Comment by progman32 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by progman32 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

(Not a ham - but thinking of becoming one): Are you referring to the exam, or something else?

I find entrance exams are almost always orthogonal to actual performance (like tech interviews). I think it should be limited to verifying an understanding of safety and the law only. Everything else can be quickly and easily looked up if needed. If I make a fool of myself on the air that's on me.

Take a look at the question pool: http://www.arrl.org/files/file/VEs/2019-2023%20General%20Cla...

Say we limit the exam to subelements G0 (Safety), G1 (Commission's Rules), G2 (Operating Procedures), and G4 (Amateur Radio Practices). What's the downside? Why are we asking people about Digital circuits; amplifiers and oscillators (G7B), Analog and digital integrated circuits (ICs); memory; I/O devices; microwave ICs (MMICs); display devices; connectors; ferrite cores (G6B), etc? I agree it's useful information, but if all I want to do is operate my radio, why gatekeep on this other knowledge? Is my incomplete understanding blinding me?

The reason to gatekeep on that knowledge is because the Amateur license is unique in giving you the legal authority to design and build your own transmitters and antennas, and to operate on dozens of bands from 135 kHz to 275 GHz and up, at powers up to 1500 watts. If you just want to operate a store-bought radio, there are much easier ways to go about it, e.g., MURS, GMRS, FRS, CB.

Also the Technician-class ham license has an easier test than the General-class one linked above. It's certainly reasonable to start with that one.

There is never a legitimate reason to gatekeep knowledge.

Every time I hear this pearl clutching from hams I like to remind them that the biggest threat to their hobby isn't rouge transmitters and antennas or someone stepping on their transmission - but nobody giving a shit about them anymore.

If you keep new people from entering the hobby it will completely die off and eventually all that spectrum will be reallocated to useful things like cellular.

Gatekeeping on the knowledge. Not gatekeeping the knowledge.

Yes, it’s a lot like fireworks as a hobby. Everyone has easy and open access to the basics ie walkie-talkie/bottle rockets, it’s only the higher powered versions that require a license.

For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Radio_Service

That's fair, and yet the exam doesn't seem to differentiate on what I want to work on. If I don't know about how ICs work or can't exactly remember what the speed of light is, should that prevent me from getting a license? What if I'm mostly interested in SDR? Should that prevent me from being part of the safety net that hams claim to provide? What about participating in other aspects of the hobby, like DX, general socializing, operating a relay, communicating with space hardware, etc?

I guess I'm unclear what the concrete value of gatekeeping on sections other than the ones I listed are.

Most SDRs are RX only so there's zero need for a license for them. As for the other points, the Technician license is super easy and you can pass it with minimal study.

If you can't pass the Technician exam, you'd actually be hard pressed to meaninvcully participate in those activities you listed. If you don't know the regulations around operating a repeater how are you going to operate a repeater? If you don't understand just a little about radio propagation how are you going to actually do any DXing or communicate with space hardware?

Ham licenses exist because radio transmissions affect other people and not just yourself. If you don't know what you're doing to can keep me, your neighbor, from participating in the hobby because your TX power is too high or your antenna is just an untuned jamming device.

> (Not a ham - but thinking of becoming one)

Do it! I used "Ham Radio Prep"(google, it's the first result). It was really informative for me. They have a linear lesson plan with videos/tests to help you learn what you need, and then retain that information. After it was done, I felt very prepared for the exam, and the actual exam went very smoothly. As a side effect, I learned a lot about RF that I was ignorant of in the past, and thoroughly enjoyed the entire process. Can't recommend getting into amateur radio enough, it was one of those moments where I realized there was a giant gap in my general how-radio-works knowledge.

The nerd in me finds the idea of knowing how to operate a radio vaguely appealing, but once you can do so and are licensed, what do you actually do with it? Just like, talk to a couple other guys about... what they had for lunch today? Is it just a way to communicate with people? Once you've invested the hours and money, what do you have on the other side? I ask this question entirely out of ignorance, sincerely I mean no malice with this.

> talk to a couple other guys about... what they had for lunch today?

Sometimes we talk about the weather, haha. The most common time I use my radio is during bad weather, especially if there are tornado warnings nearby. There are [tornado] spotters using the same local repeater in our area, and sometimes it can be comforting to hear them report a tornado is moving away from you, or dissipating. Otherwise, I think we don't have much to talk about until there is an emergency of some kind.

One thing I like isn't something you need a license to do, but a radio is a great way to listen to existing traffic outside the bands a normal "scanner" would supply. Everything from drive-thru speakers to casino security uses VHF/UHF frequencies, so with a decent dual band handheld you can listen to everything, which can be amusing sometimes.

Another fun bit, is you can look up registered/reserved frequencies on the FCC website. You can't [legally] broadcast on these, but it can be interesting to see all these reserved frequencies and listen in. Sometimes you'll hear chatter among commercial farmers, other times electrical linemen...it's a mixed bag. I also tune into the local county/city emergency frequencies from time to time. I live in a very small rural area, so if you hear sirens, typically I can turn on my radio and alternate between the fire/police/ems frequencies and find out what the sirens were for.

there's a lot of variety out there. you can spend your entire ticket dorking out on digital modes (esp if you go for general+ and have access to lower bands) like FT8, FT4, Olivia, WSPR [0] to see how far out you can get on as little power as possible and so on.

Or if you want to ease into it, you can get a ham radio w/o a license, or cheap SDR and try to receive and decode weather sats, etc [1]

making tiny WSPR boards and things like APRS [2] interest me more than ragchewing or nets on 40 or 80 meters most of the time

forgot my favorite, amateur SSTV (analog baby!) - can see some analog and hybrid (easylink over internet.. cheating) http://www.g0hwc.com/

0 - http://wsprd.vk7jj.com/ (click search then map to get an idea)

1 https://www.rtl-sdr.com/using-50-lines-of-python-code-to-dec...

2 https://aprs.fi/

I just finished running the Hood to Coast relay race (https://hoodtocoast.com). One of my team's runners followed someone else down the wrong fork of the road, and ended up miles off course in an area with zero cell phone coverage. The volunteer hams helping with emergency communications for the race were critical for coordinating the search. We made sure they didn't have to pay for their own beer at the finish line party.

Let me think of some things I've done recently.

1) Helped someone launch, track and recover a high-altitude balloon. We used APRS on the 2M band as the primary mode of tracking. You can see balloons in the air right now at https://tracker.habhub.org/

2) Carry in and set up a low-power radio and antenna at a riverfront park, then make contacts with people at home and at other parks. You can read more about that at https://parksontheair.com/ . I'm hoping to try a mountain instead of a park soon, see https://www.sota.org.uk/

3) Get up at odd hours of the night to try to make contact with amateurs in Hawaii on some bands and modes I haven't used to communicate with that state yet. I'm tracking this for my worked all states award from the ARRL, and did it recently because it was the https://www.hawaiiqsoparty.org/. that's an example of one of the many contests that exist in amateur radio.

4) Listen in on a regional HF net taking reports about conditions in areas affected by Hurricane Ida and relaying them to govt agencies as appropriate.

5) Listen in on a local 2M repeater where I heard other hams discussing their lives and hobbies related and unrelated to amateur radio.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com