by Thomas (K4SWL) When I meet a newly minted amateur radio operator, I often start by telling them, “You couldn’t be entering our community at a better time!” And I really mean th…
For me it is in part what you said. Radio birdwatching is actually pretty fun just bumping around the spectrum to see what you can find. There is the communication aspect of course. There is a bit of an emergency preparation aspect to it too. You can also do things like listen to satellites and get images from them or use the ISS as a repeater to get contacts from much further away than usual. It is a very broad hobby to get into. I am the youngest operator by probably 30 years in my area which is an interesting experience but it is cool to be able to operate old analog technology since I also grew up in the internet age (mostly). The entry price point into the hobby is relatively low now. I spent maybe 50 USD when I first started, unfortunately as you get more skills and interest the cost for equipment to do things you wanna do definitely goes up.
Thank you, that makes sense. I’ve always been a fan of analog technology (although I never really got the motivation to actually look into it seriously), so I can imagine that being fun.
It does sound pretty interesting, I didn’t know you can get such a long range contacts. I can imagine it is a pretty nice community!
Amateur Radio can also be a digital mode of communication. AX.25 as an example, is probably the most common protocol for packet radio communication.
Where normally you would speak into the radio and talk with someone you can instead use a TNC that would produce digital tones (much like dial-up internet) that can then be used to send digital information.
This is a gross simplification of the process and I am sure I have messed up part of the description. But as an example of what you can do with that is running a forum/bbs only with radios, sending emails over radio, and sending images over radio, etc…
I am a US operator so my advice will be based on that but this is the path I took: get yourself either a baofeng GT-5R or UV-5R, both are around 20 USD on Amazon. Don’t listen to baofeng haters, they are perfectly fine to start with and in fact I still use a couple of baofengs for various things. These radios are handhelds (also called HTs) and are low power but will cover the 2M and 70 CM amateur bands. With those you can look on a website called repeater book to see if there are repeaters near you. Repeaters essentially re transmit peoples radio traffic on a specific frequency for longer range. If you have one near you, tune to the listen frequency whenever you have the chance and see if people are talking. It may take some time depending on the number of operators in your area.You can also track the ISS on N2yo.com and attempt to listen in to the radio repeater onboard as it passes over you. Those will be amateurs from potentially hundreds of miles away talking on that repeater. You can look up something like ISS radio repeater on YouTube for more information on that. Or you could simply scan through frequencies automatically and see what you find. I guarantee you will hear some sort of signal if you do, though it may not be actual people. If you had some more money to spend you could get something like a baofend BF-F8HP (about 60 USD on Amazon). That is a triband radio that will get the 2 bands I mentioned early, but also will be able to pick up air traffic and ATC towers if you are in to aircraft watching. All of that would give you a little taste without spending too terribly much. To be clear though without a license you can only listen on these frequencies never transmit, unless in case if life or death danger. I know people to transmit without licenses and don’t really care, that is their business but it is technically a crime.
For me it is in part what you said. Radio birdwatching is actually pretty fun just bumping around the spectrum to see what you can find. There is the communication aspect of course. There is a bit of an emergency preparation aspect to it too. You can also do things like listen to satellites and get images from them or use the ISS as a repeater to get contacts from much further away than usual. It is a very broad hobby to get into. I am the youngest operator by probably 30 years in my area which is an interesting experience but it is cool to be able to operate old analog technology since I also grew up in the internet age (mostly). The entry price point into the hobby is relatively low now. I spent maybe 50 USD when I first started, unfortunately as you get more skills and interest the cost for equipment to do things you wanna do definitely goes up.
Thank you, that makes sense. I’ve always been a fan of analog technology (although I never really got the motivation to actually look into it seriously), so I can imagine that being fun.
It does sound pretty interesting, I didn’t know you can get such a long range contacts. I can imagine it is a pretty nice community!
Amateur Radio can also be a digital mode of communication. AX.25 as an example, is probably the most common protocol for packet radio communication.
Where normally you would speak into the radio and talk with someone you can instead use a TNC that would produce digital tones (much like dial-up internet) that can then be used to send digital information.
This is a gross simplification of the process and I am sure I have messed up part of the description. But as an example of what you can do with that is running a forum/bbs only with radios, sending emails over radio, and sending images over radio, etc…
Radio is neat
Can you point us toward an intro activity and equipment?
I am a US operator so my advice will be based on that but this is the path I took: get yourself either a baofeng GT-5R or UV-5R, both are around 20 USD on Amazon. Don’t listen to baofeng haters, they are perfectly fine to start with and in fact I still use a couple of baofengs for various things. These radios are handhelds (also called HTs) and are low power but will cover the 2M and 70 CM amateur bands. With those you can look on a website called repeater book to see if there are repeaters near you. Repeaters essentially re transmit peoples radio traffic on a specific frequency for longer range. If you have one near you, tune to the listen frequency whenever you have the chance and see if people are talking. It may take some time depending on the number of operators in your area.You can also track the ISS on N2yo.com and attempt to listen in to the radio repeater onboard as it passes over you. Those will be amateurs from potentially hundreds of miles away talking on that repeater. You can look up something like ISS radio repeater on YouTube for more information on that. Or you could simply scan through frequencies automatically and see what you find. I guarantee you will hear some sort of signal if you do, though it may not be actual people. If you had some more money to spend you could get something like a baofend BF-F8HP (about 60 USD on Amazon). That is a triband radio that will get the 2 bands I mentioned early, but also will be able to pick up air traffic and ATC towers if you are in to aircraft watching. All of that would give you a little taste without spending too terribly much. To be clear though without a license you can only listen on these frequencies never transmit, unless in case if life or death danger. I know people to transmit without licenses and don’t really care, that is their business but it is technically a crime.