Foundations of Amateur Radio

///////////////////////////////////////////
The joy of Amateur Radio

Posted: 05 Nov 2016 10:00 AM PDT


Foundations of Amateur Radio

Last week over dinner I was chatting with a friend about Amateur Radio in a
discussion about things that take your fancy. I was attempting to explain
what it specifically was about this hobby that keeps me coming back. I
talked about invention, about exploration, about fishing and catching that
elusive station, but looking back over that discussion it occurred to me
that none of that is what "does it" for me.

Sure, those things are part of it, but it's not what makes me turn on my
radio, what has my face light up in delight or allows me to get out of bed
in the middle of the night to explore the bands.

A brief phone call with another Amateur to wish him Happy Birthday twigged
me to what's going on. He asked me: "What's new in your world?", and my
answer, innocuous at best was: "Well, last weekend I heard a Japanese
station from my QTH."

In the past I've mentioned that I've made many contacts with Japan, looking
at my log, 63 of them, on 10m and 15m, so the fact that I heard Japan
wasn't particularly special. I don't recall the band on which I heard the
station, so that's not it either.

What was different was that I heard it at home, my QTH. The place where
there is S7 or higher noise all the time, where I cannot put up a full
antenna and make do with a dipole in the garage and a single band vertical
on the roof.

Looking back at the conversation it occurred to me that what I like about
Amateur Radio is the unexpectedness of it, the surprises that come your
way, like little gifts waiting to be unpacked. It reminded me of a journey
coming back from a club meeting last year when I spent the time going
through the entire frequency range of my radio.

There's quite a bit to visit. The radio in the car does 100 kHz through to
56 MHz as a single range, then has several other ranges. My hand-held is
capable of 500 kHz through 999 MHz. Between the two I have the ability to
pick up most of the stuff that's around.

If that's not enough, there are many online radio receivers to connect to
using all manner of different tools, the simplest to get running is
probably WebSDR, where you visit a web-page and pick out the frequency you
want to hear.

All this RF activity is happening all around us all the time. There's the
local Top-40 radio station, the talk back shows, the local community
stations, single frequency specialist broadcasters, the local public
transit authority, etc. etc. You never know what you're going to find and
what you're going to hear.

Many Amateurs I speak to started off as short-wave listeners. I had a
short-wave radio when I was growing up, but it never much did anything for
me. Now that I'm an Amateur and I understand what's happening to make those
distant signals arrive at my ear, I'm becoming the short-wave listener I
never was.

That's what I like about Amateur Radio. Unexpected gifts being shared
across the globe from people, cultures and experiences that bring us all
together.

For me, Amateur Radio is about the thirst for curiosity, the never ending
supply of wonder and the joy in hearing them arrive un-announced at my
doorstep.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB
This posting includes a media file:
http://podcasts.itmaze.com.au/founda...teur-radio.mp3