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Dad always told me the smartest people he knew were Hams so I figured why not. Skimmed the book, used the flash cards, and got a tech license. In short, it suc

Dad always told me the smartest people he knew were Hams so I figured why not. Skimmed the book, used the flash cards, and got a tech license. In short, it sucks. Some observations: - the exams are oriented towards RF knowledge and will weed out anyone who just wants to go on the air to talk. They should really restore the novice license. Give it the same privileges as technician with no rights to broadcast over 10w or construct towers - there is MASSIVE underutilization of spectrum. not just at the tech level due to inefficient coding but in general, the airwaves are not busy at all whatsoever. I live in NYC and there are rarely more than a dozen or so people on across the entire tech band at any given time. - conversations are dull. the weekly nets can be interesting but pretty much the subject of conversation always revolves around call quality or someone's rig or something to do with radio. It's boring! - proprietary. all the digital modes employ proprietary protocols or proprietary codecs. brandmeister is closed-source. echolink is closed sourced and rarely updated. DSTAR is proprietary. DMR isn't proprietary but the vocoder is. want to setup a repeater? sure, go pay a shady motorola VAR a few bucks and he'll sneak you a unit and user manual.

jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago
HAM still has some interesting practical uses. Up here in the PNW rally racing events use them to coordinate stage start and emergency/sweeper vehicles. The races are up in the mountains where cell phone service can be quite spotty, but a truck with a repeater parked on one of the higher foothills covers the whole area just fine.
quesera 6y ago
I agree. I hold an Extra class license for work with microwave RF equipment, years ago. Today, the argument for getting a ham license for use as a general communications tool seems to boil down to: "It's like the Internet, except that it's synchronous, slow, requires special (moderately expensive) equipment to access -- and to join, you have to take a test using high school math. Sign up here!". If you're interested in the tech of radio, then a license gives you the ability to legally operate interesting equipment. Or, you might be active in another hobby that has special communcations needs, or you might want to provide a public service in the event of disaster. All legit, but definitely niche.
coronadisaster 6y ago
If you just want to talk, why not use a phone where you can reach more people? I think HAM is more about experimenting with equipment, antennas, etc...
sizzle 6y ago
The internet and podcasts and services like twitch live streaming got mass adoption by having the lowest barrier to entry with the least tech savvy audiences.
segfaultbuserr 6y ago
> oriented towards RF knowledge and will weed out anyone who just wants to go on the air to talk. Works as intended. > all the digital modes employ proprietary protocols or proprietary codecs. Saying "all" is a serious mischaracterization. I think you need to look deeper. Proprietary protocols are widely used, but many amateur radio operators with FOSS background are also active Bruce Perens, the founder of Open Source Initiative, is most vocal critic of proprietary protocols in the amateur radio community. FOSS projects in amateur radio: * WSJT (inc. JT65, FT8) - the standard of weak signal communication on the shortwave band and moonbounce, using state-of-the-art encoding such as LDPC error-correction, GPLv3. * Fldigi - a general-purpose voice modem for common digital modes like PSK31, MFSK, RTTY, Olivia, and CW, GPLv3. * Codec2 - Low-bitrate speech audio codec, free and open source alternative to the proprietary AMBE codec in STAR, bitrate from 450 bps to 3200 bps, LGPL. * FreeDV - digital image transmission, alternative to analog SSTV, LGPL. * GNU Radio - The all-in-one digital signal processing package for software defined radio applications. Not to mention a great number of FOSS software-defined radio receiver/transceiver designs, such as HackRF, LimeSDR, etc. Finally, some famous personalities, Some famous personalities: * Bruce Perens - cofounder of Open Source Initiative, major critic of proprietary standards and proponents of FOSS innovation. His campaign successfully lobbied regulatory agencies to abandon Morse Code requirements. * John Gilmore - cofounder of the EFF, GNU Project. Founded GNU Radio in 1998. * Phil Karn - major contributor of the Internet. Authored many RFCs, including Karn's algorithm, an early implementation of TCP congestion control. On the amateur radio side, he wrote KA9Q NOS, the earliest implementation of TCP/IP over amateur radio, source code included. You see the pattern: Amateur radio doesn't have to be proprietary, but most of the non-proprietary parts of the activity is technical experimentation. To experimenters, an amateur radio license is merely an entry ticket for using the spectrum legally. Just like the world of free and open source software where a skilled user is expected to solve problems by reading and patching source code, in amateur radio, you are expected to solve problems by reading schematics and datasheets. Of course, it's not the only way to participate in amateur radio, many find chatting on the air or exchanging QSL cards are fun. I'm just pointing out that doing technical experimentation is the to stay free and open.

jasonwatkinspdx 6y ago

HAM still has some interesting practical uses. Up here in the PNW rally racing events use them to coordinate stage start and emergency/sweeper vehicles. The races are up in the mountains where cell phone service can be quite spotty, but a truck with a repeater parked on one of the higher foothills covers the whole area just fine.

quesera 6y ago

I agree. I hold an Extra class license for work with microwave RF equipment, years ago. Today, the argument for getting a ham license for use as a general communications tool seems to boil down to: "It's like the Internet, except that it's synchronous, slow, requires special (moderately expensive) equipment to access -- and to join, you have to take a test using high school math. Sign up here!". If you're interested in the tech of radio, then a license gives you the ability to legally operate interesting equipment. Or, you might be active in another hobby that has special communcations needs, or you might want to provide a public service in the event of disaster. All legit, but definitely niche.

coronadisaster 6y ago

If you just want to talk, why not use a phone where you can reach more people? I think HAM is more about experimenting with equipment, antennas, etc...

sizzle 6y ago

The internet and podcasts and services like twitch live streaming got mass adoption by having the lowest barrier to entry with the least tech savvy audiences.

segfaultbuserr 6y ago

> oriented towards RF knowledge and will weed out anyone who just wants to go on the air to talk. Works as intended. > all the digital modes employ proprietary protocols or proprietary codecs. Saying "all" is a serious mischaracterization. I think you need to look deeper. Proprietary protocols are widely used, but many amateur radio operators with FOSS background are also active Bruce Perens, the founder of Open Source Initiative, is most vocal critic of proprietary protocols in the amateur radio community. FOSS projects in amateur radio: * WSJT (inc. JT65, FT8) - the standard of weak signal communication on the shortwave band and moonbounce, using state-of-the-art encoding such as LDPC error-correction, GPLv3. * Fldigi - a general-purpose voice modem for common digital modes like PSK31, MFSK, RTTY, Olivia, and CW, GPLv3. * Codec2 - Low-bitrate speech audio codec, free and open source alternative to the proprietary AMBE codec in STAR, bitrate from 450 bps to 3200 bps, LGPL. * FreeDV - digital image transmission, alternative to analog SSTV, LGPL. * GNU Radio - The all-in-one digital signal processing package for software defined radio applications. Not to mention a great number of FOSS software-defined radio receiver/transceiver designs, such as HackRF, LimeSDR, etc. Finally, some famous personalities, Some famous personalities: * Bruce Perens - cofounder of Open Source Initiative, major critic of proprietary standards and proponents of FOSS innovation. His campaign successfully lobbied regulatory agencies to abandon Morse Code requirements. * John Gilmore - cofounder of the EFF, GNU Project. Founded GNU Radio in 1998. * Phil Karn - major contributor of the Internet. Authored many RFCs, including Karn's algorithm, an early implementation of TCP congestion control. On the amateur radio side, he wrote KA9Q NOS, the earliest implementation of TCP/IP over amateur radio, source code included. You see the pattern: Amateur radio doesn't have to be proprietary, but most of the non-proprietary parts of the activity is technical experimentation. To experimenters, an amateur radio license is merely an entry ticket for using the spectrum legally. Just like the world of free and open source software where a skilled user is expected to solve problems by reading and patching source code, in amateur radio, you are expected to solve problems by reading schematics and datasheets. Of course, it's not the only way to participate in amateur radio, many find chatting on the air or exchanging QSL cards are fun. I'm just pointing out that doing technical experimentation is the to stay free and open.