't gone or gets knocked out as in the current crisis. For so many of you engineers it will be easy, like dusting off your first Circuits text. Yes, the regs are a drag to learn but I bet the average HN reader has done things that are way more challenging.
Have fun!
73
- brians 9y agoHam.
- slr555 9y agoYep
- nickysielicki 9y agoham not HAM
- retox 9y agoIs hiphop terms HAM means Hard As a Motherfucker. As in "I go HAM"
- nickysielicki 9y agohttp://www.kb6nu.com/ham-ham-radio-ham-radio-amateur-radio/ http://www.kb6nu.com/ham-ham-radio-ham-radio-amateur-radio/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_ham_radio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymology_of_ham_radio > I don’t think that you can argue with this. Let’s avoid confusion by using “amateur radio” when writing about our hobby/service. I’d even urge the ARRL to rethink their use of “Amateur Radio.” Sometimes, it may be OK to use “ham radio,” but it’s just not correct to use “HAM radio” or just “HAM.”
- freehunter 9y agoSo many people think any short, common name must be an initialism or acronym. I have coworkers who talk about their MAC computers, which is confusing when you work in the networking world and MAC does not normally mean Macintosh.
- atomicthumbs 9y agoDXpeditions aren't based in island locations because HF propagates better over water, they're based in island locations because those are the locations that people haven't tended to log, as they're entities that don't have any people (or have people, but no ham operators) living on them and thus need to be "activated" for someone to count them as contacted.
- slr555 9y agoThis a lift from a radio club slide on propagation: Types of Propagation ●Ionospheric waves (sky waves): Main portion of the radiation that leaves the antenna at angles above the horizon ●Tropospheric waves: Radiation kept close to the earth’s surface due to bending in the lower atmosphere (higher HF or lower VHF) ●Ground waves (surface waves): Radiation directly affected by the earth’s surface - Earth-guided surface wave - Vertically polarized and absorbtion increases with freq - **Travels much further over water than over land** So I agree it’s not the sole criteria for dxers. But they a better chance of hitting some distant stations for QSOs with propagation over water. I suspect it’s why the am stations in the Jersey swamps have their towers over water. 73
- Cerium 9y agoI have both a question and a comment. I got my license (Technician and General on the same day) about a year ago. I have not once pressed transmit on a radio. I guess I don't know where to start. If you have any advice I would like to hear it. Anyone with an EE background should be able to study up on https://hamstudy.org/ https://hamstudy.org/ for a few hours a night for a week and pass without trouble.
- slr555 9y agoOlder hams willing to teach new hams to do what your asking are referred Robert as Elmer’s. It’s hard to teach throwing tennis ball over a branch to string a dipole in a book. It’s hard to know with big project if you’ve screwed it up without help. The value of an Elmer. The other and perhaps more modern approach is that hams are prolific content producers. Almost any topic will have loads of good YouTube coverage. Since many hams build there stuff there are a lot of really good answers to questions out there. Finally, if you have an HT go online and look up local repeaters and program your radio accordingly. Commuting is a good time to hear vhf/uhf folks. When the time is right call CQ and try a contact. It gets easier the more you do it.
- wepple 9y ago+1 got my ticket, bought a baofeng, unboxed it and put it in a draw. I'm not sure how to get involved? Loraham.org does seem a cool use to tinker with.
- fapjacks 9y agoDo you have a license? Step one is getting your license. QRZ offers "practice" exams online which are literally the questions from the FCC license exam pool [0]. You can rote memorize these questions and answers if you need to. Technician and General are both fairly easy licenses to get. The FCC dropped the Morse (CW) requirement, but this can be a really fun way to get into certain ham bands which are CW-only. Very niche crowd. I suppose the sibling advice I gave is to find a local repeater and just start talking. If you're on the West Coast, I highly suggest checking out the WINS repeater system. It's an internet-connected set of repeaters, so when you hit your local WINS repeater, you're actually going out to most of the west coast and Hawaii. And a few other places. It's always growing. Always super friendly. Well, most of the time it's super friendly. [0] https://www.qrz.com/hamtest/ https://www.qrz.com/hamtest/
- SomeStupidPoint 9y agoHow do I get started in this? I've always been fascinated, but it's not clear -- I believe there's some kind of license required (to be a good citizen), but I've never been sure how to go about getting that.
- jeffwass 9y agoIf you're in the USA start with ARRL. Find a local HAM club and go to some meetings. http://www.arrl.org/getting-licensed http://www.arrl.org/getting-licensed Find a club : http://www.arrl.org/find-a-club http://www.arrl.org/find-a-club
- geff82 9y agoEven if you are not in the US, start with the US License! It has the best books and is convertible to many national licenses and it is cheap. Due to the American Volunteer Examiner system, exams can be and are held in many countries around the world. I, for example, passed my Extra Class exam last week in Germany. As soon as the FCC publishes it online, I will show it to the German authorities and get my German license without further exam. 73
- wdfx 9y agoI bought an RTL SDR just a few weeks ago off the back of getting interested in listening in on various web SDRs (furthermore, the first of which I visited was linked to a HN thread about a Russian numbers station). Now I can pick up local signals and listen/decode them and get a sense of what the spectrum (in my case between about 60MHz and 2.1GHz for the range of my receiver) is used for. Running the software on Linux is super simple, a graphical receiver programme such as gqrx is quite nice to play with, and versions exist in most distros package managers. Further to all of the above, I looked at the RSGB site about UK licensing, and they have example exams for all license levels. The first exam I looked at I self-scored at about 85% without even doing any reading at all - though I have some basic knowledge of electronics (and a tiny bit about radio) already. In the UK there is also OFCOM which manages the local legalities of radio reception and transmission.
- beala 9y ago
- alex_hitchins 9y agoI've taken the foundation course and am starting my intermediate training this weekend. For me, amateur radio gets very interesting when you start listening out for satellite transmissions, including reaching the ISS. It's such a fun subject and as you say, lots of aspects to it that would interest most people with a technical bent.
- tlrobinson 9y agoSmall pet peeve, but it's "ham", not "HAM". 73