Ham Radio Still Growing In the iStuff Age

vhfer writes "From NPR comes this story about old-school communications in the age of Twitter: 'Only a few years ago, blogs listed ham radio alongside 35 mm film and VHS tape as technologies slated to disappear. They were wrong. Nearly 700,000 Americans have ham radio licenses — up 60 percent from 1981, a generation ago. And the number is growing.' The article goes on to say that while there's plenty of 60-plus year old hams, there's also a growing contingent of teens. I just met a 14-year-old, licensed in 2009. Getting rid of the Morse Code requirement sure helped in that regard. So does the fact that the test questions (and the answers) are freely available, legally, on the Internet. Study, take the test, hang the license certificate on the wall. Your geek cred gets an immediate boost. And who knows? Maybe the next time there's a Haiti-earthquake-sized disaster, you'll be one of the thousands of ham volunteers who provided the only communications in/out of Haiti for weeks following the quake, not to mention all of the tactical comms the country had for nearly a month."

Comments

For one thing...

[Bananatree3]

With Ham Radio, it is possible to:

Talk with people around the world by bouncing signals off the moon

On "HF" or shortwave radio, you can talk to people around the world with 100watts of RF power. 100w is probably 1/3 or less of the power used to run your desktop computer.

It's probably one of the geekiest of the geek hobbies. You can play with electronics and build and repair radios. You can interface radios with computers and send and receive messages over radio. You can play with RF and antenna theory, flexing those math muscles to enhance your signal.

You get to talk without infrastructure

Cool people from around the world to talk with, and you never know who you're going to talk to next. Kind of like fishing

There's a few...

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

1. Talking with people from across the globe.
2. Various sorts of technical challenges involved making a radio contact with somebody very far away. Sometimes natural challenges (distance, propagation), sometimes self-imposed (deliberate use of a low-power transmitter, bouncing radio signals off the moon or meteor trails).
3. If you're into DIY electronics, ham radio is heaven. You can build, design and/or use your own equipment. Lately, this extends also to software, too--if you're interested in DSP, software radios can be pretty neat; if you're interested in networking technology, likewise packet radio can be fun.
4. It's occasionally useful when regular communications channels go down.

Re:As someone totally ignorant in this stuff

[Tobor the Eighth Man]

Well, in addition to the simple chatting thing and the gee-whiz hobbyist angle, it can be an extremely valuable resource in emergency response scenarios. Many areas have volunteer emergency networks comprised of ham radio operators that could relay information and coordinate response efforts if the official response groups are overwhelmed or disorganized.

Re:As someone totally ignorant in this stuff

[zentec]

The draw depends upon the person. Many hams are drawn to the hobby by building their own equipment and/or antennas. There's a lot of math and theory that goes into building transmitters and creating good antenna designs. Not to mention, the pride of breaking through a pile of amateurs wanting to talk to someone in a foreign country and mentioning that you are using only 100 watts into your antenna that is a "homebrew 7 element beam at 50 feet".

Some modes in amateur radio require above average skills that the test doesn't cover; things like moonbounce, long distance microwave or satellites (hams have their own low-earth orbit satellites).

There's also the computer aspect of it. Hams have developed their own digital modes that use very low power and require DSP techniques to use, as well as software defined radios.

The hobby has a lot of interesting facets other than just talking to your friends on the radio. These are what keeps it going in an age when it's easier to just fire up Yahoo IM or use a cell phone.

Back in after 20 year break

[Paul Rose]

Why ham radio?
I'm back into Ham Radio after a 20 year lapse.
I got my license back when you had to travel to an FCC office for the test and pass a 5, 13, or 20 word per minute listening test for morse-code.
It is a great nerd hobby, especially if you get into the do-it-yourself aspect, digital modes, or especially software defined radio.
I can buy a SoftRock kit (google it) for less than $15 that does the initial downconversion and lets me use my soundcard+computer to visualize a large chunk of a single band, decode CW (morse), various digital modes and SSB voice.
WSPR mode allows you to put your computer to work sending and decoding ultra low power (milliwatts) + ultra low bandwidth (seconds per bit) to communicate around the world on battery power.
Ham Radio definitely took a hit from the internet and cellphones providing cheap and easy worldwide communications. Removing the morse code proficiency requirement and volunteer examimations has helped bring it back somewhat (I never minded the morse part, but it was a stumbling block for some who where in all other respects a perfect fit for the hobby).
If I was just interested in communicationI probably would not have come back to the hobby, but the nerd part is just too fun.
I'm currently using a cheap Direct Digital Synthesis chip (google DDS) interfaced with an Atmel microcontroller (google Arduino) as the basis of a do-it-yourself low power transceiver for digital modes.
Nerd heaven...
73 - Paul - K0EET

Moonbounce

[Bananatree3]

For those of you interested in Moonbounce, google "eme moonbounce". EME is Ham Radio slang for bouncing signals of the moon, and it comes from Earth-Moon-Earth. These signals are in the VHF or UHF frequency sections. Most notably, it is in the 144Mhz (2m) or 432Mhz Mhz.

Sometimes you also get fun stuff like what's coming up in a week. The Arecibo radio astronomy antenna (huge white dish) is bouncing signals off the moon and listening for ham radio operators in a week or two

Granted, it takes a fairly big antenna and lots of power to bounce signals off the moon. However, there are computer programs that allow for slow text transmission (think really slow modem) via moonbounce, reducing the antenna and power requirements.

Re:As someone totally ignorant in this stuff

[viridari]

An amateur radio license is a license to make use of large swaths of radio spectrum set aside just for hams. There are many things that you can do within that spectrum, including experimentation of new ways of using spectrum that others haven't tried yet.

Most obviously, you can talk to people using your voice and a microphone.

Or you can talk to them with a number of digital modes, with morse code being one of the most widely known examples, but other computer-based digital modes also enjoying much popularity.

You can study theory on RF propagation on different parts of the radio spectrum using beacons.

You can transmit a TV signal from a model rocket.

You can install an APRS beacon in your car and use it like a LoJack if your car is ever stolen.

You can fly a radio controlled airplane really really far because your transmitter can legally greatly exceed the range of the stuff most non-licensed people get to play with.

You can fly a weather balloon and transmit photographs and telemetry back to you.

You can work on improving Search And Rescue communications capabilities.

You can provide direct vital assistance in the aftermath of a natural disaster by coordinating radio communication between government agencies and NGO's in ways that none of them have the internal capabilities to handle.

You can play some really cool uber geeky games like "fox hunting" where you put your radio direction finding skills to the test. If you like geocaching, you'll get a real kick out of this.

You can send data over vast distances wirelessly using more powerful transmitters than the unlicensed public on spectrum that is reserved for your use as a licensed amateur radio operator.

This can just keep going. You can push the envelope, developing new technologies, or you can master antiquated skills on vintage equipment. Or you can just jabberjaw on the drive to work with other hams. Whatever floats your boat.

Re:FP

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Isn't it ironic that Ham Radio is meant to be a communications system for amateurs?

Not really, no. Your Ham Radio license is granted with the understanding that you will not conduct business on it. You cannot, for example, get on 2 meters and say "anybody wanna buy my telescope? $50!"

And then there's QRP

[rickb928]

For instance:

Building a rig that fits into an Altoids tin. talking around the world on 5 watts power, for for a real challenge, just one watt.

This pretty much requires Morse Code, but if you can key out enough to tell people you just picked this up and are learning code on the fly, you will get postcards from all over the world from people who also communicated with you using barely enough power to give you a mild tingle. Morse Code is essential because you can make out chirps and tones from the static, where voice would just be a waste of time. The way the FCC is letting things go, I would not be surprised if they let you use a keyboard and forget paddling entirely.

Hey, simple codes were good enough for Pioneer, Mariner, etc. That's geek cred - talking around the world with less power than you would need to read the postcard with...

I got my First Class for a job fixing CB radios, and got hooked a little bit back when code was required. I hated code. Helped a college FM station stay on the air for a little while. Being able to solder well got me into several circles, and I was building Heathkit rigs for people for a little while, cause they liked the perfect joints and wire ties I learned in the Air Force, when whire ties were waxed cord. I still think they are pretty, and I did a cabling job with about 200 drops once all in flat nylon lace, just to show the guys how nice exposed cabling could look. But that was then. Now there are so many great kits out there, Amazing. I really ought to get back into it. Oh yeah, I let my ticket lapse when I got sidetracked by soccer and girls. Feh.