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Amateur Radio!

Amateur Radio, commonly known as "HAM Radio", is another one of my hobbies. It's, for the most part, an obsolete way to communicate with others around the world. It's "Obsolete" until an emergency like a natural disaster or the normal communication channels fail. That's when we come in and provide links between sites that cannot be serviced by other methods (ie: telephones/cellphones/landlines). A recent example includes the tragic events of Sept 11/2001 where the cellphone and landline systems got overloaded. Ham radio provided emergency communications and helped coordinate rescue efforts.

Where's the fun you ask? Well, between emergencies, we get to "talk" to each other about technical and personal matters. I enclose talk in quotes because voice is just one of the modes we use to communicate. We use Morse code, teletype, many chat like modes with computers and terminals and even live video. We bounce our radio emissions on satellites, the ionosphere, meteors and even the Moon! That bounced radio signal comes back and reaches many distant parts of the world. There are operators that run very low power output and still reach every corner of the world. Oh, by the way, there's no charge to make these calls.


Interested? Here's how to get started in Amateur Radio:

1 - Get licensed. The entry level exam is just 35 questions about operating rules and general electronics. The questions and answers pool is readily available so you can practice before the test. From there, we have other levels that include an easy Morse code test where you need only to copy 5 words per minute. This comes out to one word every 12 seconds; try taking 12 seconds to say the word 'Paris'.... slow huh? My license is K4JRG. This type of license is called "vanity" because I chose the letters and had to pay a premium for it: $12 for 10 years :-). J.R.G. are my initials.

You can certainly find all the information you need on the Net, for free. But if you need to be guided and have practice exams, etc., I highly recommend the NuTest and NuMorse programs.


2 - Get a radio. You can find used, very inexpensive radios that will let you gain experience with the technologies and help in emergencies (if you wish). These radios can go for as low as $50. A brand new walkie-talkie type radio can be had for $100 and you can take it with you all over town.

Here's my very modest station. You can certainly go higher but with what I have, I've made contacts with folks everywhere. First, my radio is the Yaesu FT-847. This guy has AM, FM, Single Side Band (SSB) and CW (Morse Code) modes. It puts out 100 watts and it's controllable via a PC. I'm writing my own software for it that I will give away when I finish. Check out the FT-847 users group. Since I'm in an odd living situation at the moment, I use a car antenna on top of my roof. Not the best way to go about it but it works for now. My antenna is the Yaesu ATAS-100. To power all this I use a Diamond Antenna switching power supply, model GZV4000. And that's it! Well I have my PC that I use with certain digital modes but that's optional.

Update: I now own a shiny new FT-1000MP Mark V. This baby puts out over 200 watts on all HF bands. To boost this a little more, I got me a second hand Yaesu FL-2100B amp that's putting out about 600 watts. Not bad as a general purpose bird fryer or operator sterilizer (RF exposure). I also installed a GAP Titan DX vertical antenna that's working superbly. I'm also working on this software.

Update 2: I've added a new HF amp from Alpha Power, the mighty Alpha 89 capable of a 1500 watts continuously. I also installed a small tower, the aluminum made Aluma T-35HN. It's a 35', crankup, self-supporting and very light tower that took less than 3 hours to install from measurements to cranking it up. It weighs only 100lbs so I did all the work myself. On top of the tower now rests a 3 element Yagi antenna from Fluidmotion called the SteppIR. This antenna adjusts its elements internally to the operating frequency making it a perfect match for any frequency between 13.500 Mhz and 54.000 Mhz. It's a great performer too. I use the Yaesu G-800 DXA rotator orient the antenna. Here's how my shack looks so far

3 - Get on the air. There are many places around the Internet you can find info on Amateur Radio. The official organization representing Amateur Radio in the US is the American Radio Relay League. Look for a local repeater and find some folks to talk to. A repeater is a special kind of radio that takes weak signals from a local range and amplifies them so they can reach farther.


Questions? You can search the Net or send me an email and I'll be happy to try and answer them. Here's my email address, disguised so spammers don't send me unsolicited emails: spam.me.not-k4jrg@k4jrg.org. Get it? Remove the "spam.me.not-" part and send the email to k4jrg.