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A Weekly F.A.Q. - What Is Ham Radio?
What is Ham Radio?
Ham Radio is a technical pursuit for those who are interested in the science of radio wave propagation and who are also interested in the way that their radios function. It has a long-standing tradition of providing a source of engineers who are born naturals. Ham Radio awakens in its aficionados a whole-life fascination with all things technical and gives an all-abiding curiosity to improve one's scientific knowledge. It's a great swimming pool, please dive in! This excitement causes a wish to share the experience with ones fellow man, and shows itself in the gentlemanly traditions of Ham Radio. Radio Hams are in a unique privileged position in that they can construct and operate their own equipment! No-one else has this privilege. Users, such as broadcasters, the po lice and armed farces, CBers and mobile phone users have to purchase ready-made gear. Manufacturers are not licensed to operate their gear. Radio Hams are qualified to design, build and then operate their own pieces of equipment. They do this with gusto, and also repair and modify their own equipment. This is a privilege well worth the effort to gain, and one to be jealously guarded. The excitement that drives a Radio Ham starts with relatively simple technologies at first, perhaps making his own Wimshurst machine and primary cells. Small pieces of test equipment follow, possibly multimeters and signal generators. Then comes receivers and transmitters. It is with the latter that communication with like-minded technically motivated people takes off. The scope for technical development grows with the years and now encompasses DSP and DDS. There is also a great deal of excitement in the areas of computer programming to be learnt and applied. The technical excitement motivates Radio Hams to compete with each other to determine who has designed and manufactured the best-quality station. This competitiveness is found in DXing, competitions and fox-hunts. -----OOOOO---- However, beware! A Ham Radio licence is such a desirable thing to have that there are large numbers of people who wish to be thought of as Radio Hams when, in fact, they are nothing of the kind! Usually such people are a variation of the CB Radio hobbyist; they buy their radios off the shelf and send them back to be repaired; they are not interested in technical discussion and sneer at those who are; they have no idea how their radios work inside and have no wish to find out; they are free with rather silly personal insults; they have not satisfied any technical qualification and their licences prevent the use of self-designed-and-built equipment. These CB types engage in the competitive activities with their Cheque-Book-purchased off-the-shelf radios in a forlorn effort to prove that they are Radio Hams. No _REAL_ Radio Hams are deceived by such people! |
"Polymath" wrote Ham Radio is a technical pursuit for those who are interested in the science of radio wave propagation and who are also interested in the way that their radios function. It has a long-standing tradition of providing a source of engineers who are born naturals. ============================= I do not wholely agree. There are many radio amateurs who are, or have been, professional engineers, not necessarily radio engineers, who contribute in their many various ways towards the hobby. 'Hobby' is perhaps not the best of descriptions. It is an international affair. ---- Reg, G4FGQ |
why is amateur radio not a hobby ?
Definition of a hobby A spare-time recreational pursuit "Reg Edwards" wrote in message ... "Polymath" wrote Ham Radio is a technical pursuit for those who are interested in the science of radio wave propagation and who are also interested in the way that their radios function. It has a long-standing tradition of providing a source of engineers who are born naturals. ============================= I do not wholely agree. There are many radio amateurs who are, or have been, professional engineers, not necessarily radio engineers, who contribute in their many various ways towards the hobby. 'Hobby' is perhaps not the best of descriptions. It is an international affair. ---- Reg, G4FGQ |
On the individual/personal level,
for a great many of us it IS a hobby. Strictly speaking, however, amateur radio is, by FCC rules definition, a service. Cheers, Bill K2UNK "..." ..@.. wrote in message ... why is amateur radio not a hobby ? Definition of a hobby A spare-time recreational pursuit "Reg Edwards" wrote in message ... "Polymath" wrote Ham Radio is a technical pursuit for those who are interested in the science of radio wave propagation and who are also interested in the way that their radios function. It has a long-standing tradition of providing a source of engineers who are born naturals. ============================= I do not wholely agree. There are many radio amateurs who are, or have been, professional engineers, not necessarily radio engineers, who contribute in their many various ways towards the hobby. 'Hobby' is perhaps not the best of descriptions. It is an international affair. ---- Reg, G4FGQ |
Your Childish Broadcast (CB) below serves to
classify you. Those whom you mention who are operators but who are non-technical are the CBers whom I warn against in the FAQ. Ham Radio is not about operating - that is CB Radio including CBers-Masquerading-As-Radio-Hams whom you repeatedly mention. I have never "ranted" on the Internet - I have only posted sincere and genuine concerns about the decline in Ham Radio by the influx of the very Childish Broadcasters (CBers) that you typify. If you have indeed been around for as long as you claim, then you should know better than to enjoin an international public forum in the rather silly and infantile style that you adopted. Shame on you. Stupid boy. Dr. Anton T. Squeegee wrote: In article . com, says... What is Ham Radio? snippety Sooooo many more things than Airy R. Bean, no matter how he may have misspelled his name in the message headers, could ever imagine. Radio Hams are in a unique privileged position in that they can construct and operate their own equipment! No-one else has this privilege. Users, such as broadcasters, the po lice and armed farces, CBers and mobile phone ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Isn't that what we have going on in Iraq at this very moment? users have to purchase ready-made gear. Manufacturers are not licensed to operate their gear. Radio Hams are qualified to design, build and then operate their own pieces of equipment. They do this A gross (and inaccurate) generalization. A great many hams I've met in recent years barely remember what Ohm's Law is, let alone how to do anything resembling design. They do indeed purchase their radios 'off-the-shelf,' talk about the things that matter to them on the air, however non-technical the subject matter may be, and often show up at radio club meetings. And you know what? The vast majority of them are very smart, very nice people who, while they're very interested in the public-service and volunteer emergency service aspects of amateur radio, and may have made significant contributions to the hobby and their community in other ways, may never have so much as learned how to pick up a soldering pencil. Lack of real electronics experience does not make someone with a ham license any less worthy of respect, Beany, no matter what you may believe. I say this as an amateur radio license holder for the last 27 years (first as WD6EOS, then later as KC7GR), and as a professional electronics engineering tech (for just about the same number of years). And, for the record: Yes, I've been tinkering with electronic and radio projects for most of my life. Many have said that amateur radio is a dying hobby. Personally, I don't believe that. However, if there is any grain of truth to such statements, it's not the lack of technical skill in SOME newcomers to the hobby that's hurting the hobby. What will quickly kill amateur radio will be expressing ongoing disrespect and hostility to those who choose to contribute to the service in non-technical ways. You don't need to know how to use a multimeter or whatever to be a good on-air operator, or to be of value in a disaster situation. You can continue to post whatever kind of misguided "FAQ" you want to, Beany-boy. It won't change the fact that I, at least, have seen enough of your previous rantings on Usenet over the last few years to know your true colors. *PLONK!* -- Dr. Anton T. Squeegee, Director, Dutch Surrealist Plumbing Institute. (Known to some as Bruce Lane, ARS KC7GR, kyrrin (a/t) bluefeathertech[d=o=t]calm -- www.bluefeathertech.com "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?" |
Polymath wrote:
Your Childish Broadcast (CB) below serves to classify you. Those whom you mention who are operators but who are non-technical are the CBers whom I warn against in the FAQ. Ham Radio is not about operating - that is CB Radio including CBers-Masquerading-As-Radio-Hams whom you repeatedly mention. I have never "ranted" on the Internet - I have only posted sincere and genuine concerns about the decline in Ham Radio by the influx of the very Childish Broadcasters (CBers) that you typify. If you have indeed been around for as long as you claim, then you should know better than to enjoin an international public forum in the rather silly and infantile style that you adopted. Shame on you. Stupid boy. Dr. Anton T. Squeegee wrote: In article . com, says... What is Ham Radio? snippety Having read this thread, I must agree with the assessment that lowering standards will NOT help Ham Radio. In the USA, the ARRL is doing its best to turn the HF bands into an email forwarding facility, by pushing regulations that will allow PACTOR II and III, used by the PROPRIETARY SCS Modems, and Winlink, across ALL the bands. Soon there will be nothing but robots, relaying email to and from the internet. Anyone who can get a cereal-box license and is willing to spend $1000+ for the modem, as well as whatever an HF rig will go for, will be able to use the "ARRL HF Internet Service Provider." |
John:
How do you figure anyone here is for lowering standards? We are for bringing standards up-to-date and getting rid of archaic, seldom used methods and "historic concepts." No one is for reducing standards... indeed, how could standards fall much lower than where they exist now? Amateur radio is already decades behind technology... that should be nothing less than totally obvious--well, other than to the the totally clueless... John On Sat, 27 Aug 2005 15:18:41 -0400, John L. Sielke wrote: Polymath wrote: Your Childish Broadcast (CB) below serves to classify you. Those whom you mention who are operators but who are non-technical are the CBers whom I warn against in the FAQ. Ham Radio is not about operating - that is CB Radio including CBers-Masquerading-As-Radio-Hams whom you repeatedly mention. I have never "ranted" on the Internet - I have only posted sincere and genuine concerns about the decline in Ham Radio by the influx of the very Childish Broadcasters (CBers) that you typify. If you have indeed been around for as long as you claim, then you should know better than to enjoin an international public forum in the rather silly and infantile style that you adopted. Shame on you. Stupid boy. Dr. Anton T. Squeegee wrote: In article . com, says... What is Ham Radio? snippety Having read this thread, I must agree with the assessment that lowering standards will NOT help Ham Radio. In the USA, the ARRL is doing its best to turn the HF bands into an email forwarding facility, by pushing regulations that will allow PACTOR II and III, used by the PROPRIETARY SCS Modems, and Winlink, across ALL the bands. Soon there will be nothing but robots, relaying email to and from the internet. Anyone who can get a cereal-box license and is willing to spend $1000+ for the modem, as well as whatever an HF rig will go for, will be able to use the "ARRL HF Internet Service Provider." |
On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 20:46:53 +0100, "..." ..@.. wrote:
why is amateur radio not a hobby ? Definition of a hobby A spare-time recreational pursuit Sadly, for many it's a way of life... takes over from family, kids, work etc... hardly a hobby then! |
"Peter" wrote in message ... On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 20:46:53 +0100, "..." ..@.. wrote: why is amateur radio not a hobby ? Definition of a hobby A spare-time recreational pursuit Sadly, for many it's a way of life... takes over from family, kids, work etc... hardly a hobby then! That's true for every hobby or recreational sport. There's always a minority of enthusiasts (hams, golfers, you name it) that are extremists. Cheers, Bill S. |
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