
Amateur Radio - andyjpb
http://www.snell-pym.org.uk/archives/2019/08/07/amateur-radio/
======
kawfey
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/)

~~~
HenryKissinger
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?

~~~
paulirwin
I started with a $25 RTL-SDR v3 kit that includes two antennas (for VHF and
UHF, approximately). That allowed me to listen in on 2m and 70cm band
repeaters, and familiarize myself with the language, etiquette, modes, etc. I
recommend that to anyone that is interested in amateur radio, and you can
still make good use of that stick once you get a transceiver, by using it as a
spectrum scope / waterfall. From there, a $40 Baofeng will allow you to get
used to the feel and operation of the radio, just don't transmit until you get
your Technician license. You can sometimes get the Technician study book for
free from ARRL by signing up for their welcome packet, or check it out from
your library. The exam costs $15 or less, and you can cram study for it at
hamstudy.org. (The few-dollar HamStudy mobile app is also worth the cost.)

That gets you a SDR with spectrum scope and waterfall, a portable HT UHF/VHF
transceiver, and your Technician license, for ~$80. From there, you can look
into getting your General license to transmit on HF, and a cheap HF radio and
antenna, for less than $500 total. A higher quality HT like an Icom or Yaesu
would be money well spent for VHF/UHF, as the Baofeng is notoriously hard to
program and allows you to transmit outside the legal band limits.

(Note: the RTL-SDR works best for VHF and UHF. For an HF SDR, you'll want to
check out something like the Airspy HF+ Discovery and perhaps a cheap $30
magnetic loop antenna from eBay, which is what I use.)

Edit: My apologies for the acronyms. SDR is software defined radio, allowing
you to receive radio signals on your computer. HT is "handy-talkie" or
handheld transceiver. HF/VHF/UHF are defined in the parent post.

~~~
taborj
A couple of notes to add:

* [https://hamstudy.org/](https://hamstudy.org/) is the go-to place to study for your license, and it's free. Use it, love it, thank the devs after you get your license.

* Don't listen to the naysayers (which aren't as loud these days), a Baofeng radio is a perfectly acceptable first radio, and it's impossible to beat the price.

* If your interests tend towards the tinkering with electronics side, you can pick up inexpensive/generic RTL-SDR dongles cheaply (less than $10) and modify them to receive HF. Or use them as-is.

* For zero dollars, you can use someone else's web-connected SDR, such as [https://websdr.org/](https://websdr.org/)

* Look around at the various digital modes (there are many, with FT8 and WSPR being the most popular at the moment), especially if you're into computers. Many allow a structured way to get familiar with things without worrying about messing up on the etiquette front.

* For an HF rig, the uBitx ([https://ubitx.net/](https://ubitx.net/) & [https://www.hfsignals.com/](https://www.hfsignals.com/)) is hard to beat, and they just introduced a new version (v6). $199 with a case ($150 without) will get you a full-band, all mode, dual VFO 10 watt radio. That's unbelievable value for an HF rig. Add an amp later on for more power.

* For HF especially _focus on making /buying good antennas_ before you go spend a bunch of money on radios.

------
AWildC182
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
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
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.

~~~
blihp
Funny you should compare it to the Internet. I remember the days when you
could post something online and not worry about it because 1) only a very tiny
fraction of the world was online 2) even if you were online, good luck finding
it unless someone told you where it was.

My main point being that amateur radio only has security through obscurity as
it only takes one device locally listening/relaying your signal to invalidate
the distance assumption in the same way people posting things online thought
'nobody's ever going to care about this post' all those years ago. A key
difference being that you have no option to encrypt and the other party
doesn't need to MITM you to get any potentially interesting information.

------
Amicius
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
A lack of qualified instructors would be one reason.

~~~
Amicius
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.

------
m0xte
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!

------
krupan
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
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.

------
traverseda
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.

------
7373737373
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
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.

------
rmason
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.

------
jenkstom
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
What's funny about that? I think it's awesome.

~~~
sliken
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.

------
jan6
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...

------
costcopizza
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
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.

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

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

------
myself248
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
Can you share links to these other technical venues?

Not being snarky - I want to check them out!

~~~
myself248
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. ;)

~~~
someguydave
I think HN used to regularly traffic in more technical stories and then it
slowly became just another Reddit.

------
1996
#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.

~~~
inetknght
Without the first two rules in effect, your cell phone, wifi, television, and
emergency services would rapidly become unusable.

~~~
1996
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.

~~~
jascii
If you -- in perfectly good faith -- accidently disrupt vital services, like
emergency com's or air traffic control, potentially endangering human lives,
then the identification requirement allows us (as in society) to contact you
to remedy the situation.

Without the identification requirement it would take a lot longer to track you
down, puting human lives at risk.

~~~
teddyh
That’s the official dogma, and you’re parroting it perfectly. In reality, I
sincerely doubt the problem would be that bad.

Communications technology has advanced since 1960.

~~~
jascii
Physics still holds true; if I create a signal in a certain spectrum, it will
raise the noise floor for other signals in that spectrum limiting effective
communication. It did so in the 60's, it does so now. No amount of calling it
"dogma" or "parroting" is going to change that..

~~~
1996
If someone is transmitting "signal in a certain spectrum" in a way that cause
you harm, step 1) get on the mike and tell to that person their transmission
is causing problem, step 2) they stop. No snitching or gov id required.

I agree with the other person, this is just parroting the official position.

The world has changed, and pseudonymous communication is a valid alternative:
HAMs could simply be required to provide an email - good enough to add a layer
of anonymity, and not sufficient to stop law enforcement.

~~~
jascii
"get on the mike" what frequency? Modulation? What makes you think I am
monitoring anything after say a relay got stuck keeping my gear permanently
-unbeknown to me- in transmit.

A reliable out of band back channel is needed. Currently that is what it is. I
am not saying there are no better alternatives possible, go ahead design them
and start the political process..

Pseudonymity? Yeah, that's working so well on the internet. Trolling and Spam
are not a problem at all. Lets see how that works in a much more resource
constrained environment like our radio spectrum.

~~~
1996
> I am not saying there are no better alternatives possible, go ahead design
> them and start the political process..

Read again what I wrote above: email. Hell, add twitter or a phone number on
top of that if you really want. That's still a good extra layer of anonymity.

And sorry, but I won't design anything now - I won't touch HAM even with a 10
ft pole, let alone engage in politics.

I'm not saying that to hurt you. I just assume you care about HAM and wonder
why younger people are not interested anymore, as discussed in the original
article.

The problem is that several of your core values have become show stoppers for
people like me. Address the big 3 problems I listed, and maybe you'll have
more success interesting more people to HAM. Personally, I don't care anymore.
I now prefer unlicensed spectrum.

