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Is Ham Radio Dead??
aTRaTiCa asks: "I've been reading up and studying for my Technician license to operate on the ham radio services... Are there still people using this, or has the Internet taken over and pulled people away from this pastime? I imagine there are still people using the services and broadcasting but not as many as were in the days I was growing up. I always thought working with equipment and chatting with people over radio waves across the world was awesome. My neighor used ham radio for years, but unfortunately he passed away." Ham Radio? Dead? It might be less popular than the Internet, but I wouldn't expect it's going the way of the dodo anytime soon!
FYI, aTRaTiCa mentions this tidbit which might proove worthwhile for those of you interested in Ham Radio: "A neat fact is you can get your technician (first) license from the FCC by passing a simple test. This test consists of a pool of 348 questions. If you're interested in passing, go to Radio Shack and buy "Technician Class" by Gordon West. He gives good exam tips and publishes all 348 questions WITH the answers. These are EXACTLY the same answers and questions that are on the real test."
Ham Radio is most certainly not dead - far from it. There are a number of radio amateur organizations, like ARRL(http://www.arrl.org) and RAC (Radio Amateurs of Canada - http://www.rac.ca)
Companies like Yaesu and Icom manufacture radios primarily for the hobby.
Paul Anderson
"I drank WHAT?!" -- Socrates
N3DMC
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
We expect the international law to fall at the 2003 ITU conference, and after that hopefully the Morse code test will be entirely eliminated from national laws. Ham Radio should be a way to learn technology for our young people - you can do so many things that aren't possible on the Internet! It's too bad that stupid laws have held it back for so long.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I got my Novice license way back when I was 13, and my General license not long after that. At the time, I was really interested in the long-distance communication that you could acheive with the lower bands (e.g. 10-80 meters), but I became disillusioned by what I heard once I got on the air--typically a bunch of crochety old guys debating politics, or talking about their rigs. Needless to say, I lost interest.
If I had the money and the space today, though, I'd want to get in the high-frequency side of Ham radio. Even in the 80s, projects like AMSAT we're pushing the boundaries of the discipline with microwave and satellite transmission. And then there's amateur television (SSTV, FSTV) and high-speed data transmission (Packet Radio), which have been around for a while, but infrequently used.
If you have the money and interest, I would highly recommend looking into the alternatives to the ragchew folks that dominate the lower bands. Don't forget that the most wonderful thing about Ham radio is the relative lack of restrictions that you face in using the bandwidth--you can experiment to your heart's content, and the FCC won't get on your back (esp. in the upper bands). You might have to get a more advanced license, but the effort is usually worth it in the amount you'll learn, and the amount of bandwidth access you gain.
Tim
KB8KRQ
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
As it was true in the past, one can still build their own radios because the parts are not that expensive and are relatively easy to get a hold of (that is, as long as you are not trying to build old tube-based radios because finding the old tubes and air-variable capacitors are pretty tough these days). In particular, radios are relying much more on software in EPROMS to do their work (much like the WinModems pass things off to the CPU). If you don't want to build your own, there are still companies cranking them out all the time.
Another great area of interest for the technically-oriented person is in the upper bands (above 1 GHz). Everything is going wireless these days and the GHz regions are very fertile grounds for experimentation. Have some fun figuring out new ways for network traffic over RF.
I think the internet has taken attention away from many people that might have been interested in Ham radio in the past, but if you are the kind of person that not only likes to program your computer, but also crack it open and diddle with the hardware, then you can go nuts as a Ham (with both a radio and a computer).
DE N3UKS
The problem is that the way the no-code tech was set up fragmented ham radio - the no-codes were on VHF and the coders were on HF, and the codes didn't consider the other guys "real hams" at all and didn't mix with them much. We've gone a lot of the way toward ending the fragmentation now, because the new folks have to a large extent moved onto HF.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
The reason that hams "mindlessly" follow "arbitrary" rules is that it is a self-policing community. The amateur community has a very good relationship with the FCC as well as the the ITU (which you can think of as the "international FCC"), and this relationship is based on respect that goes both ways. In the US, the FCC largely takes a hands-off approach towards hams because the FCC allows hams to monitor themselves, and one important monitoring activity is locating and reporting the law breakers. The FCC only steps when it needs to, such as for cases of malicious interference. The last thing the FCC and the amateur community wants is for things to get so unruly that the FCC has to step in and actively monitor and enforce the amateur airwaves like they have to do on the broadcast bands. Hams don't want them looking over their shoulders, and the FCC doesn't want to have to expend the time, money, and manpower. There really aren't that many restrictions; stay in your allocated bands and be respectful that others are on the air too.
One reason hams "mindlessly follow" the morse requirements is because that is the law, not only in the US but around the world. Hams mindlessly follow language regulations because not only is it the civil and polite way to communicate, but because the FCC and just about everyone listening doesn't want to hear it. If you don't like the fact that you can't legally use a CB for long distance communication, then that is one reason to become a ham (don't equate CB radio with amateur radio because they are not the same---the first you don't need a license where the other you do (and you are allowed much more bandwidth with the latter)).
I think ham radio has very much to offer. It curious that you think there is a higher signal to noise level on usenet and Slashdot. You don't get much spamming on the radio. Plus, usenet and Slashdot are topic-specific forums where ham radio (except for radio nets) is like walking into a room full of people; you aren't going to be locked into the same topic of conversation. Ham radio allows you to talk to people all over the world, whether it be about your foot problems or not (besides, how many of your daily telephone conversations are much deeper than that?). Ham radio is a world-wide community; there are some great people to meet, and there are jerks. I stay a ham because of the great people and friendships I have made over the air, and I also love the technical challenge. Others do it for the support it gives to the community (disaster communication assistance, public event communication, etc). You get out of it what you want.
I do work VHF/UHF. It's easier, the equipment is portable and has significant benefits. Most repeaters have a phone patch now so now I can call my wife (no commercial use, the law is too grey on that) anytime, anywhere in the range of the repeater. There's also a linked repeater that has a phone patch linking to a neighboring area code (close, but far enough to be LD on land line).
Also Hams have been working with TCP/IP since before the web and doing this with a wireless connection! There's also the APRS (automatic position reporting system) network that not only you can do with a computer, but you can do position reports w/o a computer AND view the APRS map from any web browser using javAPRS (on the web page in the area of interest to you). APRS uses GPS technology and is on almost every platform (XASTIR(GPL) and XAPRS for Linux/UNIX and DOS APRS (the original developer started here), WinAPRS, MacAPRS, and palmAPRS for the Palm Pilot!...nothing on BeOS yet that I know of.
For the HF stuff, you can do a station cheaply if you do QRP! QRP is working the HF bands with 5 w or less! When the band is open, it works and you just can't believe you are using only 5 w. Point is, something is only dead if you let it be dead, to you. Someone is always using something, even those old Atari 800XL's. You just have to find the web page or people to talk to.
Joel McLaughlin N8VQJ
Gorkman
One of the aspects of the hobby that has not yet been mentioned is public service -- hams often provide emergency comms during "problems": hurricanes, severe storms, or, in my case, the Hi Meadow fire.
When I arrived on scene for the fire on Monday night, the ARES groups (district 6 and 23) were relegated to the flag pole outside. We were using a mobile running off a car battery and a simple quarter-wave ground plane antenna.
Well, many of the responding fire crews use different bands for their radios, so the individual crews could not communicate with each other, nor with Command. They tried handing out cell phones, but good luck trying to get coverage into the canyons with cell phones; Bailey is rural, we're lucky to have dial tone.
Long story short, we were the only means of communication the fire crews had; even after the Feds arrived, their stuff took far too long to set up, so we were active much longer than we ought to have been.
Want to make yourself relevant to your community using ham radio? Get with your local ARES group and get trained. Get with your local fire department and get red-card certified; that will allow you to go out to the fire crews themselves to provide comms as needed. Get a GPS and a TNC and get set up to do APRS out in the field.
The internet might be the current bane of ham radio's existence, but it's a darn good thing we still have hams who can provide a public service. On Monday night, a fire crew called in and said that they were trapped, and needed an escape route. My wife, KC0EFM, was part of the effort to get them out of there; apparently, the news reported the next day that a bunch of ham radio operators saved the lives of a fire crew.
Irrelevant? Ask the fire crew.
--
Matt Meola KC0DXW
Bailey, CO
Matt Meola AFOD
Westminster, CO
"Gun control means using two hands."
The new folks have moved on to HF, but that seems to leave >50 mhz operation dead! At Field Day, I couldn't make one single contact above 2 meters, or on 222! Now, maybe there's more people looking for contacts below 2 meters because of better propogation, but why weren't the local yokels on FM?