Foundations of Amateur Radio

Today I'm going to talk about getting started. In the past I've mentioned that it's a good idea to find a community, a club or a local mentor to get you going in this hobby, and that still stands. You really need to find some like-minded, available humans to share this experience with. That being said, there are some things that you can do on your lonesome.

An often asked question is: "What radio should I buy?" The answer to that question can be long and involved, but it boils down to this: "What ever you can afford."

That answer in and of itself isn't that helpful. Do you get a $40 cheap hand-held or a $4000 all-singing and dancing radio?

My best answer to that is: "Buy your second radio first." What I mean is that if you spend your money on a $40 radio today, how long will you enjoy it and how long will it be until you spend your next bit of money and is that $40 investment a waste of money?

I'm not making a value judgement here, the answer is still: "What ever you can afford."

When I asked that question of my mentor, Hi Meg, she explained that her first radio was a hand-held radio and that she quickly settled on a Yaesu FT857d as her second radio. She went on to say that picking a brand is like choosing between Mac or PC, Ford vs. General Motors, vi vs. emacs, Debian vs. Red Hat, Tomato vs. Tomato. There are followers in each camp and nay-sayers in every other camp.

I picked my radio based on whom I had around me for support, who was nearby for silly questions, advice on accessories, experience with settings and knowledge of costs, faults and other intangibles that I was completely unfamiliar with.

Once you get into this hobby, you'll come across people who have technical reasons for picking a particular radio, or sentimental reasons, or financial ones, or what ever reason they come up with. When you get started, not much of that matters. If you have money to burn, then sure, you can by the top-of-the range radio, but if you're never going to use it, what's the point?

Once you've picked your radio, other choices follow. What power supply do I need, how much space do I need, what kinds of connectors does it come with, has it got a built-in antenna, or do you need to erect one, does it have a tuner built-in, or do you need to get one, do you need programming software, a microphone, etc. etc. Each of these follows from the initial selection of your radio.

What now? You have a radio, presumably an antenna of some sort and your radio is actually turned on and you can hear stuff.

If you've come from a short-wave listening background, you'll know where everything is, have a familiarity with the bands and an idea of how things work. If you're new to this hobby, then these things are not so obvious. Things to mention are that each band is unique, that is, they all have their own characteristics. Some are always noisy, others are always quiet, some are active during the day, others only at night, some have stations all day long and others only for short periods.

A lot of this depends on things outside your control. Propagation is a variable animal and depending on what our Sun is doing, propagation will change, sometimes substantially, as time goes by. Forecasts for the weather are getting better. The same is true for propagation forecasts. A forecast is just that, a prediction of the environment, but not a guarantee of conditions.

There is no substitute for turning on your radio and having a listen. If you're in someone else's shack, have a listen on their equipment, use the opportunity to learn something about different set-ups. If you get the chance, operate on that station and see what happens.

Getting started isn't a magical invisible unattainable thing, it's taking the first step on your journey into this hobby of Amateur Radio.

Get to it already.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB