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