11 ms·

Amateur Radio

216 points by andyjpb 7y ago

7373737373 7y ago
I highly recommend this site if you want to explore the spectrum: http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/ http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/
- curiousfab 7y ago
  And a lot more receivers are available, all over the world: http://websdr.org/ http://websdr.org/ Also interesting: Live reports of radio amateur transmissions via https://www.pskreporter.info/ https://www.pskreporter.info/ and http://www.reversebeacon.net/ http://www.reversebeacon.net/ Amateur Radio is a great hobby that will give you unlimited possibilities to play and learn. From tube transmitters in Morse code (which is still a thing, and it's fun) to sophisticated weak-signal modes like FT8.
- drivers99 7y ago
  This is fascinating. I'm hooked.
- eismcc 7y ago
  wow, this is amazing! thanks!
kawfey 7y ago
Amateur radio changed my life. In high school, I thought I was a nobody, maybe I wanted to be a truck driver, or a psychologist...who knows. Who cares? I was pretty depressed. I'm 28 years old and I fucking love amateur radio. I always had a curiosity about radio, being so interested in two-way radio that my parents had me tested for ASD. My mom had a police scanner and it had a button titled "HAM" [sic]. I found a repeater and no more than a few weeks later I was absolutely enthralled and was licensed in 2007. I got a radio, an antenna, installed it, and I was absolutely hooked. It did not matter that the average age of a ham was around 50 or 60, and I was only 15. It was just so much fun and there was so much to do an learn using it. I studied for my General and got it a few months after my first Tech license. A few months after that, I got Extra. All the while, I ran a YouTube channel documenting my experiences. I chose to go to Missouri S&T (formerly University of Missouri - Rolla) because they had a ham radio club (W0EEE). I declined a full ride to Truman State in Chem or CompSci, and went to S&T as undecided engineering. I naturally nestled into EE realizing a lot of the basic circuits knowledge was already covered under the Extra exam. Myself and one other ham became de-facto President and VP of the ham radio club, which we re-grew from near death. I ended up working at an Electromagnetic Compatibility lab for a while, before having a co-op at the Very Large Array radio observatory in NM where I ran cabling, designed antennas, and worked on mitigation of RF interference. My manager specifically sought me out because I was a ham. Acheving full time employment was also a no brainer. I applied to Rockwell Collins, Raytheon, Garmin, Boeing, Honeywell, Black & Veatch, maybe a few more, and had offers from everyone but Garmin (apparently proving my way around a smith chart dedicated to quiz grad students in the off-site interview, but choking at an unannounced op-amp circuit analysis by hand while two managers watched on-site wasn't good enough for them!). And now I design antennas for a living! All because of ham radio. Ham radio never ceases to entertain me. There's science, there's experimentation, there's socialization, and there's public service. I'm a advocate for youth in ham radio, and I'm starting to get into things like ARRL reformation and other politics, since - like the author says - ham radio has a bad image. Through programs like YARC[0] and YOTA[1][2] I'm trying to help change that. [0] https://yarc.world/ https://yarc.world/ [1] https://yotaregion2.org/ https://yotaregion2.org/ [2] http://ham-yota.com/ http://ham-yota.com/
- abfan1127 7y ago
  I love Ham too! My kids love the radio. I built a 2M Yagi with my son (3-4 at the time). I got my Technician in my Undergrad. A few years later I got my General and Extra on the same day. Great stuff! -KE7BRP
- HenryKissinger 7y ago
  I know that every hobby can become outrageously expensive if you really want to, but what would it cost someone to get started with amateur radio?
  - JshWright 7y ago
    <$100 for a cheap handheld VHF/UHF transceiver (which would allow you to hit local repeaters, play with APRS, talk to satellites/the ISS/etc, etc). Yaesu is a pretty solid "cheap" brand. BaoFeng/BTech is a less solid, even cheaper brand (my advice would be to avoid them, despite the fact that that's where I started...)
    - HenryKissinger 7y ago
      What could one get for a $500 budget?
      - Gracana 7y ago
        I'd recommend getting something that can do HF, because that's where things get interesting. For 500, maybe you can get a used FT-857D. You'll need a power supply, too. And an antenna. If you have a local club, talk to the folks there and tell them you're interested in getting started. Someone might have stuff to sell or give to you.
        jimhefferon 7y ago
        > If you have a local club, talk to the folks there Second this. I'm VP of an active club and for someone with a real interest we can do a lot. Here is a way to find a club, in the US: http://www.arrl.org/find-a-club http://www.arrl.org/find-a-club
rmbryan 7y ago
The rich history of this topic: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Amateur%20Radio&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Amateur%20Radio&sort=byDate&da...
jan6 7y ago
quite enjoyable, and agreed, a lot of stuff is about WHAT amazing stuff you can do, but very little is advertised HOW to do... kinda sad AM radio is basically dead, since it can be fun making a simple AM receiver at home, it's even in a "fun experiments" kids book I have, I think it's only like, about 5 components or such... on the other hand, with teens and above you can teach soldering with radio kits (obviously not the first thing, but possibly about 3rd or 4th kit) , some are nice having like, one surface-mount chip you have to figure out too, which would be a nice next-level one "now you know the basics, wanna go beyond that?" then there's the massive amount of cool stuff SDR (software defined radio) enables which isn't even mentioned to exist in the article...
AWildC182 7y ago
We desperately need new blood. If you like outdoor activities in areas where cell phone coverage is poor (camping, hiking, skiing, dense urban gatherings) or enjoy the idea of having unique access to spectrum for learning and experimentation, you need to look into amateur radio. Some choice projects: https://www.winlink.org/ https://www.winlink.org/ Long range email over HF bands https://aprs.fi/ https://aprs.fi/ APRS real time position tracking map https://aprsdroid.org/ https://aprsdroid.org/ APRS text messaging + tracking app http://wsprnet.org/drupal/wsprnet/map http://wsprnet.org/drupal/wsprnet/map WSPR HF propagation map https://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/wsjtx.html https://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/wsjtx.html Digital high performance HF mode application I'm an extra working on developing classes for introducing modern radio to the next generation of hams. Feel free to ask about anything.
- msla 7y ago
  I can listen to the spectrum just fine without a license. Why would I want to talk on it? More to the point, why would I want to have to get the government's permission in order to talk on it? Also: > If you like outdoor activities in areas where cell phone coverage is poor (camping, hiking, skiing, dense urban gatherings) If you mention this as a possible use, mention that it is illegal to encrypt amateur radio communications, so you must broadcast your family's information and plans for the world to hear. That's quite the security risk.
  - krupan 7y ago
    If you used less regulated CB in the old days and heard what a garbage dump it could turn into, you might appreciate more regulated frequencies. Or maybe not, I don't know. As far as your encryption concerns go, you have to go to extra effort for any of your ham transmissions to be heard by the whole world. Generally it's just a mile or two radius, line of site, only to those who are listening during the short interval while you are transmitting. Far, far different from posting something on the internet.
    - vidanay 7y ago
1996 7y ago
#1 problem: requiring identification. Sorry, I don't want to provide ID. We are not in a police state yet. #2 problem: the snitching mentality. HAMs sure love to snitch on those who don't follow the rules to keep their clubs very exclusive and very obedient #3 problem: banning a bunch of interesting uses. Can't transmit encrypted - linked to #1 and #2 I guess. Overall, a nice hobby for someone who aims to work at a FANG: if your life objective is to obey, serve and extend the order decided by the status quo, HAM is a nice matching hobby. If it's not for you, stay out of the snitchers band, and play on low power on the unlicensed bands instead. The smell of freedom is intoxicating.
- JshWright 7y ago
  I assume you also object to requiring a driver's license to operate a car on public roads?
  - 1996 7y ago
    You mean license plate - if it was my full name, yes I'd object having that information available to everyone. FYI, I have black tape over the barcode that's on the back on my driver license, and the number and other non essential fields on the front. People can see my photo, my first name, the year I was born. They can't scan much out of that in bars.
- inetknght 7y ago
  Without the first two rules in effect, your cell phone, wifi, television, and emergency services would rapidly become unusable.
  - 1996 7y ago
    You presume bad faith. I have a different opinion. I trust people, even without government ID. Someone said below: "If you're made aware of your mistake (failure to adhere to rules, spurious emissions, etc.) you're given the opportunity to stop transmitting until you fix the issue." I believe most people do not want to willfully commit mistakes. Letting them know is sufficient. There may be a few bad apple like in everywhere, but that's why you have laws and law enforcement.
jenkstom 7y ago
Funny: "You can home-build a device that transmits a watt or two of power (the same amount as a fairly dim lamp) into the sky, and can be received thousands of miles away (imagine trying to do that with a torch, illuminating clouds so that their reflections in the ocean illuminate other clouds, so somebody with a telescope in a distant country sees it and picks up your message!)..."
- inetknght 7y ago
  What's funny about that? I think it's awesome.
  - sliken 7y ago
    Heh, what's even more amazing is that it's not just one bounce off the atmosphere, but multiple bounces. With js8call you can do similar with other radios sprinkled around the planet, without prior coordination. What's even more wild is that under certain conditions you get a weird distortion... from the signal taking the short path between two points AND the signal taking the long patch between two points. Freaky.
Rerarom 7y ago
What a nice blog! I love reading about geeky families.
costcopizza 7y ago
I love the mystery in radio, even thumbing through AM stations on a long road-trip is enjoyable, but as a complete non-technical person, I've always been overwhelmed by amateur radio. Maybe I will muster up some courage and dive into this.
- vidanay 7y ago
  Really anyone can get their license with about two weeks of online studying. Since the requirement for Morse code was dropped, it's not difficult at all.
- JshWright 7y ago
  I had a bit of prior knowledge (radios are a big part of emergency services), but I took the Tech test on a whim (literally walked into a library for an entirely unrelated reason and noticed they were hosting an exam).
myself248 7y ago
The presence of this story on the front page, I think, underscores how different HN is from the other technical venues I frequent. It's a straightforward overview of RF and how it's used and what that means to amateur licensees. At any of my other haunts, this would never get an upvote. Imagine a story called "The Command Line", a straightforward take on the core concepts thereof. I think everyone here is pretty familiar with that topic, and would regard such a story as pretty much the opposite of news or even interesting. To my eye, this story is just as out-of-place because it's a topic I just assume everyone here is already quite familiar with it. Am I mistaken? Or is HN just that different a crowd?
- avalys 7y ago
  Can you share links to these other technical venues? Not being snarky - I want to check them out!
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Rerarom 7y ago
    Seconded
  - myself248 7y ago
    Mostly I was thinking of Reddit and Slashdot. On Reddit, even outside /r/hamradio and /r/amateurradio (why are there two? don't ask me!), I enjoy /r/electronics and /r/askelectronics, /r/rfelectronics, /r/rtlsdr, /r/carhacking, /r/arduino, /r/embedded, /r/engineering, /r/askengineers, /r/homelab, /r/datahoarder, /r/vintagecomputing, /r/askscience, /r/asksciencediscussion, and a few more. I still enjoy Slashdot because, like HN, it's a single feed and gets me stuff I might not find in my regular subreddits. I also read Arstechnica and The Register on a fairly regular basis, but not daily. But honestly, my main firehose of news and ideas is IRC. I'm on 5 networks and about 25 channels, and I try to read all the scrollback in about half of those. There's lots of good stuff on Freenode and OFTC in particular, but I feel like this is one I should leave as an exercise to the reader. ;)
krupan 7y ago
Here's what ham radio really needs: transceivers that can be controlled by an easy to use Android or iPhone app. The current user experience is so far behind. Oh, we also need handheld transceivers that can be charged with a standard mobile phone charger. The Xaomi Mijia Walkie-Talkie has all of this, but in the U.S. you have have to side load a hacked Android app to get it. Not quite there
- mikece 7y ago
  This would be great and if there was enough demand it would surely happen. As it is, the main reason amateur radio hand-helds are so inexpensive is that manufacturers can make one batch of boards/radios for commercial, nautical, and amateur use and target the different audiences by putting different firmware and cases on the radios (or in the case of Baofeng and the cheap Chinese radios, just one radio for any use you want -- figure it out of use Chirp to make it do what you want). Too bad 1.25m and 33cm radios are in so much lower demand; while it's not hard to find acceptable quality 1.25m radios for inexpensive prices I haven't seen the Chinese radios show up with transceivers covering 902 - 932 MHz.
rmason 7y ago
When I came up as a ham in the sixties there were gentlemen on 80 meter AM calling us teenagers lids, kids and space cadets. That animus has always existed in the hobby towards newcomers. I think connecting with maker spaces is a real opportunity. I've been a member of the Lansing club since the sixties, although I rarely attend meetings anymore. Friends with the guys who started the local makerspace and they were genuinely interested in ham radio. I tried several times to setup a tour of the makerspace but the local club is run by a clique who made it clear they had zero interest in it. I still think it was a missed opportunity. I was president my junior year of the Michigan State club and it was strong and vibrant. A few years back it apparently had declined to only a handful of members. The local faculty advisor started reaching out to freshmen in the fall and started classes to help those get licensed. The program has been a huge success and now the club in reinvigorated. It only takes one or two people in a community to help out because the interest among young people is there as it has always been. Elmers are what ham radio calls people like that faculty advisor. What the hobby needs is more Elmers like him.
Amicius 7y ago
Why isn't Amateur Radio a key part of STEM? What do ALL of us have in our pocket that operates on radio (you might even be reading this comment on one)? How many modern homes don't have WiFi? What's the magic that allows smart-meters and wireless doorbells to work? Heck, what's the signaling mechanism on a WIRED communication? RF and radio is key to so much of modern life that unless your STEM program is geared toward training people to do basic research you're using RF in some capacity along the way. And not only teach RF but then apply across other things like robotics and flying. One of the major public service aspects of Amateur Radio is emergency communication. Rather than humans trying to word-paint what's happening in a storm why not have a camera-equipped drone zoom out to a vantage point and shoot back HD imagery via 1.2GHz? How about weather stations communicating primarily via APRS instead of via WiFi directly? So many possibilities... though without low-cost VHF/UHF SDR radios much of this will remain a dream.
- HenryKissinger 7y ago
  A lack of qualified instructors would be one reason.
  - Amicius 7y ago
    A lack of MOTIVATED instructors is more accurate. There are more than enough retired HAMs who would love to teach interested students -- they just don't care for digital modes.
- jimhefferon 7y ago
  These folks are doing great things: https://www.n1fd.org/ https://www.n1fd.org/
- jsjakkanf 7y ago
  There are lots of courses on wireless communication. I think there's a big community there that doesn't participate in amateur radio. For me there's no reason to build huge antennas and high power, when I can build my low power, high speed WiFi setup in the University lab.
m0xte 7y ago
I see something missing in this thread. I suspect this is the audience which is highly technical and work focused. This is a hobby. Bar the license constraints, the scope is amazing. And you don't have to achieve anything major. You don't have to change the world. You don't have to create a service or act as a service for some cause. Sometimes it's just about playing, a thing many of us have forgotten since childhood. I myself like to climb up hills with homebrew radios and send and recieve morse code. There is no point in doing this at all. Not even one. I can't think of any at least. Some people pretend it's going to save them if the world ends so it gives them purpose. But really it's nice to have no pressure, no deadline and no dependency on it at all and just tinker with things!
traverseda 7y ago
I could definitely be interested in amateur radio, the long ranges are very appealing. But I'm just not that interested in voice/audio. Text/data streams are cool though, I can do things with those even at 9800 baud. For me, the ideal platform would have the following characteristics * python programmable * Easy to hook them together, and to hook them up to a real computer * Consistent modem spec, with adjustable parity-checking levels * Cryptographically signed streams, I should be able to verify the callsign/origin of anyone on the network * Streams should describe how to decode the data on them, maybe something like a mimetype injected into the flow every N seconds? * Basic data types for voice and image Notice at no point did I include "packet switching". I think one of the issues with current digital amateur radio projects is that they look like they're trying to reinvent the internet, but worse.

216 points by andyjpb 7y ago

I highly recommend this site if you want to explore the spectrum: http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/ http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/

curiousfab 7y ago
And a lot more receivers are available, all over the world: http://websdr.org/ http://websdr.org/ Also interesting: Live reports of radio amateur transmissions via https://www.pskreporter.info/ https://www.pskreporter.info/ and http://www.reversebeacon.net/ http://www.reversebeacon.net/ Amateur Radio is a great hobby that will give you unlimited possibilities to play and learn. From tube transmitters in Morse code (which is still a thing, and it's fun) to sophisticated weak-signal modes like FT8.
drivers99 7y ago
This is fascinating. I'm hooked.
eismcc 7y ago
wow, this is amazing! thanks!

kawfey 7y ago

Amateur radio changed my life. In high school, I thought I was a nobody, maybe I wanted to be a truck driver, or a psychologist...who knows. Who cares? I was pretty depressed. I'm 28 years old and I fucking love amateur radio. I always had a curiosity about radio, being so interested in two-way radio that my parents had me tested for ASD. My mom had a police scanner and it had a button titled "HAM" [sic]. I found a repeater and no more than a few weeks later I was absolutely enthralled and was licensed in 2007. I got a radio, an antenna, installed it, and I was absolutely hooked. It did not matter that the average age of a ham was around 50 or 60, and I was only 15. It was just so much fun and there was so much to do an learn using it. I studied for my General and got it a few months after my first Tech license. A few months after that, I got Extra. All the while, I ran a YouTube channel documenting my experiences. I chose to go to Missouri S&T (formerly University of Missouri - Rolla) because they had a ham radio club (W0EEE). I declined a full ride to Truman State in Chem or CompSci, and went to S&T as undecided engineering. I naturally nestled into EE realizing a lot of the basic circuits knowledge was already covered under the Extra exam. Myself and one other ham became de-facto President and VP of the ham radio club, which we re-grew from near death. I ended up working at an Electromagnetic Compatibility lab for a while, before having a co-op at the Very Large Array radio observatory in NM where I ran cabling, designed antennas, and worked on mitigation of RF interference. My manager specifically sought me out because I was a ham. Acheving full time employment was also a no brainer. I applied to Rockwell Collins, Raytheon, Garmin, Boeing, Honeywell, Black & Veatch, maybe a few more, and had offers from everyone but Garmin (apparently proving my way around a smith chart dedicated to quiz grad students in the off-site interview, but choking at an unannounced op-amp circuit analysis by hand while two managers watched on-site wasn't good enough for them!). And now I design antennas for a living! All because of ham radio. Ham radio never ceases to entertain me. There's science, there's experimentation, there's socialization, and there's public service. I'm a advocate for youth in ham radio, and I'm starting to get into things like ARRL reformation and other politics, since - like the author says - ham radio has a bad image. Through programs like YARC[0] and YOTA[1][2] I'm trying to help change that. [0] https://yarc.world/ https://yarc.world/ [1] https://yotaregion2.org/ https://yotaregion2.org/ [2] http://ham-yota.com/ http://ham-yota.com/

abfan1127 7y ago
I love Ham too! My kids love the radio. I built a 2M Yagi with my son (3-4 at the time). I got my Technician in my Undergrad. A few years later I got my General and Extra on the same day. Great stuff! -KE7BRP
HenryKissinger 7y ago
I know that every hobby can become outrageously expensive if you really want to, but what would it cost someone to get started with amateur radio?
- JshWright 7y ago
  <$100 for a cheap handheld VHF/UHF transceiver (which would allow you to hit local repeaters, play with APRS, talk to satellites/the ISS/etc, etc). Yaesu is a pretty solid "cheap" brand. BaoFeng/BTech is a less solid, even cheaper brand (my advice would be to avoid them, despite the fact that that's where I started...)
  - HenryKissinger 7y ago
    What could one get for a $500 budget?
    - Gracana 7y ago
      I'd recommend getting something that can do HF, because that's where things get interesting. For 500, maybe you can get a used FT-857D. You'll need a power supply, too. And an antenna. If you have a local club, talk to the folks there and tell them you're interested in getting started. Someone might have stuff to sell or give to you.
      - jimhefferon 7y ago
        > If you have a local club, talk to the folks there Second this. I'm VP of an active club and for someone with a real interest we can do a lot. Here is a way to find a club, in the US: http://www.arrl.org/find-a-club http://www.arrl.org/find-a-club

rmbryan 7y ago

The rich history of this topic: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Amateur%20Radio&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Amateur%20Radio&sort=byDate&da...

jan6 7y ago

quite enjoyable, and agreed, a lot of stuff is about WHAT amazing stuff you can do, but very little is advertised HOW to do... kinda sad AM radio is basically dead, since it can be fun making a simple AM receiver at home, it's even in a "fun experiments" kids book I have, I think it's only like, about 5 components or such... on the other hand, with teens and above you can teach soldering with radio kits (obviously not the first thing, but possibly about 3rd or 4th kit) , some are nice having like, one surface-mount chip you have to figure out too, which would be a nice next-level one "now you know the basics, wanna go beyond that?" then there's the massive amount of cool stuff SDR (software defined radio) enables which isn't even mentioned to exist in the article...

AWildC182 7y ago

We desperately need new blood. If you like outdoor activities in areas where cell phone coverage is poor (camping, hiking, skiing, dense urban gatherings) or enjoy the idea of having unique access to spectrum for learning and experimentation, you need to look into amateur radio. Some choice projects: https://www.winlink.org/ https://www.winlink.org/ Long range email over HF bands https://aprs.fi/ https://aprs.fi/ APRS real time position tracking map https://aprsdroid.org/ https://aprsdroid.org/ APRS text messaging + tracking app http://wsprnet.org/drupal/wsprnet/map http://wsprnet.org/drupal/wsprnet/map WSPR HF propagation map https://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/wsjtx.html https://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/wsjtx.html Digital high performance HF mode application I'm an extra working on developing classes for introducing modern radio to the next generation of hams. Feel free to ask about anything.

msla 7y ago
I can listen to the spectrum just fine without a license. Why would I want to talk on it? More to the point, why would I want to have to get the government's permission in order to talk on it? Also: > If you like outdoor activities in areas where cell phone coverage is poor (camping, hiking, skiing, dense urban gatherings) If you mention this as a possible use, mention that it is illegal to encrypt amateur radio communications, so you must broadcast your family's information and plans for the world to hear. That's quite the security risk.
- krupan 7y ago
  If you used less regulated CB in the old days and heard what a garbage dump it could turn into, you might appreciate more regulated frequencies. Or maybe not, I don't know. As far as your encryption concerns go, you have to go to extra effort for any of your ham transmissions to be heard by the whole world. Generally it's just a mile or two radius, line of site, only to those who are listening during the short interval while you are transmitting. Far, far different from posting something on the internet.
  - vidanay 7y ago

1996 7y ago

#1 problem: requiring identification. Sorry, I don't want to provide ID. We are not in a police state yet. #2 problem: the snitching mentality. HAMs sure love to snitch on those who don't follow the rules to keep their clubs very exclusive and very obedient #3 problem: banning a bunch of interesting uses. Can't transmit encrypted - linked to #1 and #2 I guess. Overall, a nice hobby for someone who aims to work at a FANG: if your life objective is to obey, serve and extend the order decided by the status quo, HAM is a nice matching hobby. If it's not for you, stay out of the snitchers band, and play on low power on the unlicensed bands instead. The smell of freedom is intoxicating.

JshWright 7y ago
I assume you also object to requiring a driver's license to operate a car on public roads?
- 1996 7y ago
  You mean license plate - if it was my full name, yes I'd object having that information available to everyone. FYI, I have black tape over the barcode that's on the back on my driver license, and the number and other non essential fields on the front. People can see my photo, my first name, the year I was born. They can't scan much out of that in bars.
inetknght 7y ago
Without the first two rules in effect, your cell phone, wifi, television, and emergency services would rapidly become unusable.
- 1996 7y ago
  You presume bad faith. I have a different opinion. I trust people, even without government ID. Someone said below: "If you're made aware of your mistake (failure to adhere to rules, spurious emissions, etc.) you're given the opportunity to stop transmitting until you fix the issue." I believe most people do not want to willfully commit mistakes. Letting them know is sufficient. There may be a few bad apple like in everywhere, but that's why you have laws and law enforcement.

jenkstom 7y ago

Funny: "You can home-build a device that transmits a watt or two of power (the same amount as a fairly dim lamp) into the sky, and can be received thousands of miles away (imagine trying to do that with a torch, illuminating clouds so that their reflections in the ocean illuminate other clouds, so somebody with a telescope in a distant country sees it and picks up your message!)..."

inetknght 7y ago
What's funny about that? I think it's awesome.
- sliken 7y ago
  Heh, what's even more amazing is that it's not just one bounce off the atmosphere, but multiple bounces. With js8call you can do similar with other radios sprinkled around the planet, without prior coordination. What's even more wild is that under certain conditions you get a weird distortion... from the signal taking the short path between two points AND the signal taking the long patch between two points. Freaky.

Rerarom 7y ago

What a nice blog! I love reading about geeky families.

costcopizza 7y ago

I love the mystery in radio, even thumbing through AM stations on a long road-trip is enjoyable, but as a complete non-technical person, I've always been overwhelmed by amateur radio. Maybe I will muster up some courage and dive into this.

vidanay 7y ago
Really anyone can get their license with about two weeks of online studying. Since the requirement for Morse code was dropped, it's not difficult at all.
JshWright 7y ago
I had a bit of prior knowledge (radios are a big part of emergency services), but I took the Tech test on a whim (literally walked into a library for an entirely unrelated reason and noticed they were hosting an exam).

myself248 7y ago

The presence of this story on the front page, I think, underscores how different HN is from the other technical venues I frequent. It's a straightforward overview of RF and how it's used and what that means to amateur licensees. At any of my other haunts, this would never get an upvote. Imagine a story called "The Command Line", a straightforward take on the core concepts thereof. I think everyone here is pretty familiar with that topic, and would regard such a story as pretty much the opposite of news or even interesting. To my eye, this story is just as out-of-place because it's a topic I just assume everyone here is already quite familiar with it. Am I mistaken? Or is HN just that different a crowd?

avalys 7y ago
Can you share links to these other technical venues? Not being snarky - I want to check them out!
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Rerarom 7y ago
  Seconded
- myself248 7y ago
  Mostly I was thinking of Reddit and Slashdot. On Reddit, even outside /r/hamradio and /r/amateurradio (why are there two? don't ask me!), I enjoy /r/electronics and /r/askelectronics, /r/rfelectronics, /r/rtlsdr, /r/carhacking, /r/arduino, /r/embedded, /r/engineering, /r/askengineers, /r/homelab, /r/datahoarder, /r/vintagecomputing, /r/askscience, /r/asksciencediscussion, and a few more. I still enjoy Slashdot because, like HN, it's a single feed and gets me stuff I might not find in my regular subreddits. I also read Arstechnica and The Register on a fairly regular basis, but not daily. But honestly, my main firehose of news and ideas is IRC. I'm on 5 networks and about 25 channels, and I try to read all the scrollback in about half of those. There's lots of good stuff on Freenode and OFTC in particular, but I feel like this is one I should leave as an exercise to the reader. ;)

krupan 7y ago

Here's what ham radio really needs: transceivers that can be controlled by an easy to use Android or iPhone app. The current user experience is so far behind. Oh, we also need handheld transceivers that can be charged with a standard mobile phone charger. The Xaomi Mijia Walkie-Talkie has all of this, but in the U.S. you have have to side load a hacked Android app to get it. Not quite there

mikece 7y ago
This would be great and if there was enough demand it would surely happen. As it is, the main reason amateur radio hand-helds are so inexpensive is that manufacturers can make one batch of boards/radios for commercial, nautical, and amateur use and target the different audiences by putting different firmware and cases on the radios (or in the case of Baofeng and the cheap Chinese radios, just one radio for any use you want -- figure it out of use Chirp to make it do what you want). Too bad 1.25m and 33cm radios are in so much lower demand; while it's not hard to find acceptable quality 1.25m radios for inexpensive prices I haven't seen the Chinese radios show up with transceivers covering 902 - 932 MHz.

rmason 7y ago

When I came up as a ham in the sixties there were gentlemen on 80 meter AM calling us teenagers lids, kids and space cadets. That animus has always existed in the hobby towards newcomers. I think connecting with maker spaces is a real opportunity. I've been a member of the Lansing club since the sixties, although I rarely attend meetings anymore. Friends with the guys who started the local makerspace and they were genuinely interested in ham radio. I tried several times to setup a tour of the makerspace but the local club is run by a clique who made it clear they had zero interest in it. I still think it was a missed opportunity. I was president my junior year of the Michigan State club and it was strong and vibrant. A few years back it apparently had declined to only a handful of members. The local faculty advisor started reaching out to freshmen in the fall and started classes to help those get licensed. The program has been a huge success and now the club in reinvigorated. It only takes one or two people in a community to help out because the interest among young people is there as it has always been. Elmers are what ham radio calls people like that faculty advisor. What the hobby needs is more Elmers like him.

Amicius 7y ago

Why isn't Amateur Radio a key part of STEM? What do ALL of us have in our pocket that operates on radio (you might even be reading this comment on one)? How many modern homes don't have WiFi? What's the magic that allows smart-meters and wireless doorbells to work? Heck, what's the signaling mechanism on a WIRED communication? RF and radio is key to so much of modern life that unless your STEM program is geared toward training people to do basic research you're using RF in some capacity along the way. And not only teach RF but then apply across other things like robotics and flying. One of the major public service aspects of Amateur Radio is emergency communication. Rather than humans trying to word-paint what's happening in a storm why not have a camera-equipped drone zoom out to a vantage point and shoot back HD imagery via 1.2GHz? How about weather stations communicating primarily via APRS instead of via WiFi directly? So many possibilities... though without low-cost VHF/UHF SDR radios much of this will remain a dream.

HenryKissinger 7y ago
A lack of qualified instructors would be one reason.
- Amicius 7y ago
  A lack of MOTIVATED instructors is more accurate. There are more than enough retired HAMs who would love to teach interested students -- they just don't care for digital modes.
jimhefferon 7y ago
These folks are doing great things: https://www.n1fd.org/ https://www.n1fd.org/
jsjakkanf 7y ago
There are lots of courses on wireless communication. I think there's a big community there that doesn't participate in amateur radio. For me there's no reason to build huge antennas and high power, when I can build my low power, high speed WiFi setup in the University lab.

m0xte 7y ago

I see something missing in this thread. I suspect this is the audience which is highly technical and work focused. This is a hobby. Bar the license constraints, the scope is amazing. And you don't have to achieve anything major. You don't have to change the world. You don't have to create a service or act as a service for some cause. Sometimes it's just about playing, a thing many of us have forgotten since childhood. I myself like to climb up hills with homebrew radios and send and recieve morse code. There is no point in doing this at all. Not even one. I can't think of any at least. Some people pretend it's going to save them if the world ends so it gives them purpose. But really it's nice to have no pressure, no deadline and no dependency on it at all and just tinker with things!

traverseda 7y ago

I could definitely be interested in amateur radio, the long ranges are very appealing. But I'm just not that interested in voice/audio. Text/data streams are cool though, I can do things with those even at 9800 baud. For me, the ideal platform would have the following characteristics * python programmable * Easy to hook them together, and to hook them up to a real computer * Consistent modem spec, with adjustable parity-checking levels * Cryptographically signed streams, I should be able to verify the callsign/origin of anyone on the network * Streams should describe how to decode the data on them, maybe something like a mimetype injected into the flow every N seconds? * Basic data types for voice and image Notice at no point did I include "packet switching". I think one of the issues with current digital amateur radio projects is that they look like they're trying to reinvent the internet, but worse.