) writes:
Ok, please don't flame me for spamming or anything, but I have been
quite interested in ham radio lately and even memorized morse code, can
any of you give me pointers on how much it takes to get a liscense, how
much money on a bare bones radio that still does alot, and how much fun
it is :-D. I hope that you can answer these questions and again, please
don't flame me for being a noob.

The proper place for this would be rec.radio.amateur.misc but sadly
the same people who've made that newsgroup pretty inhospitable lately
have also done damage to this newsgroup. It's a common misconception
that since amateur radio takes place on shortwave, this is the place
for it, while realistically this is just for a limited subset of
things related to amateur radio, primarily as it intersects with
shortwave listeners who listen to the ham bands.

That said, a lot of countries have reduced the morse code requirement,
or outright eliminated it in recent years. Chances are pretty good
that in most countries, there is now an entry level license that does
not require knowing the morse code, though limitations will come
with that license (such as where you can operate).

I should warn you that "memorizing" the morse code likely won't help
you one bit. It is too common for the beginner, I did it myself
decades ago, to think they know the morse code if they can send it.
But it's a different mind process, and being able to send doesn't
mean an ability to receive it. Decades ago, it was somewhat
understandable, given that there weren't the same resources available,
and it was easy to get a code practice oscillator and code key, so
off you went. Many times, the morse code was right there on the code
practice oscillator (or the walkie talkie that had a code button), and
if not it was easy to find in the encyclopedia or some other book. But
starting that way didn't leave us prepared for receiving code, when
we finally got to that point. You have to listen, and get used to
hearing the sounds, and hear the morse characters as a complex sound
rather than individual dots and dashes. The way to do this is
to listen to code sent at a higher speed, but with big spaces between
characters, and this will help later when you want to receive
at actual higher speeds.

The good news is that nowadays it's real easy, unlike 1972 when the
best choice I had was to get a vinyl record and play it endlessly.
You probably can download various prerecorded material, and listen
on your computer or burn a CD. Or get a program to run on your computer
that sends you code.

SOmeone suggested the ARRL, of course if you're not in the US then
you need to find your own country's national amateur radio organization.
And then find a local club. Many will still have a class for a nominal
fee that will teach you what you need to pass the test, and at the
very least a local club will give you a chance to interact with real
hams, and learn about the local stores (if any) that sell ham equipment
and learn of upcoming fleamarkets put on by the local clubs, that can
be a place to buy used ham equipment and peripheral things like books.

I see no indication that it's difficult at all to pass the test to
get a ham license. I got mine when I was twelve, with only a few months
of deliberate study (though a year and a half of reading the ham magazines
and books), and if anything, licensing tests have become simpler in
the years since then.

Michael