Ham Radio

[Davy]

Anybody have a ham radio license?

My exam is on Dec 9th. It's incredible what shitty technical questions I have to learn.

The exam consists of three parts. Technical equipment and regulations are not the problem. There are over 1000 technical questions though, and they are quite difficult to learn.

I am not interested in the technology at all! All I want is to be legally allowed to use ham radio.

[AdultKing]

I have an amateur radio license in Australia. When I did it there was still a morse code requirement. So there was an exam in electronics/radio theory, rules and regulations, morse code and a practical examination.

Nowadays they have done away with morse which makes things a bit easier.

[Davy]

Oh, yes, morse code is optional. I am quite glad about that! Knowing morse code is cool, but it takes quite a long time to learn it.

[AdultKing]

You may not be too keen on the technical side of things now, but when you are putting up an antenna and need to calculate the length of and how many radials that you need to use, or decide whether to bury them or have them elevated close to the base of the antenna then having the understanding of radio theory is handy.

Even simple things like how to measure field strength or filtering noisy power supplies requires a degree of understanding of radio-electronic theory.

[d-null]

when I got my license, morse was mandatory, 10 wpm minimum if I recall correctly

[Davy]

Sure. And when I mention to people that I am not interested in the technical side, they usually say "Oh, that's sad. It's such a nice hobby".
Well, that might be the case. But it's also pretty nerdy.

I have the dream of sailing around the world with a sailing ship. Having a ham radio license is a good idea as a preparation of such a trip.

[d-null]

Originally Posted by Davy

Sure. And when I mention to people that I am not interested in the technical side, they usually say "Oh, that's sad. It's such a nice hobby".
Well, that might be the case. But it's also pretty nerdy.

I have the dream of sailing around the world with a sailing ship. Having a ham radio license is a good idea as a preparation of such a trip.

there are good reasons for requiring the technical knowledge, with the privilege to use these allotted radio frequency bands comes a responsibility

the equipment that can be used can also cause problems and interference to other important radio and other equipment, understanding the tecnical side of that is important, radio theory in regard to antennas is very important as well, as well as knowledge of rf power and transmission, it is actually kind of sad too that they removed morse requirements, as that was also a good marker of entry to the commitment to getting the privilege of the license

[SGS]

Ham radio used to be very popular here in the 70's and 80's. Unless the antennas have changed it must have lost a lot of populariy in recent years?

[Hessie]

I got my ham license in Canada and had to pass the Morse code part. The code was easy to learn from tapes that were sold at Radio Shack. I attended classes at a local community college for about 3 months before sitting for the license exam.

[SallyRand]

Originally Posted by Davy

Oh, yes, morse code is optional. I am quite glad about that! Knowing morse code is cool, but it takes quite a long time to learn it.

Does not. It's strictly rote memorization. And it's International Code, not Morse. The two are different but pays to know them both.

--. ..-. -.--

[SallyRand]

Originally Posted by AdultKing

You may not be too keen on the technical side of things now, but when you are putting up an antenna and need to calculate the length of and how many radials that you need to use, or decide whether to bury them or have them elevated close to the base of the antenna then having the understanding of radio theory is handy.

Even simple things like how to measure field strength or filtering noisy power supplies requires a degree of understanding of radio-electronic theory.

No shit!

I'd like to see Davy try to erect an emergency antenna on the sailboat after a storm has taken down the permanent one. Can you imagine the outputs disappearing in a puff of smoke due to the antenna not being tuned properly?

Davy nees to learn to run one of these:

[tucker]

Go for a no code Tech License unless you want to include more bands. There is software that is available onine or from HRO that has all of the test questions. You dont need to know the endless rules and regs and its easier to cram and slam then learn items you will never use.

73's

[d-null]

Originally Posted by SallyRand

No shit!

I'd like to see Davy try to erect an emergency antenna on the sailboat after a storm has taken down the permanent one. Can you imagine the outputs disappearing in a puff of smoke due to the antenna not being tuned properly?

Davy nees to learn to run one of these:

nice looking old style "bug", I only had a straight key when I started... is that a TenTec linear amplifier or an antenna tuner?

sadly, internet and computers have killed the romance years of ham radio, the smell of tubes heating up in a high powered transmitter, and different crackling sounds coming through unexpectedly as sunspot cycles and other atmospheric phenomen changed unexpectedly

some of the cold war oddities such as the russian woodpecker were cool thinking back to it now

[d-null]

this video brings back memories, back then we had no idea what was generating the eerie strange sounds, we had a good idea it was Russian but there was no official confirmation of that

now that the USSR fell we know it was this huge military installation in Ukraine

[VGeorgie]

You don't need an amateur license to operate a radio on a sailboat, at least in the US. You can get a general radiotelephone operators license which isn't nearly as involved. You're not allowed to construct your own antennas or transmitters, and the wattage is limited.

Getting a ham ticket is what you do if you're interested in the technology, because it's made for hobbyists. If you're not, a commercial license seems more what you want. You can also operate in bands forbidden to hams, and more easily use your ticket for paying gigs (if a commercial sailboat requires you have a radiotelegraph license I'm pretty sure you need a commercial license, not a ham license).

No one but old farts wanting to show off use the original Morse Code. It's been International Morse Code for over 150 years, and virtually no one knows the original version. You don't need to learn anything but "Morse Code" as it'll be the kind the world uses.

What country has you answer 1,000 questions? It's been a long time since I took mine and maybe things have changed, but is it possible you have a book with 1,000 practice questions in it? I seem to recall there are just a few dozen questions for each level.

[VGeorgie]

Originally Posted by d-null

now that the USSR fell we know it was this huge military installation in Ukraine

The US had much the same, though they tended to have a much higher rate, maybe 50-100 Hz. You could occasionally pick them up on shortwave, though they were much more common in the HF and VHF bands. In the mid-60s I used to find them all over. I'd jot down their frequency, and started charting them. They'd hop around quite a bit. At the time no one would admit what they were, which was over-the-horizon radar. It didn't hurt/help that the installation doing it was some 10 miles from where we lived.

[CIVMatt]

I have one, can't remember the morse code anymore though

[Agent 488]

Originally Posted by d-null

this video brings back memories, back then we had no idea what was generating the eerie strange sounds, we had a good idea it was Russian but there was no official confirmation of that

now that the USSR fell we know it was this huge military installation in Ukraine

is that what the woodpecker sound was?

[Davy]

Originally Posted by VGeorgie

You don't need an amateur license to operate a radio on a sailboat, at least in the US.

I know. Most sailboat owners only have the SRC - short range certificate.
Once I make it through the ham radio exam (I will probably have to repeat the technical part ), the LRC (Long Range Certificate) is next on my list.

Not sure about the commercial license you are talking about.
The GOC (General Operator's Certificate) and ROC are reserved for professional seamen (at least here in Germany).

What country has you answer 1,000 questions? It's been a long time since I took mine and maybe things have changed, but is it possible you have a book with 1,000 practice questions in it? I seem to recall there are just a few dozen questions for each level.

It's 468 questions about rules and regulations and 1061 technical questions. Of course, you don't have to answer all those question in the exam. The exam will be around 110 questions, I think.

The country is Germany and the ham radio guys are obviously all nuts here (because they built this huge catalogue of questions). Some of the questions can be solved with elimination, a bunch of them were designed to be hard to learn by heart, though.
At least you know all the question beforehand and there is software available that makes the preparation easier.

[SallyRand]

Originally Posted by d-null

nice looking old style "bug", I only had a straight key when I started... is that a TenTec linear amplifier or an antenna tuner?

sadly, internet and computers have killed the romance years of ham radio, the smell of tubes heating up in a high powered transmitter, and different crackling sounds coming through unexpectedly as sunspot cycles and other atmospheric phenomen changed unexpectedly

some of the cold war oddities such as the russian woodpecker were cool thinking back to it now

I just got that image from Photobucket to show a good key because Dad is out of town and his shack is locked up and I'm not about to go in there when he's gone. He collects keys and has like over 250 different models. He has some old marine stuff as well as weirdness like a DeForest Audion Vacuum Tube in the box and even an Atwater-Kent Model 10. He tells of asking Radio SWAN for a QSL card and having the FCC or some kind of guys in black turn up at his parent's house asking a lot of questions but he got the card. Still has a 1KW linear though, which will dim all the lights if he runs it.

[fatfoo]

Good luck getting the license you need.

[d-null]

Originally Posted by Agent 488

is that what the woodpecker sound was?

yes, it went on for years, you never knew when or where on the frequency band it would show up, sometimes it would come in so loud it would startle you and hurt your ears while you were trying to listen to some faint far away signal

we talked about how it must have been Russian, because our directional antennas could tell us the general direction the signal was coming from, but we didn't really know what it was for sure at the time

there are lots of strange things on the radio waves that you run across, weird sounding data signals used by military, "numbers" stations that are broadcast for spies in other countries, strange atmospheric and cosmic sounds, it's pretty cool actually

[stereolab]

was it the Ham Radio operators who picked up those crazy 'numbers stations' that were then collected and sold as 'the conet project'? those are so awesome. are they still being broadcasted?

[desiredusername]

orthodox

[ottopottomouse]

Only the basic licence never learnt morse to do the advanced.

[DamianJ]

Originally Posted by SGS

Ham radio used to be very popular here in the 70's and 80's. Unless the antennas have changed it must have lost a lot of populariy in recent years?

well it used to be geeky lonely blokes sitting in sheds talking to people they don't know and will never meet and discussing stuff not very interesting.

I wonder what could have been invented in the 80s that would replace *that*?

:D

[d-null]

Originally Posted by stereolab

was it the Ham Radio operators who picked up those crazy 'numbers stations' that were then collected and sold as 'the conet project'? those are so awesome. are they still being broadcasted?

I don't know anything about them, never ran across the signal myself.

lots of countries still broadcast "numbers stations" to their spies in other countries, China does it a lot

here is a russian numbers station recorded from within the UK

[2MuchMark]

Try not to dance around what they want you to learn. Knowing all the technical details behind Ham Radio is cool. I almost went for a Ham license years ago and regret not following through. Go for it..!

[Davy]

Originally Posted by **********

Try not to dance around what they want you to learn.

They make you learn a lot of stuff that you will probably never need again.

Originally Posted by DamianJ

well it used to be geeky lonely blokes sitting in sheds talking to people they don't know and will never meet

That's one of the reasons why I am not too interested in it all. Way too nerdy!
I just want to be allowed to buy a radio and push the button. But it's one of those skills that could come in handy if the world economy crashes completely.

[SallyRand]

Originally Posted by Davy

They make you learn a lot of stuff that you will probably never need again.



That's one of the reasons why I am not too interested in it all. Way too nerdy!
I just want to be allowed to buy a radio and push the button. But it's one of those skills that could come in handy if the world economy crashes completely.

If you don't learn at least the basics of radio technology, having the equipment will do you very little good in the long run. Kind of like knowing how to turn on a computer with no ability to do anything but send email. You've got to know what to do if the box gets all jammed up in some way.

[alias]

Originally Posted by d-null

yes, it went on for years, you never knew when or where on the frequency band it would show up, sometimes it would come in so loud it would startle you and hurt your ears while you were trying to listen to some faint far away signal

we talked about how it must have been Russian, because our directional antennas could tell us the general direction the signal was coming from, but we didn't really know what it was for sure at the time

there are lots of strange things on the radio waves that you run across, weird sounding data signals used by military, "numbers" stations that are broadcast for spies in other countries, strange atmospheric and cosmic sounds, it's pretty cool actually

Sounds pretty cool.

[Davy]

Three more days to the exam. I know about half the technical questions. Will have to guess the other half. Oh well...

[MikeSmoke]

Originally Posted by SallyRand

I just got that image from Photobucket to show a good key because Dad is out of town and his shack is locked up and I'm not about to go in there when he's gone. He collects keys and has like over 250 different models. He has some old marine stuff as well as weirdness like a DeForest Audion Vacuum Tube in the box and even an Atwater-Kent Model 10. He tells of asking Radio SWAN for a QSL card and having the FCC or some kind of guys in black turn up at his parent's house asking a lot of questions but he got the card. Still has a 1KW linear though, which will dim all the lights if he runs it.

Now *that* sounds cool. I don't have any of my old equipment (always dreamed of a 1K linear but being stuck in college dorms and apartments once I had the money for it, wasn't quite the winning combination). But I do still have all the QSL cards that I used for my original DXCC (plus a lot more - I was a contester). I wish I had my old bugs, though; they were never adjusted quite right and everyone who knew me could tell it was me immediately because my dits weren't "full" lol. Did get up to 40wpm, though - not sure why I thought it was fun, but I did

(Got my license in 1967 - I still renew it religiously even though I haven't been on the air for probably 30 years lol)