Hacker News Reader

Comment by alostpuppy | Hacker News Reader

How does one get started?

A lot of people will tell you to study for the technician exam, take the test, and buy a Baofeng handheld radio. The end result of that is usually that the new licensee keys up a local repeater a few times, doesn't find a community they want to be a part of, and the radio collects dust.

Instead, I suggest finding local ham clubs and seeking out experience with different parts of the hobby. Find people who chase DX (long distance contacts) on shortwave. Find the contesters, people who compete to see who can make the most contacts meeting some condition in a given period of time. Find the parks/summits on the air people, who go to parks and summits to set up portable stations and make contacts. Find the fox hunters, people who compete to find hidden radio beacons. Find the people with VHF/UHF rovers, vans with bit directional antennas mounted. Find people who communicate with satellites. Find people who bounce signals off the moon.

If your experience with any of that excites you for more, study for your license and dive in. I'd highly recommend getting your general class license instead of technician. It's not all that much harder to get and it opens up the shortwave bands.

As someone who listens but doesn't transmit, some of the most fun is actually chasing shortwave pirates around 6.950 MHz. There are a lot of fun radio shows that people put on, and I guess the FCC doesn't seem to care too much what happens below 40m. It might take some of the fun out of it, but it would be really cool to see some of that legalized as a form of amateur non-commercial music broadcast.

If you want to get licensed I found HamStudy's[1] learning method the most efficient use of my time and was able to breeze through Technician and General class. Their "Find a Session"[2] page makes it easy and inexpensive to take the test(s) remotely too.

[1]: https://hamstudy.org

[2]: https://hamstudy.org/sessions

Check out software defined radio. If you find it interesting, being a ham might appeal to you.

It's different for everyone. For me, ten years ago, I got interested in quadcopters back when making them yourself was the norm. There is a lot of radio involved, especially at long range. That sent me down the rabbit hole.

There is a kindly person on YouTube you might watch: KB9VBR. He operates out of US parks. A lot. Vast numbers of contacts for that sort of operation. He sells antennas on EBay as well.

If you can find a HamFest in your area (they tend to pick up around the summer months) that's a great place to start and maybe meet a local Ham. If you know someone with a license you can operate at their station and under their call sign with their supervision and pick up a lot of the protocols and what the restrictions on popular bands are.

Picking up a Technical License or General License exam prep book is a good way to learn a lot of the radio and electronics technology too.

Go to arrl.org and join up. Read both their magazines every month. Locate your local ham group and start going to their meetings. They will help you to quickly get a license.

What happens next depends on your interests. The choices are vast and interesting.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com