Even if you are relatively young, you can probably think back on what TV was like when you were a kid and then realize that TV today is completely different. Most people watch on-demand. Saturday morning cartoons are gone, and high-definition digital signals are the norm. Many of those changes are a direct result of the Internet, which, of course, changed just about everything. Ham radio is no different. The ham radio of today has only a hazy resemblance to the ham radio of the past. I should know. I’ve been a ham for 47 years.
You know the meme about “what people think I do?” You could easily do that for ham radio operators. (Oh wait, of course, someone has done it.) The perception that hams are using antique equipment and talking about their health problems all day is a stereotype. There are many hams, and while some of them use old gear and some of them might be a little obsessed with their doctor visits, that’s true for any group. It turns out there is no “typical” ham, but modern tech, globalization, and the Internet have all changed the hobby no matter what part of it you enjoy.
Radios
One of the biggest changes in the hobby has been in the radio end. Hams tend to use two kinds of gear: HF and VHF/UHF (that’s high frequency, very high frequency, and ultra-high frequency). HF gear is made to talk over long distances, while VHF/UHF gear is for talking around town. It used to be that a new radio was a luxury that many hams couldn’t afford. You made do with surplus gear or used equipment.
Globalization has made radios much less expensive, while technological advances have made them vastly more capable. It wasn’t long ago that a handy-talkie (what normal folks would call a walkie-talkie) would be a large purchase and not have many features. Import radios are now sophisticated, often using SDR technology, and so cheap that they are practically disposable. They are so cheap now that many hams have multiples that they issue to other hams during public service events.
Because these cheap ($20-$40) radios often use SDR, they can even be hacked. These radios aren’t typically the highest quality if you are used to repurposed commercial gear, but when you can replace the radio for $20, it hardly matters.
HF radios are a different story. Thanks to software-defined radio, superpowerful computers, and FPGAs, even relatively inexpensive HF radios have features that would have seemed like magic when I first got my license.
While some hams like to build gear or use simple or older gear, modern transceivers, like the IC-7300 from Icom shown here, have incredible RF filtering done in software, spectrum analyzers, and scopes built in. The 7300, by the way, isn’t considered a “top of the line” radio by any means. But it has features that would have been a dream on a state of the art unit before the advent of DSP.
Having these kind of tools changes how you operate. In the old days, you’d tune around to see if you could hear anyone. Now, glancing at the screen will show you all the signals on a band and how strong they are. Touch one, and you tune it in immediately. Digital noise reduction is very helpful these days with so much interference, and, of course, you can control the whole thing from a PC if you want to.
The receivers are exceptional compared to what even a high-end radio would offer a few decades ago. Specialized filters used to be expensive and limited in options. Now, you can design any filter you want on the fly and it will be nearly perfect.
Granted, these radios aren’t in the impulse buy category like the handheld radios. Still, you can find them new for around $1,000 and used for less. There are also other similar radios for much less. Just as you can buy imported handheld VHF and UHF radios, there are imported HF radios that put out a lower wattage (20 watts vs 100 watts is typical). These still have plenty of features, and you can get them for about half the cost of the name-brand 100W rigs. [K4OGO] has a video (see below) about several popular radios in that price range and you’ll notice that many of them have similar displays.
Digital Modes
Paradoxically, you might not need as hot a receiver, or as big of an antenna, or as much power as you might think. Hams have long known that voice communication is inefficient. Morse code could be the earliest form of digital radio communication, allowing a proficient operator to copy signals that would never make a voice contact. However, hams have also long used other digital modes, including TeleType, which is more convenient but less reliable than a good Morse code operator.
That changed with computer soundcards. Your computer can pull signals out of a hash that you would swear was nothing but noise. Modern protocols incorporate error detection and correction, retries, and sophisticated digital signal processing techniques to pull information from what appears to be nowhere.
What kind of sound card do you need? Almost any modern card will do it, but if you have the Icom IC-7300 pictured above, you don’t need one. It turns out, it is a sound card itself. When you plug it into a PC, it offers audio in and out for ham radio programs. It can even send IQ signals directly to the PC for common SDR programs to work with.
Some digital modes are conversational. You can use them like you might a radio-based chat room to talk to people you know or people you’ve just met. However, some modes are more specialized and optimized to make and confirm contact.
Computer Logging
There was a time when every ham had a log book — a notebook to write down contacts — and a stack of QSL cards. Operators would exchange cards in the mail to confirm contact with each other. Many of the cards were interesting, and collecting enough cards could earn an award (for example, working all 50 US states or over 100 foreign countries).
Things are different now. Many people use a computer to track their contacts. While you could just use a spreadsheet, there are many ways to log and — more importantly — share logs online.
The advantage is that when you make a contact and enter into the system, it can match your entry up with your partner’s entry and immediately confirm the contact. This isn’t perfect, because there are several systems people use, but it is possible to interoperate between them. No more waiting for the mail.
DX and Propagation
I mentioned that having a display of the entire ham band changes how you operate. But there is even more help out there. Many people enjoy working rare foreign stations or special event stations held at parks or historical locations. These days, if you hear a station like that on the air, you can report it on the Internet so other people can find them. In some cases, the operator will report themselves, even.
Suppose you want to make contact with someone in Kenya because you haven’t done it, and you are working towards an award that counts how many countries you’ve contacted. Instead of searching endlessly, you can simply watch the Internet for when a station from that country appears. Then turn on your radio, use the digital tuning to go exactly to their frequency, and try your luck.
Of course, radio propagation isn’t foolproof. But you can use beacons to determine how propagation is near you. There are many tools to manipulate the beacon data to better understand radio conditions. In fact, if you use digital modes or Morse code, you can find out who’s hearing you on the Internet, which can be very useful.
Why Not You?
Some old hams say the Internet is ruining ham radio. I say it is changing ham radio just like it has changed virtually everything else. Some of those changes aren’t that drastic anyway. For years, people chasing awards, trying to work long distances, or participating in contests have very short contacts. You typically would exchange your name, location, and how strong your signal is and then make way for the next person to make contact. The digital mode FT8 automates all that. It is true that it isn’t very personal, but those kinds of contacts were never personal to start with.
What’s more is that you don’t have to use any of this if you don’t want to. I operate a lot of Morse code with no mechanical assistance. If I hear a big pileup, I might go look at the computer to see who has been spotted on that frequency. But I don’t have to. I could figure it out the old-fashioned way.
Hams work with advanced signal processing software, satellites, moon bounce, support communities, design antennas, foster school education, work during disasters, and push the envelope on microwave communication. No matter what your interests, there’s something you’ll enjoy doing. For many years now, you don’t even have to pass a test for Morse code, so if you didn’t want to learn the code, you don’t have to.
In many ways, hams were the original hackers, and you might be surprised by how many hackers you know who are hams already. I don’t know what ham radio will look like in the year 2100, but I know it will be pushing the limits of technology, somehow.
I think the main thing ruining ham radio is old hams who are resistant to change and refuse to accept that amateur radio is a broad church hobby with room for everyone.
I’ve even been told on the RSGB mailing list that it would be better to let the hobby die than ‘suffer’ an influx of newcomers, the gatekeeping attitude of that sort of ham put me off getting a licence for over 30 years.
Sad attitude, however my lucky experience is that I’ve met only very few of those. In addition, solid article :-)
Well to be fair, it’s a twofold story. FT-8 is, um, well, interesting to the sports men!?
And about the dying thing.. Well, it depends. Really, it depends.
The US-specific Technican class doesn’t really win a flower pot and existing hams don’t want to see ham radio to degenerate further down to ‘idiocracy’ level.
Before it reaches that level, so those hams think, it may be better if ham radio is allowed to rest in peace and dignity and will be remebered in a positive light.
If we consider how high the standard of amateur radio used to be, these thoughts are understandable.
Amateur radio used to be a passion.
Amateurs had privileges because of their skills and their competence.
That’s why it’s a public “service” also.
Amateurs did do experiments that could improve wireless tech to everyone. Or provided help in emergency.
That’s why amateurs got their frequency allocations in first place.
They earned them due to their work, their competence.
But that’s not forever.
Hams must qualify themselves over and over again in order to prove society being worth them.
The ham bands were no eternal gifts and not meant as a play ground for the selfish hobbyist. That should never be forgotten.
“Before it reaches that level, so those hams think, it may be better if ham radio is allowed to rest in peace and dignity and will be remebered in a positive light.”
So, in other words, if the hobby doesn’t develop the way these old farts want they’ll do their best to kill it. These are the same miserable old gits who won’t talk to me on HF because I have a Foundation call sign. Happily not all are such hopeless bigots.
I see Technician Class as the point of entry to Ham Radio — or for me, the “gateway drug. :) After being around two-way radio through my father (a Business Band licensee and law enforcement officer) since my pre-teens and following my own career in commercial broadcasting, I finally (at age 73) took and passed the Technician test. Exactly 11 months later I passed Amateur Extra. Today I am an active member of my local club. While I still think of myself as “an over-licensed Technician”, I have and use an IC-7300 and I’m learning how to be a Happy Ham and “evangelist” for our hobby/service. While I love the communications aspect of Ham Radio, it’s the learning that I enjoy most. Early next year I will be one of the instructors for my club’s Technician course, and I expect the learning will be a two-way street as the students’ questions give me new insights into what Ham Radio is … and can be.
Amazing!
What I think older or existing hams are afraid of is an “invasion” of tourists.
Ie, new licensees that are hams on paper, but don’t really care about ham radio and don’t truely represent the ham community.
If you don’t need to earn your ham license, so the logic goes,
then it’s not certain that you end up as a “true” ham that identifies himself with ham radio, who loves ham radio.
By contrast, those who worked for months to get a license, aren’t doing the exams just for the giggles. They really care.
You know you don’t have to ask them for permission for everything ;) Just get your license and try to reasonably avoid illegal things.
I don’t think gatekeeping is the problem. The person stopping you from getting the license and doing experiments is you. Those crotchety old fools can only talk down to you if you let them.
“You know you don’t have to ask them for permission for everything ;) Just get your license and try to reasonably avoid illegal things.”
Oh I didn’t need their permission, it was their attitude that put me off because I didn’t feel the need to join a toxic little clique (I had Twitter for that), but I got my Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced licence nearly 7 years ago because of a rekindled interest in radio and a desire to stay on the right side of the law when building ‘things’.
Even when I tried to do that I was met by gatekeeping but that’s another story entirely.
Amateur radio is dead and a couple of lemons shouting “CQ” all day is not going to change that. Good riddance.
Well, it’s doing well on QO-100 satellite. 🙂👍
The amateur radio population is certainly aging, but overall the hobby itself is not yet dead … it’s just shifting. You don’t hear many rag chew conversations anymore, but the digital modes are ALWAYS extremely active and the number of participants in the major weekend contests increases each year. Activities like SOTA and POTA continue to grow rapidly as well.
If you’re not a ham yourself, why would you care one way or the other??? If you’re tired of people talking about ham radio you just proved yourself wrong anyway.
Dude, it’s just a obvious troll. Probably someone who got tired of the hobby. Amateur radio is far from dead. Listen to the popular repeaters around the lower mainland here and the cross country nets and there are plenty of people still doing it.
I’m not sure what the demographic is but it certainly still trends towards the older crowd
Normally I would agree he’s just a troll, but he posts fairly often here.
Seriously, so much fun making friends around the world.
Tech and digital challenges, worth the effort.
Digital messaging like winlink amazing, especially if out to sea.
Or without internet after a hurricane.
Most helpful working distressed areas.
You are missing the boat..
My dad was a longtime ham and passed away earlier this year. He always wanted me to get y license, but growing up around it, it never really caught on with me. Some of the stuff was cool, and he made some friends on there, but I got really into internet technologies and software at a young age instead. TCP/IP and DNS were exciting to me, since they automated so many useful things that hams were doing manually. AX.25 was kinda interesting, but we already had dialup internet by then, which was much more interesting to me and had a lot more to do and see.
IRC was a hugely appealing as a place to hang out as a 10-14 year old, and between that, Planet Source Code, and things like Bash Hackers Wiki, I taught myself Linux, got deep into systems, and eventually moved out to the valley from the Midwest and have a pretty great life now. I do still play with radios, but mostly IoT stuff and LoRa and now Meshtastic / ATAK. That’s something that is actually useful to myself and my friends for hiking / camping / backpacking, and I’ve got half a dozen radios for it now that I can just hand out to folks.
As I get older, I care less and less about the technology itself and more about what it can do for people, what experiences it can enable.
One thing that maybe did click for me as a result of growing up around ham radio and swap sales etc has been my love of knob twiddling. I was also very into audio and speakers growing up, and my father also had some background in car audio, but he was an IT guy by trade. Now I’m the stereotypical dad who is really into synths and has a bedroom-cum-studio, because putting on shows with visuals, lights, and music that make people dance is what I find fun and exciting.
I love meshtastic! the price for entering is so low, radios cost couple bucks,yet you get to play with different antennea, you make long distance connections, you can have your local chat…and all this for couple of bucks and no licence…there are drawbacks,of course,but it’s so much fun!
That low cost of entry and no license requirement is key for lora/meshtastic. Much as wifi was able to spread for some of the same reasons.
I having a blast with meshtastic and all the community working going into services and infrastructure. It’s a great example of getting out of the way and letting innovation/collaboration happen
I am very much asking ham radio operators to create bridges between 2m and 433MHz using reticulum networks.
What’s that? Must be https://github.com/markqvist/Reticulum
but then
But encryption and ham radio generally don’t mix, so how do you get around that?
https://github.com/markqvist/Reticulum/discussions/399
Sounds tricky then.
Yeah, the blanket ban on encryption keeps ham radio stuck in a 90’s/00’s tech ghetto. Interoperation with any modern real world system is becoming increasingly difficult as a result. I’m a licensed ham, but the only thing really interesting in my opinion is the HF bands for the range they allow. If you are doing anything above 50 MHz you are better off on unlicensed frequencies where you don’t have to pretend the cold war is still on and cryptography is just for terrorists and spies.
” If you are doing anything above 50 MHz you are better off on unlicensed frequencies where you don’t have to pretend the cold war is still on and cryptography is just for terrorists and spies.”
Ahem. Did you follow the recent news about Europe?
We have a cold war-like situation directly at our front door.
Anyway, I do agree that it’s better to use non-ham frequencies above 50 MHz.
There are so many CB bands, why “mess up” ham radio, the last stand for open communication?
There’s no need to bring snakes (encryption) into paradise, I think.
Reaching out across the globe to talk to folks and build community …yep…irc, email, masto….and none of that with folks regulating that I only talk about my antenna size or my favorite meatloaf recipe.
Many HAMs are great people, truly. As a group though they seem to be relegating themselves to self-inflicted obsolescence. I love the tech around HAM, I love the idea of shooting across the planet using particle/waves, I love the idea of community effort. What I can do without is gatekeeperism and barriers to entry.
ymmveol
“What I can do without is gatekeeperism and barriers to entry.”
Personally, I think the ham license shares some similarities to a driver’s license.
In order to participate either, a certain amount of know how and skills are required.
In order to drive a car you have to know the traffic rules, you have to be able to provide first aid, have to know how to set up warning lights and change a tire.
I wouldn’t call that gatekeeping or elitism, though. It’s simply part of it.
The license to drive a car does not restrict what I can say in that car.
A Ham license restricts what can be said and when it can be said while using the spectrum.
I have talked to many HAMS over the years about this point. Many have great reason to curtail speech on the spectrum. So do other groups , they all seem justified in their reasons.
Gate kept.
On other parts of the spectrum those restrictions do not hold. On other mediums those restrictions do not hold.
I simply choose to focus on the options that do not restrict speech. ymmv
Restricted speech? 🤷
In my home country, Germany, you have the right for free personal opinion and can tell it others without going to jail (excpt. Isra. related stuff).
You merely have to make clear it’s an opinion and not a fact.
“I think that.. In my opinion..”
However, if you insult someone or make public accussations, you have to take the consequences.
The insulted or accussed person can take legal actions against you, just like you can.
Anyway, the reason that ham radio doesn’t “allow” certain topics is to prevent it being misused for propaganda.
– Just think of Hitler speechs on the history channel. Ham radio doesn’t need this.
Politics aren’t really welcome on the ham bands, thus.
It’s also counter productive to international friendship or peace.
As an European, I wouldn’t want to hear all this US left wing/right wing nonsense on shortwave or satellite all day.
Otherwise, I see no forbidden topics. 🤷
Back in the 1960s, the rules were much more strict.
There’s this story that a group of hams had ordered pizza and some fellow ham over radio asked them to order him one, too.
A couple of days later, the federal postal office had sent that person a bill for “telegram fees”.
What happened? The postal office had listened to the conversation and issued a bill, because ordering a pizza was a commercial thing.
By comparion to this, ham radio has become very relaxed.
Hams nolonger wear ties and suits and nolonger use formal speech.
What happens if you sing L’Amour Toujours
What if we want actual free speech? (i.e. none of the rules you mentioned)
Of course they don’t restrict what you say in a car because 99.9% of the time other drivers can’t hear you talk. You do communicate with other drivers through turn signals, and the use of those devices is regulated. It’s also not allowed to blow your car horn whenever you want, it has a certain allowed use, to warn of imminent danger. Your conduct on the road is also regulated by means of staying in marked lanes and observing maximum speeds.
So in the U.S., these are the prohibited transmissions in the amateur service:
1. Communications for payment or of a pecuniary interest. Makes sense, it’s amateur radio. There are other non-amateur services for that.
2. Music, with rare exceptions. That’s fine, we now have much higher fidelity means of sharing music.
3. Messages encoded or encrypted to obscure their meaning. I have heard some who balk against this restriction, but it’s a good restriction. The amateur service is about the open exchange of information, not about secret transmissions. If encryption is important to someone, they can do that in the unlicensed 915 MHz band or get a commercial license and frequency allocation.
4. Obscene or indecent words or language. If someone needs to swear on the air, they need to broaden their vocabulary. They could communicate the same message without resorting to obscenity.
5. False or deceptive messages, signals, or identification. I don’t think anyone would have any issue here.
7. Broadcasting, with rare exceptions. We’re not an audience. This isn’t a forum to show off to the ham radio masses. The amateur service is, primarily, for two-way communication.
8. Retransmission from other services, with rare exceptions. Again, usually people can go to those other services to get those other transmissions, if they want them.
9. Communications intended to facilitate a criminal act. The First Amendment doesn’t protect conspiracies when they start to present a “clear and present danger.”
Contrary to popular belief, there are no government-enforceable rules against speech that is political or religious in nature. I suppose you could have nets dedicated to those topics if you wish, if the other rules aren’t being broken. You can hear the old dudes on HF pontificating about one political thing or another literally all the time.
Clubs are allowed to make their own rules about the conduct at their own meetings and their club-owned repeaters in order to avoid divisiveness and to keep the conversation about radio.
The International Amateur Radio Union’s Ethics and Operating Procedures does say that religion and politics and derogatory remarks towards groups of people are “no no”‘ topics, but that’s just their good guidelines. Frankly I have zero interest in having any communication on the air with people who want to have those types of conversations.
So I don’t really know what speech you feel is restricted, but I am glad that you have found other venues for those topics.
Yeah, those shouldn’t be prohibited. Free speech should be completely unrestricted.
Anonymous, yeah, those should be prohibited. The airwaves would be an unmitigated disaster without those guardrails. The airwaves are a limited public resource. Go stand on your streetcorner and protest whatever you want.
Amateur Radio today offers many more options for those willing to get a license with new modes of transmission, better equipment, and antenna experimentation. It’s also extremely important for communication during disasters when all other types of communication are unavailable.
Correct.
Not really, unless you want to get yourself into massive legal troubles later if judge determines that your first aid might’ve caused harm to victim. The best you can do is to call 112 and pretend being in a state of shock/panic from witnessing a terrible accident – and this is the actual advice my driving school instructor gave me when I was learning to drive back in 2018.
Only point where the hazard triangle and fire extinguisher are (or should be) stored in a Nissan Micra or Toyota Yaris.
Nope, not required at all. First, while I can do it easily, somehow I can’t imagaine my GF, who weights just about 50 kg wrestling with widowmaker jack, then actually lifting a broken tire and finally putting on a replacement. Second, I’ve yet to find a car workshop which torques wheel nuts to 85 Nm as specified instead of just using a pneumatic impact gun and doing about 250 Nm.
“Not really, unless you want to get yourself into massive legal troubles later if judge determines that your first aid might’ve caused harm to victim. The best you can do is to call 112 and pretend being in a state of shock/panic from witnessing a terrible accident – and this is the actual advice my driving school instructor gave me when I was learning to drive back in 2018.”
That’s cruel! We don’t have American conditions yet, my god.
In Germany, that’s “unterlassene Hilfeleistung”. Or at least, it used to be.
To my understanding, you as a private person can’t be made liable if
you provided first aid in emergency and did your best, no matter the outcome.
Helping someone in an accident is a citizen’s duty and a matter of humanity.
It’s being encouraged. It’s a matter of civil courage, too.
Seconds and minutes can decide about life and death!
Waiting 15 mins for an amulance to arrive is no option in practice.
The victim can easily be gone by then or be disabled for whole life (brain damage due to lack of oxygen).
“Pretending” to not being aware of something and running away or looking away is so WW2. And it’s cowardly, too.
I mean, you don’t have to play hero and drag the person out of car all alone (unless it burns) – but trying your best to help is a matter of humanity.
Things like checking pulse, mouth to mouth resuscitation, cardiac massage, talking to the victim, keeping the victim awake, etc.
You don’t have to do risky things, necessarily.
Such as dragging the injured person, which could injure the neck or spine (worst case scensrio).
Being just there and holding a hand might be something already.
Standing at the road side, about 20m away from victim, just to call 112 is ethically not right.
(*Merely to a rescue man making own decisions without a doc is more legaly risky.)
@Vauxhall Astra since my other reply is currently under moderation, I simply recommend you to double check the legal conditions yourself.
To what I know, the German law is on the side of citizens who are providing first aid in an emergency.
As long as they had good intentions and tried their best, they can’t be made liable.
Too many citizens loose their life each year because fellow citizens are afraid of legal consequences and don’t help. So sad.
Where do you live?? Apparently not in the U.S. since EVERY state in the U.S. now has Good Samaritan laws that protect somebody from liability for trying to give aid in an emergency as long as the aid isn’t reckless. Kansas and Missouri are the only states that limit the protection to trained personnel.
Agree!
Given you’re using ‘Vauxhall Astra’ as a nick I suspect you’re in the UK.
Given I suspect you’re in the UK I know you’re talking utter nonsense when you say “Not really, unless you want to get yourself into massive legal troubles later if judge determines that your first aid might’ve caused harm to victim”.
Also, you might want to give your ’50KG’ girlfriend a little more credit instead of assuming she’s some weak, helpless little woman or you might well find out the hard way that she’s not..
There is a huge range of things a ham can do. Having just lived through Hurricane Helene, emergency communications immediately comes to mind. Public service is another. My club has developed a specialty of mountain/wilderness communication and we use that to support charities that sponsor hikes through the mountains. My personal favorite is Summits on the Air (SOTA) We get to mountain tops and set up a simple station and make contacts. Some mountains are easy driveups, or more challenging drive ups, easy hikes, moderate hikes, difficult hikes and some kick your rear end death marches. Something for everybody,
One of the best uses of ham back in the day was to get little kids into building their own simple radios, crystal then tubes, then you can get into semiconductors.. Finally digital and software and all the fancy stuff. It lays an excellent foundation for full-spectrum knowledge, and that produced a lot of very competent people in several fields for decades. Inspiration at a young age can produce a lifetime of creative fertility. And it was a great amount of fun, plus a huge confidence boost.
You can still do that stuff with your kids (or adult friends)–nobody is stopping you. Heck, set up a club, have biweekly or monthly meetups. You can test and get the official licenses, yet belong to a collective of your own choosing. It’s supposed to be an adventure!
As a ham myself, you can have all the doo-dads, bells, whistles etc.
Some people like Morse, others FT8, others phone. You can have a radio that will do everything except make breakfast and do the dishes, or you have a simple radio.
Me, I have a Kenwood TS-430S. It’s a simple radio. Not too complicated.
I’ve done Worked All States, and I like to rag chew on the Country Cousins nets.
I’ve done EMCOMM, helped when I could. As always my station is ready if needed.
I also have an IC92AD for VHF/UHF. It has D-Star but it’s not a mode I use often.
For me, I’d rather have multiple radios than a shack-in-a-box.
One part fails and your shack-in-a-box is dead in the water.
Most of the hobby for me is phone. Sometimes I’ll take a listen in on CW if it’s slow enough for me to copy. As others have said, you have hams with multiple radios, multiple antennas, a shack that looks like an electronics store. Then on the other end of the spectrum (pun intended) you have the ham who gets their license for work, the license sits in a file cabinet, and that’s that. A paper ham.
Back in the 1980’s I ran a computer chat system called D-Dial. The 80’s everything was computers. I wasn’t licensed until 2003, I’ve found a balance between computers and radio. On the current version of D-Dial (www.ddial.com) a modern representation of the old Apple software, there are a few hams. We have a good time. So, whether it’s keyboard or radio, it’s fun either way.
The regenerative receiver is over 100 years old and by far the most enjoyable radio to both build and operate. Those squeals are the sounds of angels singing.
The open source sbitx radio is amazing
There is a serious and often overlooked problem with direct conversion Software Defined Radios (DCSDRs), otherwise known as Direct-Conversion Tayloe Receivers: The characteristics (and the performance) of the direct conversion Software Defined Radio is highly dependent on the impedance match between the receiver and the antenna. This is nicely explained in Part-1 of the 4-part paper in the ARRL’s QEX magazine: “A Software-Defined Radio for the Masses” by Gerald Youngblood, AC5OG.[1][2][3][4] One way to mitigate this problem is to somehow isolate the receiver’s input from the antenna – perhaps by using a matching network, an isolator, attenuator, or a preamplifier. An (arguably) smaller problem with this DCSDR design is that without taking care to isolate the receiver from the antenna, the receiver will radiate the unwanted local oscillator continuous wave signal at the receive frequency through the antenna. Finally, remember that the DCSDR in its basic form is a symmetrical device. With other words, whatever happens when the device is receiving, will also happen in reverse when it is transmitting.
References:
[1] A Software-Defined Radio for the Masses, Part-1 – ARRL
https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technology/tis/info/pdf/020708qex013.pdf
[2] A Software-Defined Radio for the Masses, Part-2 – ARRL
https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technology/tis/info/pdf/020910qex010.pdf
[3] A Software-Defined Radio for the Masses, Part-3 – ARRL
https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technology/tis/info/pdf/021112qex027.pdf
[4] A Software-Defined Radio for the Masses, Part-3 – ARRL
https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technology/tis/info/pdf/030304qex020.pdf
I still prefer the older technology. Nothing beats operating a boat anchor or a homebrew. The regenerative receiver design is over 100 years old and is still by far the most enjoyable to use. It’s great seeing HaD articles like this inspiring new generations. Remember that the old ways are just as fun and effective too. You can reach around with half a what, a keen ear and a well trained fist.
Autocorrect edit “reach around (the world), *half a watt.
I’ve used regenerative (and super regenerative) receivers and they in no way as effective as either a superhet or a modern SDR. A regen can be fun to use, but it’s laughable to claim they are comparatively effective. That’s fuddy-duddyism taken to an extreme.
Nice article. Quite in the line of the recent newsletter https://www.zeroretries.org/ which I encourage you to read either in web or in email subscription (for free). Ham radio is a license to experiment with radio technologies. This can be either voice, data, short range, long range, whatever.
I have a general license, but I only have an HT and don’t transmit. I want to get onto the HF bands mostly to play with antennas and propagation, but every time I look at HF gear I can’t seem to justify the cost.
Any advice on HF kits and intro using simple digital modes like ft-8 is appreciated – I want to do HF, but I need a clear project direction :)
As long as aL Williams mentioned it…
https://www.icomamerica.com/lineup/products/IC-7300/
I was quite active on low-band QRP CW in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. I liked the simplicity of the equipment and the fact that the guys on CW were generally more interested in talking tech than the ones on the voice bands who spent the time cursing their wives’ shoe collections. With the right filtering (which does not need to be digital), you can pick a very weak CW signal out of a noisy, crowded band where you wouldn’t be able to hear a voice signal; and for the skilled CW operator, CW is not nearly as slow and sterile as most people think it is. My activity ended when I got married and moved out of my parents’ house where I could have a decent antenna, and moved into an apartment where antennas were not allowed. (Seven years later we bought our house; but my interests had moved on by then.) In the decades since then, I’ve watched the ham-radio scene only from a distance, and although I don’t have any problem with people who want to use the advanced technology, I have some resistance to it for myself. I refuse to use equipment that requires a PC or USB to get it configured. I refuse to use equipment that’s dependent on the internet. (Why not just use the internet to communicate, and forgo the radio. The point of the radio is to be ready when internet service is down.) Tests for licensing were to limit the use of the service to those who were going to contribute to society and the state of the art and know the rules that would keep the bands usable for other hams too. But when radios have gotten so sophisticated that the typical ham really has no understanding of the insides and are too far behind the curve to contribute to the state of the art, it partly defeats the purpose.
I have been a Ham for over 65 years and have observed both sides of the coin. I have been Blessed and
have an Extra Class License and former 1st. Class Radio telephone license I am also an avid CW operator. It as been a great hobby and when I was 18 enlisted in the Navy and became a Radioman striker. Now at my age retired and in very poor health (Stroke and lung disease). Now I can enjoy the hobby. My rig is older but no spectrum analyzer but without all of the bells and whistles. My only negative comment is that there are a minority of hams who memorize test questions and pass exams in that manor. It seems that a minimum knowledge of Electronics should be needed.
I had a HAM license for ten years then it expired, nobody I wanted to talk to. I liked meets to buy parts to build computers and projects. I hung around other HAMS but I had their phone numbers so a radio just didn’t make sense. I only had a license because I was with someone getting upgraded and he said why not get one too. I wanted internet and I had it so game over. Beware of eternal September it comes for all old hobbies eventually.