Ham Radio Operators. VANity. Kind of neat.

https://www.arrl.org/getting-licensed ^ | it hasn't been it's a vanity post | kawhill

[kawhill]

Before you can get on the air, you need to be licensed and know the rules to operate legally. US licenses are good for 10 years before renewal and anyone may hold one except a representative of a foreign government. In the US there are three license classes—Technician, General and Extra.

[kawhill]

Thought about it forty years ago, but had to be fluent in Morse to get it. Been thinking about it.

[Jamestown1630]

No more Morse required.

[Ciaphas Cain]

Dad had a shortwave receiver down in the basement, we would listen to it every so often. That got me interested in the two of us getting our licenses. This was around 1982 when I was eight years old. I tried my best to learn Morse code but never got the hang of it. We never got licensed but I learned a lot about the hobby.

[scott7278]

What would be a good starter radio?

[Jamestown1630]

You can start with a cheap hand-held receiver.

[KarlInOhio]

Are you interested in local radio or long distance? If local, you can get a cheapy Chinese handheld for $40 or so. For more you can get a Yaesu or Kenwood. For long distance I’ve got my eye on an Icom, but that’s around $1000. You can buy a radio without a license, just don’t touch that transmit button.

[chajin]

I still have my Advanced license, son his General, but neither of us are on the air. Tech has changed so much that I would be totally lost now.

73 de KF4MA

[Reno89519]

Morse code finally ended completely in 2007. I got my first license in 1977, it expired as I didn't do anything with it once I joined the Navy. Last year, I revisited it, got the Technician and General licenses same day last fall, then followed up with the Extra exam early this year. I don't use it like traditional amateur radio operators, it is simply for emergencies, such as when out four wheeling, where there is no cell phone signal, which is a lot of Nevada.

Anyway...

FCC Info: https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-division/amateur-radio-service

These two sites give all of the test prep you need, and are free: https://hamexam.org/ and https://arrlexamreview.appspot.com/index.html

The exam is now fully published, a formality, so you need to study the questions and answers, learn them. Long overdue as today's radios are completely different, black box, something breaks and you replace it, as opposed to the first radio that used tubes.

[lgjhn23]

I’ve been licensed HAM radio operator since the mid-1980s and currently hold an Extra-class license.
Code is no longer required for a license, but it was when I got mine. Even so, FWIW, I still utilize code to this very day and rather enjoy it.
For any of you that may be interested in getting licensed etc., may I suggest visiting the Amateur Radio Relay League website: https://www.arrl.org
It has a great deal of information available for prospective licensees as well as for those already licensed that want to increase their knowledge and skills.
Some of it is free, some of it has to be paid for, but it’s definitely a great place to start.

[Reno89519]

Get your GMRS license first, covers the family. Today's version of CB radios, but includes repeaters. That's really the big learning curve, though not much. Handheld radios are $30-100. Higher watt radios for home or in a car, $100-$300.

Same radios will work with the amateur licenses, so no need to trade up, though there re higher power radios once you have the licenses.

BaoFeng UV-82 High Power is great handheld. On Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RSWFT2K/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

BTECH UV-50X2 (Second Gen.) is great mobile (for house use you will need to buy a power supply). On Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XK83VRV/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Lots of other brands and choices...

[Myrddin]

I've been licensed since 1977. First as Tech class with code. Pushed myself to 18 WPM code and took the tests to Advanced class. The code requirement was dropped in the mid-90s. My wife took the last code required Tech exam. FCC called it Tech+ at that time. After moving to Idaho, I zipped through the manuals and hammered online practice tests for Extra. I took the exam in 20 minutes with a perfect score.

Lately, I have been most interested in a variety of HF antennas. My primary radio is a Yaesu FT-991A. It gets used for a 2 meter net on Sunday nights. When I have time, I have my Linux system configure with WSJT-X driving a USB cable to the FT-991A where it controls frequency, power, mode and an internal sound card where digital audio is sent and received. All of the high powered DSP occurs back in the Linux system. I have 46 of 50 states worked via FT8 right now. Missing MT, KS, VT and CT. I've connected to South Korea, China, New Zealand, Australia, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, Canada, Spain, Scotland, Germany, France and a few more. My antenna is a simple Off Center Fed Dipole. One leg is 55 feet. The other 11 feet. The 4:1 balun dangles off my rain gutter at 20 feet above ground. The 55 foot leg is connected to an insulator, then paracord into a very tall pine tree. The 11 foot leg goes to a nearby spruce.

In my earlier years, I did lots of packet radio around San Diego and participated in the monthly transmitter hunts. All participants met at a starting point. Odometers were recorded and the transmitter went live at 5 PM. The boundaries were the San Diego county line. When a hunter found the transmitter, the time was noted and odometer reading taken. The final score is time in minutes plus miles on the odometer. Like golf, the low score wins. Aside from the technical things, lots of service related work. Red flag patrols during fire season. Packet radio support of fire camps. Communications for charity fundraisers and the Miramar Airshow. Animal Rescue Reserve collecting livestock in danger of a fire, relocating and coordinating return to owners. Same for humans in the line of fire.

[Roadrunner383]

I had just started dating a very cute blond girl in the late ‘70s. Because of ‘Smokey and The Bandit’, CB radios were all the rage. I mentioned that I had owned a CB radio base station about 10 years back. I also said I though Ham Radio was interesting and I might get my Ham license.

She got this horrified look on her face and said “You can’t!, my dad and all my uncles own Ham radios, and they’re all a bunch of nerds!” At that point she didn’t know me very well, because I resembled that remark.

[WhoisAlanGreenspan?]

My Dad was big time into armature radio. I wound up being involved as well. He was the newsletter publisher for the local club for years, and I was his ghost writer (he wasn't a computer guy at all). I went to meetings helped pull down antennas and put them back up somewhere else, it was a great bunch of people but I never got a license myself.

I still have, I think a 2 meter battery powered hand held radio he gave me, but I haven't powered it up in years. Good for storm chasing. Maybe I'll monkey around with that this summer.

[Nervous Tick]

>> What would be a good starter radio?

“Baofeng” (aka BTECH?) radios are apparently a thing.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=baofeng+radio&ia=web

Available through Amazon and many other places too.

[Nervous Tick]

>> At that point she didn’t know me very well, because I resembled that remark.

Tired old joke:
Q: What do you call a nerd five years after graduation?
A: “Boss”

[Myrddin]

What would be a good starter radio?

For HF, a Xiegu G90 is a fine starter. The Baofeng radios are cheap and serviceable. I frankly prefer Yaesu handhelds. I have a Yaesu FT-65 principally because I have full front panel ability to program it in the field and a means to program and back up via computer at home. The higher end radios are very configurable, but you really want to do that with a computer support program to build the channels exactly the way you want, then program the radio. Sometimes being too flexible becomes a hindrance in the field. FT-65 covers 2m/70cm. I have mobile rigs with higher TX power for use in my truck with the same 2m/70cm.

[Myrddin]

I have a couple GMRS handhelds upstairs. No batteries installed as I don't want them damaged with a battery leak. Last night I applied for a GMRS license. I used my FRN at the FCC that goes with my Amateur license. When it came time to pay the fee, I had to establish a "username" with a password and a complete user profile. My e-mail address had to be validated and 2FA established. At that point I arranged to have that username managing my FRN. I was then able to access the "pay my bills" link to pay the $35 GMRS license fee. I'm waiting on the issuance of the license.

There is one GMRS repeater in town. It is on an office building. Nothing close to the coverage of the ham 2m repeaters on Chinese Peak, Kinport and Scout Mountain. I'm probably going to spring for two of the B-Tech GMRS Pro handhelds. They use USB C charging. They support the repeater offsets on channels 15 to 22. There is an internal GPS and ability to send text messages between GMRS Pro handhelds (simplex only). My wife has Bluetooth hearing aids that can pair with the B-Tech GMRS Pro, so it is a good fit for her specific needs.

[Myrddin]

Same radios will work with the amateur licenses, so no need to trade up, though there re higher power radios once you have the licenses.

You have to be careful with the cheap Chinese radios. They are happy to key up on frequencies where they don't belong. GMRS/FRS has very specific channel assignments with power limitations and deviation limits. An "unlocked" Chinese radio might easily violate the GMRS rules. Likewise, it might invite a GMRS user to operate on ham frequencies without a proper license. Many large cities have instances of GMRS licensees coming up and giving the GMRS license ID on a ham frequency. Since there is zero training requirements for GMRS, many are unaware they are in violation of FCC rules.

[Gnome1949]

The hobby started as a bastion of experimenters and builders of radio equipment and antennas. As a teen in the 1960’s, I was fascinated by a neighbor who could talk to other hams in faraway places.

Early ham operators built a lot of their own equipment from scratch.

I built my first 5 watt transmitter from a simple schematic, using spare parts given by me by my neighbor. It worked for sending Morse Code. I learned to send and receive the Code. It is fun to use Morse Code and many hams still do.

You would be amazed at how fast some hams can send and receive Morse Code and there are still Code speed contests held at some “hamfests.”

I passed the written and Code tests for Novice and, later, General Class. I graduated to Advanced Class, now grandfathered, which license I still hold. There were 5 classes of license back then: Novice, Technician, General, Advanced and Extra.

Most people do not realize how important the design and construction of the antenna is to communicate by ham radio. There is great and complex science in antennas and some amazing accomplishments in communication by very low power transmitters combined with superior antenna designs.

Ham radio operators are of great help in natural disasters, helping with emergency communications when other normal communication options are not working.

It is fun to communicate with foreign operators in other countries. I have talked to operators in Europe, Japan and Antarctica and islands in the Pacific Ocean. Sometimes conditions are just right and a 10,000-mile conversation sounds as good as talking to your next-door neighbor on the telephone.

[WhoisAlanGreenspan?]

So being on this forum for a few years now (26), I’ve ran across a good number of people and ideas, some of which I’ve ran with and profited from in a variety of ways, attaboy JimRob. My radio is a Radio Shack HTX-202 VHF FM Transceiver. Unlicensed, I’ve never transmitted on it but I have monitored storm watchers and other things through the years.