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I have a license because my high school teacher made us do it but I never quite understood what hobbyists do with it. I see how it can be a useful skill to have

by httpz 8y ago

I have a license because my high school teacher made us do it but I never quite understood what hobbyists do with it. I see how it can be a useful skill to have for people in a certain profession but as a hobbyist what do you do? Do people just talk to random people on the radio? I'm genuinely curious.

gingerbread-man 8y ago
I got my license (KE0RYU) a few months ago partly out of curiosity and partly because I wanted to mess around with software-defined radio. So far I've volunteered for communications at a major half-marathon and done a little bit of storm spotting for the NWS. It seems like the majority of serious amatuer radio hobbyists are retired man, many of whom have a background in military communications or electrical engineering.
quickthrower2 8y ago
I used to have a CB and it was fun to talk to mates on there and muck around. At the time I liked the idea of HAM radio because you could go longer distance, and the idea of speaking to someone in another country was really cool. However now with the internet etc. it may seem a little less cool. (The internet was around when I was young but was pretty expensive to get connected). I remember a time when someone on the CB got 64kbps connection to the internet through packet radio, faster than dial up! It's a bit like how mucking around with microcomputers was very cool back in the day, but now why would you bother when you can run a C64 in an emulator? But there is something nostalgic about it that makes me sometimes want to buy and old computer.
- Jaruzel 8y ago
  > but now why would you bother when you can run a C64 in an emulator? Once you dive into Retro-computing, you'll find loads of us getting and keeping old kit running, with a whole host of strange old and new add-ons, with new bits of kit being designed and built everyday. It's a really fun (but expensive) hobby!
codemac 8y ago
You nerd out about radio technology, and you see what you can do with it (bigger ones, smaller ones, distance and quality of transmissions, etc). It's a feeling of power and independence that is very lost with the Internet to me. With the internet - I'm connecting to something very very large. With ham - I'm building my own. I'd see it as the same draw as setting up your first website in the late 90's/early 2000's, with the visitor counters and comments sections. Each interaction is a treasure.
mikekchar 8y ago
My dad was an amateur radio operator. That's exactly what he did. If you can imagine, back in the 70's and 80's normal people didn't have access to the internet. So all of the discussions that we normally have with strangers (like this one!) were basically impossible, except by radio in publicly accessible bands. I'm not that familiar with the how things worked, but I remember my dad spending at least an hour or two a day, chatting in morse code with people. They even had a kind of news service (I guess a bit like Usenet, except by hand) where they would relay messages around the world. It looked like a cool hobby, but I got access to a computer at a very early age and was instantly obsessed by it ;-)
- blihp 8y ago
  Another thing to remember about the 'old days' (80's and earlier) is that in addition to there being no public Internet for (most) people to hook into[1], was the expense of actually using the phone. Except for local calls (pretty much people in/near your city), everything was metered: we had zone calls where calling someone more than ~5-10 miles away incurred per-minute costs (iirc, $0.10-0.20/min), long distance calls (>30-50 miles) were more expensive (iirc, $0.30-0.50/min), and international (esp. overseas) calls were insane (you would typically try to keep conversations very short as the costs would start at $1-2/minute.) So amateur radio was a very cost effective way to communicate with like-minded people with very rapid payback. That said, a lot of people just liked chatting with strangers from far away places. [1] There were commercial services and BBS's but they were also relatively niche until the late 80's largely due to the actual cost of the phone call as described above.
noonespecial 8y ago
I used mine for telemetry radios on very large model rockets at the rocketry club. I was "the radio guy". Which was good because my attempt at being the "motor guy" didn't end so well.
- Waterluvian 8y ago
  There's a story here you need to write down for us somehwere. :)
  - sahil-kang 8y ago
    Yes, please do: what did being “the radio guy” entail? Was it more software or hardware? I write software for a living so that’s what I’m more interested in; don’t know about parent comment, though.
    - plugger 8y ago
      I can comment on this as I'm kinda that guy at my rocket club as well. Basically many RDF or GPS Trackers in the hobby rocketry community operate over 70cm and require a license for legal operation. Add to that many people buy trackers and yet don't fully familarise themselves with their operation. So you'll have someone with a GPS tracker that has no idea how to get coordinates "out" of the system or what to do with them when they have them. And GPS is the easier system to use as RDFing a tracker (foxhunting) is more readily described as a skill or even an art. It definitely takes practice to become proficient at these types of things. Add to that the fact that many GPS systems are different from an operating perspective and you have a bit of a steep learning curve.
themodelplumber 8y ago
It's an incredibly broad hobby. I just got my first award by downloading digital images (SSTV) from the ISS using a $35 handheld radio, and that didn't require any talking at all. There are tons of things you can do, so many that it's hard to sum up. It also combines well with other hobbies. Or it can be a symbol or inspiration of its own kind, an objective reminder that more science in your life is a good thing. One of the biggest advantages is the practically free education. If you upgrade your license you'll learn a lot of really fascinating stuff. I really wish I knew about propagation and differences between the various bands and band schedules back when I was a kid, fooling around with my dad's Patrolman radio. I also learned how effective logging can be, and have applied that in just about every area of my life. Finally, there's just something about breaking the silence and making that call when you're out in the middle of nowhere. Even if you're the world's biggest introvert, you might end up helping somebody by keeping your radio turned on and tuned in. https://old.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/9c9n0q/my_forthever_contact_was_an_emergency/ https://old.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/9c9n0q/my_for...
- nopacience 8y ago
  care to explain how to download from ISS via radio ?
  - themodelplumber 8y ago
    Sure, when the ISS passes over (and is transmitting SSTV--check the ARISS blog or issfanclub.com), tune your radio to 145.800, turn squelch off, and hold up your speaker to (for example) your smartphone which is running a decoder like Robot36. That's just one specific way...the app will auto-save an image to your phone when it's done. Example video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAHJfE7EBlI&t=12s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAHJfE7EBlI&t=12s You can use an app like "ISS Detector" to get alerts when the ISS is over; that one also has an IAP that will show you any amateur radio satellite that's over your head, as well as the uplink and downlink frequencies. (Last time I was listening to cubesat AO-92, my social "nerd antenna" apparently went up to about 1 MW transmitting and I ended up pointing into the clear blue sky a lot while explaining to interested random passers-by why people still use ham radio. :-))
Waterluvian 8y ago
I've fantacised that back before the web was ubiquitous, radio could serve a similar role. That feeling of pure joy and curiosity exploring beyond the city limits of your hometown. I remember wandering the internet as a young teen. Finding my way into IRC was eye opening (in amazing and terrifying ways). I wonder if having a radio was like the early version of that.
cronix 8y ago
> Do people just talk to random people on the radio? Some do, just like the internet. You're random to me, and we're conversing. Remember "chat rooms" and similar (IRC)? Mostly anonymous people talking to each other. Yes you might have some people you "know" in there, but there are strangers as well.
- macintux 8y ago
  My problem with ragchewing is that here, I can respond to random comments as they interest me, and I can carry on a short conversation if I wish to, but I’m really not interested in shooting the breeze with a random stranger. Or frankly, even people I know.
  - jglazko 8y ago
    I don't ragchew - but the newer digital modes are great for seeing how far your signal can reach. And sites like PSK Reporter are great for having passive validation of how far your signal actually goes, without even having to make a two-way contact.
nutcracker46 8y ago
The hobbyists find many different kinds of satisfaction in amateur radio. In my early days, my knack was building antennas and chasing dx down on HF. Later, I was into VHF: more antennas, preamps, hacking FM limiter - detector circuits, chasing tropospheric dx. Radio math as better hardware. That was all before the arrival of software defined radio. Radio math as computer code. Some of my nerdy friends can't stand analog voice and CW, preferring instead to push bandwidth limits on the microwave bands, doing mesh networks, etc. Hehe, we can't all be hardcore HF/AM godfathers like Timtron WA1HLR. Big signals from home, big signals from WBCQ :-)
II2II 8y ago
I was fortunate and got licensed through a club that had a healthy mix of students, people in industry, and retirees. Some of the stuff that we were doing was amazing. Some of the stuff that we talked about was even more so. Just after the turn of the century we had a fully functional station for long distance terrestrial communications (HF) and satellite communications (including amateur satellites and the ISS). Much of the station could be disassembled and relocated for operations in the field, specifically Field Day. Members had various technical projects ranging from building the station (antennas, feed lines, and radios), to software defined radio. Other people had tangential interests which fit in well with the group. In other words, there was a lot of experimentation. Amateur radio is a lot like computers: there are those who build the tools and those who use the tools. Both groups serve a purpose (many of the users are involved in community service and emergency communications). What you choose to do largely depends upon what you are interested in.
darkhorn 8y ago
Hopefully some young amateur radio hobbyists will become radio engineers dealing with GPS, 3G, 4G, satalite beams etc.
- resters 8y ago
  There is tremendous demand for people with RF engineering and SDR skills.
  - posix_me_less 8y ago
    Which companies do you mean? Mobile network operators?
JoeDaDude 8y ago
The license is only needed if you want to transmit. If you are not interested in talking to random people, there is a lot of fun to be had from just picking up signals and listening. There are hobbyists who enjoy picking up distant AM radio stations, listening to all kinds of voice or machine traffic on shortwave, tracking aircraft by their beacon signals, or just listening to local police on scanners. As a listener myself ("SWLer") my next project is to make a radio to pick up telemetry from small cubesats.
- macintux 8y ago
  One caveat: at least in some locales, a license is required to own (or perhaps carry) a police scanner.
  - geggam 8y ago
    Scanners are legal in all 50 states. In some states its illegal to use a scanner while breaking the law ( this I find funny for some reason ) https://www.zipscanners.com/resources/are-police-scanners-legal/ https://www.zipscanners.com/resources/are-police-scanners-le...
    - macintux 8y ago
      In Indiana it’s illegal to possess one while committing a crime, so even speeding with one installed, whether you’re using it or not, invites more legal difficulty.
    - sathackr 8y ago
      Recursive law-breaking. Using the scanner while breaking the law is breaking the law, so by breaking the law while using the scanner, you're also breaking the law...while using the scanner. Kinda like using a gun in the commission of a felony...is a felony. Or being arrested and the only charge is resisting arrest.
      - tomjakubowski 8y ago
tamrix 8y ago
Broadcast memes to aliens obviously.
int_19h 8y ago
How about a grassroots Internet? http://hsmm-mesh.org/just-starting-read-this.html http://hsmm-mesh.org/just-starting-read-this.html
tabhygfr 8y ago
I know one person who volunteers at the local marathon as a radio operator. (Not sure why standards mobile stuff hasn't replaced it.)
- m4x 8y ago
  I volunteer as a radio operator at some sport events. The main reason we use radios instead of cell phones is that it's faster to relay information and works well when you have many field stations talking to a single base station. There's quite a lot of overhead involved in making a cell phone call, and it doesn't work well when you need to relay lots of short messages without tying up the line for everybody else. With a radio you can key up and start talking immediately.
  - michaelt 8y ago
    I'm curious about how this works - Do you personally own a stack of handheld radios that work with your radio operator rig? Does the sports event hire handheld radios and a base station that you operate? Presumably they need to be license-free if you're issuing them to unlicensed volunteers? How do you respond to reports distant stations aren't receiving messages?
    - csutter 8y ago
      You don’t need a stack of radios, it’s usually 2 meter and everyone is licensed and operating on the same frequency. There is a net operator managing the traffic, probably with a base station, but it’s their equipment always, it’s purely volunteer.
    - m4x 8y ago
      We are all licensed amateur radio operators and just use our own gear. Not sure what you mean by a stack of radios - we all have our own radios in some form, and they are all interoperable by their nature (not much point in hams using radios that can't communicate with anybody else!). We normally have somebody free who can travel to any field station if they have equipment problems etc. Most events pay a small fee for our help, which goes to the local club.
vitaflo 8y ago
After I got my license I also got a Skywarn license (that has to be renewed every 2 years) so I can do storm spotting. It's basically a volunteer effort for the National Weather Service. Licensed spotters get called out to go spot severe weather and report back in on the ham bands to the Weather Net. I installed a ham radio in my car for this very purpose. There are a million different areas in this hobby. Chatting with random people is just the most obvious (and boring) one.
- jiggunjer 8y ago
  voice reports over radio seems a rather strange way of collecting weather data? A text-based form on the web seems more practical?
  - falcolas 8y ago
    Voice reports have a few major advantages: They can be made while your hands are otherwise occupied (driving, flying, etc.) They don't require web access (can be done while in the middle of a forest, or 10,000 feet above the ground) They lessen the chance of being DDOSed by a bored teenager Doing them while within range of the internet may be less efficient, but they're also not limited by the internet.
masukomi 8y ago
i'm a CERT member. I use it to help local police. I use it to help manage safety at running races (marathons, 5ks etc.) I would also use it to help if called out on a search an rescue. These frequently involve multiple police departments and they can rarely talk with each other on their radios, so Hams fill in between departments. At marathons and such the Hams are the ones with the antennas and the frequencies to get around the physical terrain and help bridge police departments. I can also use it for communication when the cell networks go after a few hours without power (new england ice storms). When 911 happened we had massive communication network failures and the Hams were the ones that were desperately needed by emergency crews to get messages in and out.
bonestamp2 8y ago
Although I found it interesting, I never planned on getting a license until recently... I was looking at POV racing drones and one particular model required a HAM license for the video transmitter.
jeffwass 8y ago
Back in the 80’s, before there was Iridium satellite, my uncle would use HAM radio to keep in touch with us while sailing his boat between Hawaii and California. Even though my household weren’t HAM’s at the time, he’d “call” us every few days through a “phone patch” to give status updates in the middle of the Pacific. Basically, he’d make connections to various HAM’s somewhere, trying to find someone who could do a “phone patch”. That person would then connect the audio to their phone, call my house collect, and we could have a two-way conversation. Pretty cool stuff. Back in the 90’s when I had my license I thought packet radio was cool as hell. Checking your email in the middle of a field? Amazing. Of course that’s all obsolete now. And then just for the ultimate geek factor. You know what the very first communication satellite was, right? The moon! HAM’s still do “moonbounce” communications to talk to people on the opposite side of the planet by bouncing signals off the moon. Requires very directional antennae, and brings with it the ultimate latency. But that’s some serious geek cred there.
- eythian 8y ago
  > Checking your email in the middle of a field? Checking mail on the BBS on the MIR space station. Kids these days trying to get an extra 10m range out of their wifi...
- HocusLocus 8y ago
  My good friend WA2AAX, now a silent key, told of a visit he once made to the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. During a lull in operation they let him traverse the catwalk spanning the 'dish' (a spherical mesh 1,000 ft diameter built inside a natural sinkhole) as the moon reached its zenith. Scanning his VHF HT he was able to hear many moonbouncing HAMs and even voice traffic from repeaters in the US. With a standard offset he was even able to make a brief contact with someone on a faraway VHF repeater before the celestial mechanics drifted out of alignment. A 2,000 mile QSO on VHF with a handheld, via the Moon. He considered it his finest Geek moment.
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    One of Arecebo's missions was to listen on Soviet and Sino transmissions, or nuke tests, via moon bounced transmissions. (From Steve Blank's "Secret history of Silicon Valley" talk. https://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/10023411/steve_blank_silicon_valley_and_innovation.mp3 https://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/10023411/steve_bla... )
madshiva 8y ago
I have talking to people and we exchanged postal card (QSL card), that confirm each communication, quality, etc. That was a lot of fun, each country contacted. The far you go, the more you are happy :)
oropolo 8y ago
I required to get my technician's license before I could take the family truck when I was in high school. And not answering up on 2m when my dad called was a groundable offense.
lujim 8y ago
Learning morse code well enough to be able to decode 25-30 word per minute code in your head is incredibly satisfying. Also since transmitting a narrow sine wave takes much less power than a wider bandwidth voice signal you can get much further or operate on a fraction of the power. I've talked (in morse code) to people on the air that are former US Navy radio telegraphers, submariners, Air force mechanics etc. That generation is heading into their golden years and many of them will be gone in 10-20 years. It's interesting to hear about their lives in their own words. I've made contacts to Moscow Russia on 100 watts, Asia, most of Europe and most of the States in the US. I've also built the tiny QCX in that article by soldering and hand winding toroids. Fired it up and made a contact several hundred miles away on a tiny amount of power. I used an arduino to create a scratch built keyer with all my own circuts and code. Then I hooked it up to my paddles, set the speed and used it for tons of contacts. In short, it can be a very satisfying hobby if you are nerdy enough.

by httpz 8y ago

gingerbread-man 8y ago

I got my license (KE0RYU) a few months ago partly out of curiosity and partly because I wanted to mess around with software-defined radio. So far I've volunteered for communications at a major half-marathon and done a little bit of storm spotting for the NWS. It seems like the majority of serious amatuer radio hobbyists are retired man, many of whom have a background in military communications or electrical engineering.

quickthrower2 8y ago

I used to have a CB and it was fun to talk to mates on there and muck around. At the time I liked the idea of HAM radio because you could go longer distance, and the idea of speaking to someone in another country was really cool. However now with the internet etc. it may seem a little less cool. (The internet was around when I was young but was pretty expensive to get connected). I remember a time when someone on the CB got 64kbps connection to the internet through packet radio, faster than dial up! It's a bit like how mucking around with microcomputers was very cool back in the day, but now why would you bother when you can run a C64 in an emulator? But there is something nostalgic about it that makes me sometimes want to buy and old computer.

Jaruzel 8y ago
> but now why would you bother when you can run a C64 in an emulator? Once you dive into Retro-computing, you'll find loads of us getting and keeping old kit running, with a whole host of strange old and new add-ons, with new bits of kit being designed and built everyday. It's a really fun (but expensive) hobby!

codemac 8y ago

You nerd out about radio technology, and you see what you can do with it (bigger ones, smaller ones, distance and quality of transmissions, etc). It's a feeling of power and independence that is very lost with the Internet to me. With the internet - I'm connecting to something very very large. With ham - I'm building my own. I'd see it as the same draw as setting up your first website in the late 90's/early 2000's, with the visitor counters and comments sections. Each interaction is a treasure.

mikekchar 8y ago

My dad was an amateur radio operator. That's exactly what he did. If you can imagine, back in the 70's and 80's normal people didn't have access to the internet. So all of the discussions that we normally have with strangers (like this one!) were basically impossible, except by radio in publicly accessible bands. I'm not that familiar with the how things worked, but I remember my dad spending at least an hour or two a day, chatting in morse code with people. They even had a kind of news service (I guess a bit like Usenet, except by hand) where they would relay messages around the world. It looked like a cool hobby, but I got access to a computer at a very early age and was instantly obsessed by it ;-)

blihp 8y ago
Another thing to remember about the 'old days' (80's and earlier) is that in addition to there being no public Internet for (most) people to hook into[1], was the expense of actually using the phone. Except for local calls (pretty much people in/near your city), everything was metered: we had zone calls where calling someone more than ~5-10 miles away incurred per-minute costs (iirc, $0.10-0.20/min), long distance calls (>30-50 miles) were more expensive (iirc, $0.30-0.50/min), and international (esp. overseas) calls were insane (you would typically try to keep conversations very short as the costs would start at $1-2/minute.) So amateur radio was a very cost effective way to communicate with like-minded people with very rapid payback. That said, a lot of people just liked chatting with strangers from far away places. [1] There were commercial services and BBS's but they were also relatively niche until the late 80's largely due to the actual cost of the phone call as described above.

noonespecial 8y ago

I used mine for telemetry radios on very large model rockets at the rocketry club. I was "the radio guy". Which was good because my attempt at being the "motor guy" didn't end so well.

Waterluvian 8y ago
There's a story here you need to write down for us somehwere. :)
- sahil-kang 8y ago
  Yes, please do: what did being “the radio guy” entail? Was it more software or hardware? I write software for a living so that’s what I’m more interested in; don’t know about parent comment, though.
  - plugger 8y ago
    I can comment on this as I'm kinda that guy at my rocket club as well. Basically many RDF or GPS Trackers in the hobby rocketry community operate over 70cm and require a license for legal operation. Add to that many people buy trackers and yet don't fully familarise themselves with their operation. So you'll have someone with a GPS tracker that has no idea how to get coordinates "out" of the system or what to do with them when they have them. And GPS is the easier system to use as RDFing a tracker (foxhunting) is more readily described as a skill or even an art. It definitely takes practice to become proficient at these types of things. Add to that the fact that many GPS systems are different from an operating perspective and you have a bit of a steep learning curve.

themodelplumber 8y ago

It's an incredibly broad hobby. I just got my first award by downloading digital images (SSTV) from the ISS using a $35 handheld radio, and that didn't require any talking at all. There are tons of things you can do, so many that it's hard to sum up. It also combines well with other hobbies. Or it can be a symbol or inspiration of its own kind, an objective reminder that more science in your life is a good thing. One of the biggest advantages is the practically free education. If you upgrade your license you'll learn a lot of really fascinating stuff. I really wish I knew about propagation and differences between the various bands and band schedules back when I was a kid, fooling around with my dad's Patrolman radio. I also learned how effective logging can be, and have applied that in just about every area of my life. Finally, there's just something about breaking the silence and making that call when you're out in the middle of nowhere. Even if you're the world's biggest introvert, you might end up helping somebody by keeping your radio turned on and tuned in. https://old.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/9c9n0q/my_forthever_contact_was_an_emergency/ https://old.reddit.com/r/amateurradio/comments/9c9n0q/my_for...

nopacience 8y ago
care to explain how to download from ISS via radio ?
- themodelplumber 8y ago
  Sure, when the ISS passes over (and is transmitting SSTV--check the ARISS blog or issfanclub.com), tune your radio to 145.800, turn squelch off, and hold up your speaker to (for example) your smartphone which is running a decoder like Robot36. That's just one specific way...the app will auto-save an image to your phone when it's done. Example video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAHJfE7EBlI&t=12s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAHJfE7EBlI&t=12s You can use an app like "ISS Detector" to get alerts when the ISS is over; that one also has an IAP that will show you any amateur radio satellite that's over your head, as well as the uplink and downlink frequencies. (Last time I was listening to cubesat AO-92, my social "nerd antenna" apparently went up to about 1 MW transmitting and I ended up pointing into the clear blue sky a lot while explaining to interested random passers-by why people still use ham radio. :-))

Waterluvian 8y ago

I've fantacised that back before the web was ubiquitous, radio could serve a similar role. That feeling of pure joy and curiosity exploring beyond the city limits of your hometown. I remember wandering the internet as a young teen. Finding my way into IRC was eye opening (in amazing and terrifying ways). I wonder if having a radio was like the early version of that.

cronix 8y ago

> Do people just talk to random people on the radio? Some do, just like the internet. You're random to me, and we're conversing. Remember "chat rooms" and similar (IRC)? Mostly anonymous people talking to each other. Yes you might have some people you "know" in there, but there are strangers as well.

macintux 8y ago
My problem with ragchewing is that here, I can respond to random comments as they interest me, and I can carry on a short conversation if I wish to, but I’m really not interested in shooting the breeze with a random stranger. Or frankly, even people I know.
- jglazko 8y ago
  I don't ragchew - but the newer digital modes are great for seeing how far your signal can reach. And sites like PSK Reporter are great for having passive validation of how far your signal actually goes, without even having to make a two-way contact.

nutcracker46 8y ago

The hobbyists find many different kinds of satisfaction in amateur radio. In my early days, my knack was building antennas and chasing dx down on HF. Later, I was into VHF: more antennas, preamps, hacking FM limiter - detector circuits, chasing tropospheric dx. Radio math as better hardware. That was all before the arrival of software defined radio. Radio math as computer code. Some of my nerdy friends can't stand analog voice and CW, preferring instead to push bandwidth limits on the microwave bands, doing mesh networks, etc. Hehe, we can't all be hardcore HF/AM godfathers like Timtron WA1HLR. Big signals from home, big signals from WBCQ :-)

II2II 8y ago

I was fortunate and got licensed through a club that had a healthy mix of students, people in industry, and retirees. Some of the stuff that we were doing was amazing. Some of the stuff that we talked about was even more so. Just after the turn of the century we had a fully functional station for long distance terrestrial communications (HF) and satellite communications (including amateur satellites and the ISS). Much of the station could be disassembled and relocated for operations in the field, specifically Field Day. Members had various technical projects ranging from building the station (antennas, feed lines, and radios), to software defined radio. Other people had tangential interests which fit in well with the group. In other words, there was a lot of experimentation. Amateur radio is a lot like computers: there are those who build the tools and those who use the tools. Both groups serve a purpose (many of the users are involved in community service and emergency communications). What you choose to do largely depends upon what you are interested in.

darkhorn 8y ago

Hopefully some young amateur radio hobbyists will become radio engineers dealing with GPS, 3G, 4G, satalite beams etc.

resters 8y ago
There is tremendous demand for people with RF engineering and SDR skills.
- posix_me_less 8y ago
  Which companies do you mean? Mobile network operators?

JoeDaDude 8y ago

The license is only needed if you want to transmit. If you are not interested in talking to random people, there is a lot of fun to be had from just picking up signals and listening. There are hobbyists who enjoy picking up distant AM radio stations, listening to all kinds of voice or machine traffic on shortwave, tracking aircraft by their beacon signals, or just listening to local police on scanners. As a listener myself ("SWLer") my next project is to make a radio to pick up telemetry from small cubesats.

macintux 8y ago
One caveat: at least in some locales, a license is required to own (or perhaps carry) a police scanner.
- geggam 8y ago
  Scanners are legal in all 50 states. In some states its illegal to use a scanner while breaking the law ( this I find funny for some reason ) https://www.zipscanners.com/resources/are-police-scanners-legal/ https://www.zipscanners.com/resources/are-police-scanners-le...
  - macintux 8y ago
    In Indiana it’s illegal to possess one while committing a crime, so even speeding with one installed, whether you’re using it or not, invites more legal difficulty.
  - sathackr 8y ago
    Recursive law-breaking. Using the scanner while breaking the law is breaking the law, so by breaking the law while using the scanner, you're also breaking the law...while using the scanner. Kinda like using a gun in the commission of a felony...is a felony. Or being arrested and the only charge is resisting arrest.
    - tomjakubowski 8y ago

tamrix 8y ago

Broadcast memes to aliens obviously.

int_19h 8y ago

How about a grassroots Internet? http://hsmm-mesh.org/just-starting-read-this.html http://hsmm-mesh.org/just-starting-read-this.html

tabhygfr 8y ago

I know one person who volunteers at the local marathon as a radio operator. (Not sure why standards mobile stuff hasn't replaced it.)

m4x 8y ago
I volunteer as a radio operator at some sport events. The main reason we use radios instead of cell phones is that it's faster to relay information and works well when you have many field stations talking to a single base station. There's quite a lot of overhead involved in making a cell phone call, and it doesn't work well when you need to relay lots of short messages without tying up the line for everybody else. With a radio you can key up and start talking immediately.
- michaelt 8y ago
  I'm curious about how this works - Do you personally own a stack of handheld radios that work with your radio operator rig? Does the sports event hire handheld radios and a base station that you operate? Presumably they need to be license-free if you're issuing them to unlicensed volunteers? How do you respond to reports distant stations aren't receiving messages?
  - csutter 8y ago
    You don’t need a stack of radios, it’s usually 2 meter and everyone is licensed and operating on the same frequency. There is a net operator managing the traffic, probably with a base station, but it’s their equipment always, it’s purely volunteer.
  - m4x 8y ago
    We are all licensed amateur radio operators and just use our own gear. Not sure what you mean by a stack of radios - we all have our own radios in some form, and they are all interoperable by their nature (not much point in hams using radios that can't communicate with anybody else!). We normally have somebody free who can travel to any field station if they have equipment problems etc. Most events pay a small fee for our help, which goes to the local club.

vitaflo 8y ago

After I got my license I also got a Skywarn license (that has to be renewed every 2 years) so I can do storm spotting. It's basically a volunteer effort for the National Weather Service. Licensed spotters get called out to go spot severe weather and report back in on the ham bands to the Weather Net. I installed a ham radio in my car for this very purpose. There are a million different areas in this hobby. Chatting with random people is just the most obvious (and boring) one.

jiggunjer 8y ago
voice reports over radio seems a rather strange way of collecting weather data? A text-based form on the web seems more practical?
- falcolas 8y ago
  Voice reports have a few major advantages: They can be made while your hands are otherwise occupied (driving, flying, etc.) They don't require web access (can be done while in the middle of a forest, or 10,000 feet above the ground) They lessen the chance of being DDOSed by a bored teenager Doing them while within range of the internet may be less efficient, but they're also not limited by the internet.

masukomi 8y ago

i'm a CERT member. I use it to help local police. I use it to help manage safety at running races (marathons, 5ks etc.) I would also use it to help if called out on a search an rescue. These frequently involve multiple police departments and they can rarely talk with each other on their radios, so Hams fill in between departments. At marathons and such the Hams are the ones with the antennas and the frequencies to get around the physical terrain and help bridge police departments. I can also use it for communication when the cell networks go after a few hours without power (new england ice storms). When 911 happened we had massive communication network failures and the Hams were the ones that were desperately needed by emergency crews to get messages in and out.

bonestamp2 8y ago

Although I found it interesting, I never planned on getting a license until recently... I was looking at POV racing drones and one particular model required a HAM license for the video transmitter.

jeffwass 8y ago

Back in the 80’s, before there was Iridium satellite, my uncle would use HAM radio to keep in touch with us while sailing his boat between Hawaii and California. Even though my household weren’t HAM’s at the time, he’d “call” us every few days through a “phone patch” to give status updates in the middle of the Pacific. Basically, he’d make connections to various HAM’s somewhere, trying to find someone who could do a “phone patch”. That person would then connect the audio to their phone, call my house collect, and we could have a two-way conversation. Pretty cool stuff. Back in the 90’s when I had my license I thought packet radio was cool as hell. Checking your email in the middle of a field? Amazing. Of course that’s all obsolete now. And then just for the ultimate geek factor. You know what the very first communication satellite was, right? The moon! HAM’s still do “moonbounce” communications to talk to people on the opposite side of the planet by bouncing signals off the moon. Requires very directional antennae, and brings with it the ultimate latency. But that’s some serious geek cred there.

eythian 8y ago
> Checking your email in the middle of a field? Checking mail on the BBS on the MIR space station. Kids these days trying to get an extra 10m range out of their wifi...
HocusLocus 8y ago
My good friend WA2AAX, now a silent key, told of a visit he once made to the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. During a lull in operation they let him traverse the catwalk spanning the 'dish' (a spherical mesh 1,000 ft diameter built inside a natural sinkhole) as the moon reached its zenith. Scanning his VHF HT he was able to hear many moonbouncing HAMs and even voice traffic from repeaters in the US. With a standard offset he was even able to make a brief contact with someone on a faraway VHF repeater before the celestial mechanics drifted out of alignment. A 2,000 mile QSO on VHF with a handheld, via the Moon. He considered it his finest Geek moment.
- dredmorbius 8y ago
  One of Arecebo's missions was to listen on Soviet and Sino transmissions, or nuke tests, via moon bounced transmissions. (From Steve Blank's "Secret history of Silicon Valley" talk. https://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/10023411/steve_blank_silicon_valley_and_innovation.mp3 https://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/10023411/steve_bla... )

madshiva 8y ago

I have talking to people and we exchanged postal card (QSL card), that confirm each communication, quality, etc. That was a lot of fun, each country contacted. The far you go, the more you are happy :)

oropolo 8y ago

I required to get my technician's license before I could take the family truck when I was in high school. And not answering up on 2m when my dad called was a groundable offense.

lujim 8y ago

Learning morse code well enough to be able to decode 25-30 word per minute code in your head is incredibly satisfying. Also since transmitting a narrow sine wave takes much less power than a wider bandwidth voice signal you can get much further or operate on a fraction of the power. I've talked (in morse code) to people on the air that are former US Navy radio telegraphers, submariners, Air force mechanics etc. That generation is heading into their golden years and many of them will be gone in 10-20 years. It's interesting to hear about their lives in their own words. I've made contacts to Moscow Russia on 100 watts, Asia, most of Europe and most of the States in the US. I've also built the tiny QCX in that article by soldering and hand winding toroids. Fired it up and made a contact several hundred miles away on a tiny amount of power. I used an arduino to create a scratch built keyer with all my own circuts and code. Then I hooked it up to my paddles, set the speed and used it for tons of contacts. In short, it can be a very satisfying hobby if you are nerdy enough.