171–180 of 213 posts
The problem is that many on the bands are miserable people. It can be discouraging. The radio is a lot of fun. (I love Morse.) But a sizable percentage of the radio-ers make you want to do something else.
This is a big problem. I find CW to be populated with less annoying people.
I would be interested in the results.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s a broad and inaccurate generalization. You just need to find a niche that is more socially appealing to you if you want to use it to socialize. Sounds like common sense but it’s easy to be weirded out by the “pig farmers” or by listening to a chat where one of the parties expresses conservative views. But overall hams embody the best aspects of science and engineering culture and DIY/maker culture. Most of the…
I don't think it's inaccurate, just subjective. Yes it's the 80m and 2m local rag chew I avoid and the people spewing contests all over 40 and 20. I spend most of my time doing CW and with a soldering iron in my hand. Life is good there for me.
Cell phones are laughable single points of failure. Everyone brought this upon themselves from decades of bad engineering choices, if you consider resilience an objective. Once upon a time there was a terrestrial network of small autonomous telephone exchanges. Your phone numbers were tied to geographical locations. It seemed 'inconvenient'. Now you or your signal often have to travel hundreds of miles (as the crow f…
I'm curious, do hams ever troll one another as internet users frequently do?
Ohhh yes. That would occur on 14.313 MHz on the 20m band. Don't find yourself caught calling "CQ" on that frequency. It is where lots of bad language and name calling occurs.
Submission is mistitled. Should be "HF Ham Radio on a Budget".
The title used is more descriptive of the intent of the article, which is clear if you RTFA.
If that had been the title and the main point, he'd be emphasizing a lot more than the great cheap HF gear that's now available. (There's a lot more that's really awesome in AR than what you can do with basic HF gear.)
Remember that we used to have antennas in the our cellphones back in the 2000s? Well, where did it go? This is a pretty interesting history about an Amateur Radio hobbyist going to a Amateur Radio conference and Fractals!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mPefLpoz50
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None of the other people I communicate with are hams, so if the grid goes away, I'm still pretty much limited to yelling.
I dunno... one part of ham radio is acting as a relay. If there are two groups of folks, and they each have a ham in them at least the groups can relay messages to each other.
I probably should do that...
What's the most lightweight, portable ham radio? Is it comparable to a smartphone?
If you don't need all-band coverage, there are smaller, lighter transceivers available.