91–100 of 213 posts
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.
Hopefully some young amateur radio hobbyists will become radio engineers dealing with GPS, 3G, 4G, satalite beams etc.
I'm interested in amateur radio but always feel that I can't get anything done without a big honking antenna?
Big antennas are desirable but simple (and low) wire antennas work remarkably well, and are what most people use.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I also learned how effective logging can be, and have applied that in just about every area of my life. This statement really piqued my curiosity. Would you mind expanding on it?
Sure, as a radio operator, even just a listener-operator, you quickly find that A) you are expected to keep a log, and in many situations _must_ keep a log (contests are a good example), and B) a log easily runs circles around your memory. As it turns out, logs also provide a helpful context for bridging the gap between the subjective and objective lenses, both of which are helpful and needed for solving problems, re…
I want to get started with packet radio. I don't know anything about it. Where do I start?
Start with APRS --- a lot of people aren't even aware that there are packet radio networks that exist on VHF outside of 144.390M, but no matter where you are in the US, you probably will be able to get something going on APRS. There are all sorts of ways that you can go with packet radio. Here are a couple ideas: 1. Start monitoring APRS traffic in your area. I have a blog post that I wrote about repurposing a $5 sca…
Are you sure about that? It doesn't sound right to me, since 2.4GHz is not a ham band. But I would be happy to be corrected!
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.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, as a radio operator, even just a listener-operator, you quickly find that A) you are expected to keep a log, and in many situations _must_ keep a log (contests are a good example), and B) a log easily runs circles around your memory. As it turns out, logs also provide a helpful context for bridging the gap between the subjective and objective lenses, both of which are helpful and needed for solving problems, re…
Just to chime in, I saw an old-timer keep a daily work log in a text file, and that appealed to me so I started it too. This was in 1998, and to this day I still keep writing new entries to that same text file pretty much every business day. Old test account credentials, notes on what got done, ticket numbers, ideas, unfinished todos, the works. It also helps with time sheets at the end of the month :-)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, as a radio operator, even just a listener-operator, you quickly find that A) you are expected to keep a log, and in many situations _must_ keep a log (contests are a good example), and B) a log easily runs circles around your memory. As it turns out, logs also provide a helpful context for bridging the gap between the subjective and objective lenses, both of which are helpful and needed for solving problems, re…
How does radio provide advantages for logging purposes? I log a bit, not as extensively as you seem to (but I'm always looking to incorporate more data and improved workflow ideas), but I can't clearly envision (due to my ignorance of radio, likely) the advantages radio would provide over just entering info into my laptop in a text file (including keeping clocked time, timestamps, etc).
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.
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…
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
One caveat: at least in some locales, a license is required to own (or perhaps carry) a police scanner.