4 ms·

How 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'

How 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 ago
If 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 ago
  Even 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 ago
I 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
There are 3 classes of license, and each consecutive class gives you more privileges than the last. From least privileged to most: 1. Technician: Access to frequencies that let you contact people in your city. 2. General: Access to frequencies that bounce off the ionosphere and let you contact people all around the world. 3. Amateur extra: Access to more frequencies yet, but none of these frequencies give you abilities past what General can do (worldwide contacts). I recommend going straight to general. It strikes a good test-difficulty to privileges-granted ratio. The easiest way to study is to just memorize the answers to all the questions. Yes, that's right: the licensing test question bank is published and it's not hard to memorize the entire thing. This site has flashcards and practice exams: https://hamstudy.org/ https://hamstudy.org/ If you practice for 15 to 30 minutes a day, you can be ready for your general test in less than a week. Once you're ready, find a testing site in your area and go: http://www.arrl.org/find-an-amateur-radio-license-exam-session http://www.arrl.org/find-an-amateur-radio-license-exam-sessi... Then buy (maybe even build) a radio and have fun! What can do you once you have your license? Off the top of my head: - Talk with people in distant countries. - Build radios and test them out. - Build antennas and test them out. - Make contacts through satellites that have ham radio repeaters. - Join an emergency communications org like ARES (http://www.arrl.org/ares http://www.arrl.org/ares). - Talk with people in different countries using digital modes (like a very early chat room i guess?) - Make your friends get licenses and use it for comms when backpacking, rafting, whatever. - Make contacts by bouncing signals off the moon (ok this one is hard).

jeffwass 9y ago

If 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 ago
Even 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 ago

I 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

There are 3 classes of license, and each consecutive class gives you more privileges than the last. From least privileged to most: 1. Technician: Access to frequencies that let you contact people in your city. 2. General: Access to frequencies that bounce off the ionosphere and let you contact people all around the world. 3. Amateur extra: Access to more frequencies yet, but none of these frequencies give you abilities past what General can do (worldwide contacts). I recommend going straight to general. It strikes a good test-difficulty to privileges-granted ratio. The easiest way to study is to just memorize the answers to all the questions. Yes, that's right: the licensing test question bank is published and it's not hard to memorize the entire thing. This site has flashcards and practice exams: https://hamstudy.org/ https://hamstudy.org/ If you practice for 15 to 30 minutes a day, you can be ready for your general test in less than a week. Once you're ready, find a testing site in your area and go: http://www.arrl.org/find-an-amateur-radio-license-exam-session http://www.arrl.org/find-an-amateur-radio-license-exam-sessi... Then buy (maybe even build) a radio and have fun! What can do you once you have your license? Off the top of my head: - Talk with people in distant countries. - Build radios and test them out. - Build antennas and test them out. - Make contacts through satellites that have ham radio repeaters. - Join an emergency communications org like ARES (http://www.arrl.org/ares http://www.arrl.org/ares). - Talk with people in different countries using digital modes (like a very early chat room i guess?) - Make your friends get licenses and use it for comms when backpacking, rafting, whatever. - Make contacts by bouncing signals off the moon (ok this one is hard).