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| Amateur Radio |
The Amateur Radio Service
or Ham radio, as it is also known, is many things to many people.
Each Ham you speak with will probably present you with a different reason for getting their "ticket"
(license) and continued participation in the community, you will even hear some tell you why they left or feel
ambivelant towards the community. To me ,in it's simplest form, it is a global community of people from all walks and stages in
life that derive enjoyment from tinkering with and discussing radios and electronics.
Ham radio is diverse in both the types of radio technology available and the applications to which we put said
technology to use. Hams may choose to use both terestrial (earth based) and space based communications techniques and technologies. Traditional terestrial communication are similar in nature to an FM radio station for local communications and short-wave station for communicating a bit futher, like to the other side of the globe. Some hame employ both natural and manmade resources in space for communications and experimentation, More the fifty seperate satelites have been launched for the pourpose of supporting terestrial communications between Hams. In addtion the the manmade satellites, some even use the Earth's Moon and meteor trails to bounce signals off of. In both cases members of the community use various modes when communicating, while the majority of communications takes place using the human voice, other communicate via textual an image based modes, and of course the oldest of all for Radio, Morse code. But, before I digress to much into the how, lets me concentrate on the why, at least from my perspective on the community as a whole and then from a more personal point of view. |
| AG4QP History |
I began my journey in Amateur Radio like many others, Shortwave listening. At about 7 years of age
I became the proud owner of a Zenith console radio, similar to the one pictured
to the left. It was slightly damged, the tunning belt was missing and
The "programable" tab housing on the right side would not seat properly, but that was just as well as
it afforded my, at the time, small hands access to the tuning wheel. Unbelivably
I never recevied a shock in four years I operated it. No external antenna, I
was still ignorant to the mechanics and art of aerials, the the stock internal loop
wound about a wax impregnated cardboard rectangle. It survived for a total four years, and
was on at all time when I was home. I was amazed, mind you this is years prior to the Internet,
at the ability to travel the world in my via an early form of virtual reality. I listened to the
all the Easten and Western block nations and even persuaded my parents to pay for the postage to QSL,
send a signal report, the stations I was able to listen to. What followed was a learning experience that
I could have never imagined, books, posters, magazines and letters from all over the world. Radio Moscow was
king, with the other Warsaw Pact nations comming in a close second when it, came to answering. Within a
month of my first signal report to Radio Moscow, out Mailbox was stuff with propaganda and some useful items. Radio Moscow sent me a
full Russion course called Russian by Radio and at 8 years of age I started to learn Russian.
Once a week every week I would tune into the one hour course just following Vladamir Posner's half
hour comentary on the evils of the west, since the fall of Communism Mr. Posner is quite the proponent of
Capitalism. All was going well with my study of Russian, I was even sending signal reports in Cyrillic,
until a paranoid teacher at school had the administration call my parents in with concerns about this
Russian thing. Luckly, my parents were supportive and ignored the public school officials, and I continued
my studies. By the way, I eventualy became fluent in Russian and interpreting the language became part of my
first career with Uncle Sam. Regretably I the Zenith's end came to a sparking conclusion one day as I tried to clean it and upon turning it back on listened to the crack of electricity and the smell
of ancient components buring.
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All was lost until the next Christmas, when I recieved a Realistic DX-100 reciever. About 1/16th the size
of the old Zenith, but I could take it with me and constructed my first portable dipole to go
with it. It served me well for about two years, when, while watching the monocrome anouncment channel on our new cable TV, I saw a
notice for Amature Radio class. I quickly copied down the information during the second cycling of the
anouncment. It was sponsored by the | How to Become a HAM |
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