Foundations of Amateur Radio

One of the recurring questions in this hobby, technically outside this hobby, asked by people who've not yet, or have only just been bitten by the bug, is: "What's the point of this hobby?"

In some ways I too have asked this question, though for me the answer came within a few months of learning that amateur radio exists. In response to others asking this I've also made meagre attempts to answer this question with varying degrees of success and satisfaction.

The typical responses are things like: there's a thousand hobbies inside amateur radio, it's about the communication, about the camaraderie, about climbing and hiking, about technology, science, physics, electronics. The truth is that this is just a fly-over view of what it means to have this as your hobby.

It occurs to me, having now been licensed for a little while, I can actually express a little more clearly what this hobby has given me.

At a basic level, I now know what the front of a TV aerial is and how Wi-Fi is attenuated by walls, how line of sight works and why you can talk to the International Space Station with a hand-held radio. I've learnt about sunrise and sunset and how they affect propagation, the grey line and how the ionosphere is broken into layers that are affected by solar radiation. I've learnt about sunspots and how they change over time, that there are cycles, that there is a thing called the Maunder Minimum and that propagation is a fickle beast. I've learnt about the Ionospheric Prediction Service and about band planning in contests, about dealing with pile-ups and making contacts, about voice-keyers and computer controlled radios, about contesting software and logging, about contest scoring and contest rules.

I've learnt about gain and about loss, about how 75 Ohm coax differs from 50 Ohm coax, how connectors work, about soldering and crimping, how to use a crimper and what connectors to use with which coax. I've learnt about path-loss and about bouncing signals off the moon, about Sagittarius A*, a bright and very compact astronomical radio source at the centre of the Milky Way and about inclination and ascension, about galactic coordinates and observation windows, about programming in Python and the astropy library.

I've learnt about how radio signals are used to encode information, the seemingly infinite supply of digital modes and how a radio signal can be described in three dimensions. I've learnt how maths can describe amplitude modulation and how side-bands can be described, about signal to noise ratios and decibels.

I've experienced the joys of making a rare contact, to places like Amsterdam Island, Prince Edward & Marion Island, Heard Island, Micronesia, Cuba, Kiribati, and many more. I've learnt more about geography, about maidenhead locators, learnt new phrases and started learning new languages.

I've gone out camping more times than I can count, spent nights under the stars making contacts across the globe. I've set-up my station in parks and on peaks across the country, made life-long friends locally and abroad, tested my patience and my endurance.

I've learnt about the pioneers and inventors who came before me, about their successes and failures, their enduring legacies and their inventiveness. I've gained insight into Apollo radio communications and distance measuring, global positioning before there was GPS, about satellite dishes and radio during disasters, about emergency communications and temporary set-ups with just enough to get the job done.

I've written software, made charts, learnt how to use GNUPlot, written articles, recorded podcasts, interviewed amateurs, published books, produced, presented and transmitted amateur news broadcasts, built amateur radio websites, chaired meetings, raised funds, contributed to club committees and helped as I was able.

I've helped organise a national amateur radio conference, learnt how to teach others and created a weekly radio net for new and returning amateurs. I've acted as a point of contact, offered life advice and acted as a shoulder to cry on when the going got tough for some of my fellow amateurs.

I've built more, tested more, explored more, learnt more and done more in the past decade than I have in the 40 years before that.

When I look back over the 472 podcast episodes I've written so-far, that massive list is only just scratching the surface and it only just begins to describe how deeply affected I've been by this hobby. It only barely describes the width and depth of this hobby and I've only been here for a little while.

I must point out that I did all these things because I could, because I had radio amateur friends who prodded and poked, who helped and asked, who gave and received. My exposure over this decade was only possible because there are others who share my interests and stopped to take a moment to express that.

Next time you're asked about how amateur radio is relevant, how it relates to the world, how it affects you and your life, what it's given you, or what you can gain from it, consider, even just for a moment, just how much is possible within this massive hobby.

I'm Onno VK6FLAB