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Funny thing, out of the blue I decided to take practice tests for a ham license last night. Took the practice test about 12 times and got passing score 7 times.

Funny thing, out of the blue I decided to take practice tests for a ham license last night. Took the practice test about 12 times and got passing score 7 times. Opened HN today and this is one of the top articles... Interesting coincidence.

ahje 7y ago
The amount of HAM/radio-related topics on HN has definitely gotten me interested. Time for a new hobby? :)
- bwigfield 7y ago
  Absolutely. Its a blast and a great way to meet other technical minded folk or aren't necessarily the same you'd run into just doing programming type stuff.
JudgeWapner 7y ago
don't do it. my roommate has an HF rig and looks boring af. couple grand worth of gear so they can key down, say "K2185B6 broadcasting from $LOCATION_1", 5 seconds later someone else says "hi K2185B6, lound and clear. This is K8407W4 from $LOCATION_2". rinse, repeat
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  Basically this. I was all like "yeah man I want to get a license" then I studied some, decided I couldn't afford the gear. Couple years later, oh hey man I'm gonna do this this time, money is better now and stuff, started studying agian and bought a cheap baofeng just to listen. Spent about 15 minutes listening to a repeater. "Jesus, these people are abrasive as best, all they are doing is saying their call over and over and complaining" Stopped studying, couple weeks later was at a friend's house and near a different repeater, same stuff different people. Now I just keep the battery maintained and it tuned to a weather broadcast in the event I lose power during a storm. I mean, in the event of a natural disaster it's pretty cool and you can help replay information and be of use to your community but ehhhh it's an awfully expensive hobby for that unless you want to just buy a cheap handheld and have no range whatsoever since you have an antenna the size of a drinking straw a few inches away from your body.
crankylinuxuser 7y ago
I'd encourage you to do it... And then build this. https://hackaday.com/2019/06/05/mobile-sigint-hacking-on-a-civilians-budget/ https://hackaday.com/2019/06/05/mobile-sigint-hacking-on-a-c... Companies have been putting radio transceivers in all sorts of devices, and almost all of them are insecure piles of rubbish. Yet because the tools to analyze them have been nearly non-existent, I designed and built the RadioInstigator. We're just now seeing radio-fuzzing and other attacks. And I'd expect that this area is going to explode in the coming year. SigInt is now in the hands of the average joe and jane. Devices that relied on security as 'cant easily get the gear' are no longer secure. It's now just a matter of time.
- djbelieny 7y ago
  This looks like a cool project. Very interesting indeed

ahje 7y ago

The amount of HAM/radio-related topics on HN has definitely gotten me interested. Time for a new hobby? :)

bwigfield 7y ago
Absolutely. Its a blast and a great way to meet other technical minded folk or aren't necessarily the same you'd run into just doing programming type stuff.

JudgeWapner 7y ago

don't do it. my roommate has an HF rig and looks boring af. couple grand worth of gear so they can key down, say "K2185B6 broadcasting from $LOCATION_1", 5 seconds later someone else says "hi K2185B6, lound and clear. This is K8407W4 from $LOCATION_2". rinse, repeat

ryanmercer 7y ago
Basically this. I was all like "yeah man I want to get a license" then I studied some, decided I couldn't afford the gear. Couple years later, oh hey man I'm gonna do this this time, money is better now and stuff, started studying agian and bought a cheap baofeng just to listen. Spent about 15 minutes listening to a repeater. "Jesus, these people are abrasive as best, all they are doing is saying their call over and over and complaining" Stopped studying, couple weeks later was at a friend's house and near a different repeater, same stuff different people. Now I just keep the battery maintained and it tuned to a weather broadcast in the event I lose power during a storm. I mean, in the event of a natural disaster it's pretty cool and you can help replay information and be of use to your community but ehhhh it's an awfully expensive hobby for that unless you want to just buy a cheap handheld and have no range whatsoever since you have an antenna the size of a drinking straw a few inches away from your body.

crankylinuxuser 7y ago

I'd encourage you to do it... And then build this. https://hackaday.com/2019/06/05/mobile-sigint-hacking-on-a-civilians-budget/ https://hackaday.com/2019/06/05/mobile-sigint-hacking-on-a-c... Companies have been putting radio transceivers in all sorts of devices, and almost all of them are insecure piles of rubbish. Yet because the tools to analyze them have been nearly non-existent, I designed and built the RadioInstigator. We're just now seeing radio-fuzzing and other attacks. And I'd expect that this area is going to explode in the coming year. SigInt is now in the hands of the average joe and jane. Devices that relied on security as 'cant easily get the gear' are no longer secure. It's now just a matter of time.

djbelieny 7y ago
This looks like a cool project. Very interesting indeed