Amateur radio information
Amateur radio is a great hobby for people who are somewhat technically inclined. Amateur radio requires a license to operate on the air. There are three different ham radio licenses: the technician class, the general class, and the extra class license. There are numerous study guides available for each license class. There is something for everyone in this hobby. Get some introduction ham radio info here.
Amateur radio is a fun hobby, there are many ways to enjoy it, including chatting with people all over the world, from home or in the car or laptop as in the last corner. There is a niche for everyone’s interest, whether it be telephone operation, morse code, slow scan television, moon bounce, satellite communications, or repeater operations. You can even get software to help you log your calls or plot the best way to talk to a certain country from anywhere, or to learn Morse code (no longer a requirement but still fun). Whenever there is an emergency anywhere in the world, ham radio is there to provide the necessary communications.
In the early days of telegraph operators, very good operators were called ‘hams’, so the name stuck to the radio amateurs. The goal of the early ‘hams’ was to build their own gear and adjust it to get as much distance as possible. Building your own computer is another factor in the hobby that requires some electronic knowledge as well as good circuit design. Many radio amateurs build and test antenna designs to increase their knowledge of radio wave propagation. It’s fun to design and build your own radio equipment and antennas. There are some kits available as well for those who want to build their kit but don’t have the required design knowledge.
Amateur radio equipment is available at varying prices at your local store, on eBay, and many places online, both new and used. There are kits that are affordable for the first time buyer. My first computer was a used one that I bought at a local store that accepted trade-ins. It worked great and I talked to Japan, Australia, Antarctica, Canada, and many countries in South America, all with very little power and an antenna I built myself with a piece of wire, a couple of insulators, and a pole. Man, it was fun. Amateur radio is a wonderful hobby for children and adults. There’s a lot of Amateur radio information online, go to your favorite search engine and type in ‘ham radio’ and you’ll get plenty of information to get you started.
