The rich history of ham radio culture
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
Is Ham that hobby? I am genuinely asking. A few days ago a thread here had lots of people agreeing it was mostly old dudes being boring. But I like the idea that maybe I (in Europe) can talk to my friend (in the US) by bouncing radio waves off the moon, or some such, and not relying on intermediaries.
That said, everything you do in amateur radio is in the open. So if you want to talk to your European friend, only the Sun can prevent you, but anyone can listen.
Amateur radio is not for public use like public park. It is like a public golf course, where have to pay for membership and can only use it for certain things.
Also, amateur radio does not have that much spectrum for the bandwidths we expect for internet. That is what has kept the spectrum from being taken away. Much of the high frequenecy spectrum does have is shared with ISM bands.
You don't have to pay ongoing fees: the initial outlay in the USA is $35 for the license (you have to pass the exam) plus the cost for your equipment (~$70 for the cheaper HAM radios on Amazon), but after that there are no ongoing charges.
I did get my novice license (or whatever the lowest license is called) but never got an old borrowed radio to actually transmit. Then life kind of got in the way.
I keep meaning to get back into it, the sstv and various data networks are really cool. I really dig the analog tech.
In most other EU countries it's once off but the Dutch government wants money for everything.
If you want a "good" HT as an introduction to the hobby, then the Yaesu FT-65R or older FT-60R are both good.
A "do everything" (analog) radio might be the Yaesu VX-6R, which I previously owned. It excels on reception, and is a "tri-band" radio, but the extra band was not useful in my experience.
Just to clarify for people who might be interested-- this is not a perfect analogy in that you don't have to pay to participate in amateur radio. You have to pay a fee to take the license exams but it's a token amount, and you don't have to pay regularly to use any ham services that I know of. Apart from buying a radio, of course.
Not in every country or even always in the US. In Canada there is no government fees for ham radio, if the test giver wants to charge a fee, they can, but most do not.
In the US there are clubs that pay for new hams fees out of a fund for that purpose.
Depends on the band, for VHF, UHF and higher bands a country may make different decisions on what is not permitted. Canada has allowed encryption with published keys to be used for repeater access control in the past.
I've joined ARES: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_Radio_Emergency_Servic... - which coordinates to provide HAM support for emergency communications. If a big earthquake temporarily disables a chunk of communications infrastructure I can hopefully be useful!
About 30 years ago, the people I met who were into ARES seemed a bit weird — sorta a radio version of “preppers”. Maybe I was just in an area not prone to earthquakes…
Hams aren't "motley." They're well-organized. That's why they appear to you as "preppers."
I don't care about being "important". I'm more into the hobby for the technical side.
Ham radio is a great hobby. But like all hobbies, you get out of it what you put into it. "Old dudes being boring" for sure are a staple of the ham radio community, but if you come into it with prejudice, you probably won't have the experience you want or make many friends.
What are grumpy old men famous for? That's right, loudly complaining about things other people do and say. So when I see an HN or Reddit thread about ham radio complaining about all the old farts on the air, my mind melts from the overload of irony.
That aside, I don't think I would count on ham radio for subverting censorship but I guess it depends on what you mean. Laws vary by country but in the US and in most countries, you cannot broadcast to the general public, play music, encrypt your transmissions, or use ham radio frequencies for any business purpose.
A ham radio license is permission from your country's government to get on the air for the sake of playing with radio waves and communicating with other hams locally or around the globe without any further agenda. Bouncing signals off the moon is still a fair technical challenge but it has and can be done. But we also bounce signals off the Earth's ionosphere (in the HF bands) and through satellite repeaters, both of which are far easier.
I recommend looking into it and seeing where it takes you. There are plenty of resources online that will help you get started.
Ha, one of the great modern (and unsung) ironies of Amateur Radio can only be seen from today's perspective.
When I first got my amateur license decades ago long before the internet, amateurs would find themselves on the end of disparaging or pejorative jibes from those who weren't radio amateurs (but who—more often than not—were also family members) that went something to the effect 'heaven only knows how they manage to gabber and yabber on about such inconsequential garbage for so long' and other like comments.
Now Amateurs can revenge that wrong with a vengeance beyond comparison. All they have to do is to point to the almost infinite tons of inconsequential garbage on Social Media that far exceedes the sum total of all utterances ever made by Radio Amateurs by many orders of magnitude.
I've often wondered why Amateurs don't rub this fact home to the Great Unwashed with much glee
They probably have, but using a communications medium that only they ever use, so no one else knows or cares.
Ham magazines like QST and 73 published schematics and other how-to articles which amounted to an excellent education in practical electrical engineering. 73 magazine in particular was very technical -- it assumed you had good working knowledge of many common RF and audio circuits. Also, to get a ham license you needed to take a test demonstrating a good level of proficiency. For the lowest rung "novice" license you just had to demonstrate knowledge of Morse code at a slow but reasonable pace. For higher rungs of the achievement ladder like "advanced" or "extra" you needed to pass an exam about electronics as well as receive and send Morse code at a fast clip. The license presented a barrier to entry which didn't exist in CB radio -- which some hams looked down upon as a cesspool of unwashed, technically illiterate bozos.
My exposure to ham radio really started in the 1970s since my dad had been a ham playing with homebuilt radios since he was a kid in the 1930s. In the '70s the hobby was trifurcating. On one hand were the hard-core guys who built their own rigs, sometimes for the challenging high-frequency bands. Some also participated in designing and launching a ham-radio satellite via the ARRL. Early forms of digital encoding over radio were also big. Those guys were the real engineering types, and I admired them. On the other hand, commercial outfits were selling ready-to-use radios ... no engineering skills needed. In the middle were guys assembling and using stuff from Heathkit -- a great way to learn about electronics.
The ham hobby has been fading away for many years. I think the thrill of building a radio and then talking to somebody on a different continent with it has diminished in the face of cheap international calling, cell phones, Skype, etc. The only thing left for hams to do these days involves disaster relief -- and the remaining ham mag QST plays up that theme (or at least did the last time I looked). Meanwhile, the young nerds who used to take up ham radio now occupy themselves with various open-source software projects. I suppose that's natural.
> For higher rungs of the achievement ladder like "advanced" or "extra" you needed to pass an exam about electronics as well as receive and send Morse code at a fast clip.
The General license (which I got) required 13 wpm. I think I read somewhere that they still broadcast Morse code practice every night.
The Extra was 20 wpm. I don't remember "Advanced."
There is apparently still a thriving CW community, and some of them use auto-keying now, so you don't need the manual dexterity any more.
The point is that the ham radio hobby is very intertwined with the electrical engineering profession. It's very technical ... not just a bunch of guys talking to each other over the radio (although it's that too).
The Novice test was something else. 20 questions. 5 WPM code. I was thrilled when it came in the mail. 40 Meter CW, look out.
Huh, perhaps where you are but I've never heard any of note. AR is pretty clean in that respect, self-policing works very well.
PS: Sorry about that damn typo, I must kill autocorrect.
It's a great hobby if you are in it for the actual tech itself. Check out e.g. https://pysdr.org/ for a nice introduction. There is https://www.rtl-sdr.com/ to get you started and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Radio for more advanced stuff.
You don't need a license to listen!
Also, people are doing some crazy stuff: https://pietern.github.io/goestools/guides/minimal_receiver....
I disagree, it's much more that, far too much to discuss here. A starting point would be to check the ARRL and RSGB handbooks which provide a reasonably comprehensive overview of AR. (Google each for more info.)
There are many more specialist books if you want even more in-depth information.
[1] ARRL Handbook for Radio Communications 100th Edition Six-Volume Set:
https://home.arrl.org/action/Store/Product-Details/productId...
Old guys? Tube radios? You got my attention.
Almost everything is now well beyond economic repair. It's all about emotions and nostalgia for almost all of the gear.
I no longer jump when something smokes or pops, and I know it's usually a good sign, as it helps you figure out where the trouble is. ;-)
I've learned to hate Silver Mica capacitors, and came up with a technique to help track down the noisy ones. (Take out all of the tubes, leave B+ on... measure the voltage across all the resistors, most of them will read 0 volts, if you do get a voltage, check the schematic and see if it's reasonable, if not... there's current flowing to a bad silver-mica cap through it. It really cut down on the time to find issues)
Collins 30S1 amplifiers.... those will always command fear and extreme caution. 3000 volts at a solid Amp will easily burn off limbs, and it will hurt like hell as you watch it happen to you. Or... it'll just kill you, and burn your corpse.
That's the best type of faultfinding, much faster and less tedious than tracking down subtle faults. Locating the source of burning smells and touching resistors to detect excessive heat work well too.
Never had much problem with silver micas, paper and electrolytics are usually much more troublesome.
Re the Collins, I'm very glad I started with high voltage stuff, if it had been the other way around and I'd started with semiconductors I'd likely have electrocuted myself, getting used to low voltage first wouldn't have been a good idea. As it was I was bitten several times, once so badly that I was essentially paralyzed for quite some minutes. That was 850V.
Don't get me wrong, I am fascinated by tube computers. Yet that has more to do with being interested in modern computers and having a desire to learn about how we got to where we are today. Without that interest in the contemporary, the historic would have little relevance to me.
It's somewhat unfortunate (but understandable) that the rep ham radio gets is based on a few old dudes talking on HF. Whereas the reality is that the most popular mode in ham radio by far is digital, not voice (namely FT8).
Now, do you want a hobby that lets you explore the physics of antennas, how our atmosphere actually works, build your own experimental low power QRP rig just to see how far you can throw a CW(Morse) signal with a tiny bit of juice, or maybe help set up comms for local events or emergencies? Yes, ham radio is that hobby.
Callsigns are generally spelled using the nato Alphabet though.
However people do have local chats and ragchews in the local language. It's more the contests that are English only (but that doesn't go any further than "59 good copy. Next."). Which is why I hate contesting, I find It so boring that nobody has time to speak. I have no drive to be a "winner" so I never care about the number of contacts.
In fact most people in the ham demographic here would speak very limited English anyway due to not learning it at school in their days.
Doesn’t help that the HAM community will more than happily snitch on you if you goof around too much, and licences mean your full dox are publicly searchable (at least in America).
Also, a valid address for your license can be a PO Box if you care about your personal details being online.
I'm sure he's long gone now so I don't mind giving his name: Julian Gannon. His call was K9BCJ which he claimed stood for Better Call Julian.
Thanks, Mr. Gannon! I hope you're working the whole galaxy now.
(Actually, though, ham conversations were excruciatingly boring: how are you receiving me? You're coming through loud & clear here. What equipment are you using?)
Looks like he passed in 1979, at the ripe old age of 90, we should all be so lucky!
I always think of him when I see ham crop up online. The dish in their back yard was enormous. But yeah, in my head, ham is basically populated with guys like this, cranky old men who start ball slide part companies and smoke 2 packs a day
Don't get me wrong, I've come across a lot of wonderful, truly smart hams; but I've also witnessed many hams who really never should have gotten half-smart.
Hams are amateur electricians, hilarity /will/ ensue and it won't all be funny.
Some of the best RF guys I know, have no formal training - because there is important theory around RF - it doesn't always work like projected.
In my industry a Ham Ticket has taken the place of a GROL as something employers look upon favorably, because it means you generally should already have a foundation of RF theory.
As in, avoid? Or want?
Electricity is unforgiving and a lot of the safety rules in licenses above Technician try to instill that fact.
Joking aside, there is a minor risk of RF burn if you do really stupid things that you have to learn not to do to get a license. I can’t really imagine someone getting hurt by the radios themselves.
Contrast this with the flood of new college graduates who have minimal interest in engineering, yet want the high salaries that tech was famous for (until recently).
This is sad and I'd love to have my hobby back, but I don't see a way I could change this.
This type of thing usually requires curious people. And the smartest tech people I know, are the ones that are the most curious.
Even with Technician you may be able to do POTA or SOTA successfully on VHF.
DMR has a lot of traffic and you can get a decent DMR handy-talky for about $150 so it's worthwhile.
But the heydays are over. During the 80s/early 90s it was really hard to break into the chat when I was driving to work. So busy. Back then there were no legal issues with speaking into a microphone while driving either. So it made the morning traffic much more fun.
But then the internet came and the whole "speak to people all over the world for free!" thing really lost its shine. The home computer before that did a lot already too (until they came on the scene pretty much all geeks were hams)
But I do agree, the real meat of ham radio is when you get your General and get on HF. It opens up the door to the rest of the world, not just your local city.
Ted Arroway: I don't know, Sparks. But I guess I'd say if it is just us... seems like an awful waste of space.
I first got started in amateur radio with my novice license in 1966. We always called it "ham radio" or "amateur radio" or said I was a ham radio operator but no one ever called it HAM or spelled it in all caps. On HN, at least, I see it every time the subject is brought up. And it seems to be a fairly recent event.
The same as people talking about hams "broadcasting". It's very obvious anyone talking like that is not a ham, but they don't know why that's incorrect. Basically you don't know what you don't know.
"Whether you’re a first-time buyer or a seasoned HAM, we hope you’ll find our products, prices, content and resources to be just what you need."
Taking a Radio Camping
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41084061
And not as recently (4 months ago):
UV-K5 is the most hackable handheld ham radio yet (including via WebUSB)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39850972
$30 https://amzn.com/dp/B0C9TVSYYM + $10 cable https://amzn.com/dp/B0B9S7N2LQ
I take a little portable "truSDX" with me in my travels, and enjoy making contacts on FT8 and CW with it using a wire I hang out of my hotel window. In the past year, I've done this from Tokyo to Tel Aviv.
Ever worry about being of interest to foreign intelligence I ask only half joking!
Ever done it in Moscow?!
https://www.arrl.org/bilateral-reciprocal-agreements
(It's also not a good idea for U.S. Citizens to go there right now.)
Removal of morse has allowed far more people to reach more technical levels of ham radio. And, in my anedotcial experience, dropping the requirement hasn't impacted the popularity of morse code. I'd wager its more popular than ever because of how many more hams have HF access compared to limiting access to folks who learned code just to pass a test and to promptly throw away their key.
Fear not. Code will be with us for decades to come.
As someone who learned woodworking I'd not like to make a wagon wheel without guidance from a master.
One of the problems of inexperience is not being able to appreciate the subtleties, and how many seemingly disparate things relate in ways that end up being important.
Now I'm an Extra, and have been licensed long enough to join the QCWA.
You can be as connected to the past as you want in this hobby. It's at the point where we have people getting remote islands on the air by driving a boat onto shore that has a radio and an amplifier, raising an antenna, and then people can operate from either a boat anchored off shore or back home over Starlink. And they're doing it in Morse code, so you have this nice blend of the old and the new.
I obtained my license many years ago whilst I was still at school and I've developed many friendships with those within the Amateur community, and despite me not having been on air for many years, many of those friendships forged in the days when I frequented the airwaves have endured to this day. In fact many have turned out to be more rock-solid and stable than just about every other friendship I've had.
I'm not alone, when questioned many amateur radio operators will express exactly the same view.
Why this is so is perhaps up for debate, but I'd put it down to a number of reasons: Amateur Radio is unique amongst hobbies in that it operates in a very different way to most other hobbies perhaps the most significant of which is that it requires a government-issued license before one can operate on air—and to obtain that one has to demonstrate both technical and operational proficiency in radiocommunications by way of passing examination. There's no shortcut or other way around to obtain an Amateur license, as passing the examination is a mandatory requirement.
Of itself, that requirement alone binds amateurs together. Thus not everyone can become a member of this unique club, as it's only through the involved procedure of passing the Amateur examination that one is able to be initiated into the Amateur fraternity.
One's solidarity with the the Amateur movement becomes even more solid after one learns the rules, procedures and etiquette of Amateur Radio culture. In a sense once one becomes an Amateur one then becomes indoctrinated into this long and esteemed culture that owes many of its origins to government-necessitated rules and procedures—rules that have still deeper origins in that they derive from ITU—International Telecommunications Union regulations.
Having to conform to ITU regulations is perceived by Amateurs more as an necessity rather than an imposition, as by the time one becomes an amateur radio operator, one knows that he or she—along with others—has the privileged responsibility of ensuring that the electromagnetic spectrum is properly managed. Not only is that responsibly not seen an imposition by Amateurs but rather it's seen by them as a necessity, as proper management of the spectrum is vital for all radiocommunications services to operate in an optimal way. Mismanagement of the spectrum would result in interference between services and from external sources, radio regulations and procedures ensure that interference is kept to a minimum.
Being part of the worldwide fraternity that sees itself as having such an important responsibly—a responsibility that doesn't flow from being paid but out of the love of it and of one's hobby—further strengthens bonds between Amateurs.
Even though I've not operated on air for many years I still consider myself to be a member of this tightknit community. Once an Amateur radio operator it's forever.
Oh, and it's easy to exchange passwords by steganography with amateurs who you've not seen or had contact with in decades. Just fill in the gaps:
80x-12AXx-5x3Gx-12xU7-4CX2xxB, and so on. Right, they just roll off the tongue.
Quick and dirty and not that secure but very practical at short notice. :-)