In its 100th year, amateur radio is more vibrant and compelling than ever. This book tells you how you can enjoy the new world of ham radio.
The hobby of amateur (or ham) radio is now 100 years old, but like technology in general, this pastime has evolved tremendously, not only keeping pace with the times but often leading the way as it has since its beginning. In this book, a unique blend of lighthearted, amusing and moving anecdotes, practical advice, and informed opinion, best-selling author and active amateur radio operator Don Keith (call sign N4KC) shows those interested in joining the "tribe" of amateur radio enthusiasts as well as newcomers to the hobby and old hands, too, just how magical and exciting it can be. With more than 700,000 licensees in the USA and well over a million worldwide, ham radio is bigger and more vibrant than ever, and has experienced tremendous growth with the advent of digital communications, software-defined and computer controlled radios, space technology and more.
As Keith notes in this book, those who think the Internet, smart phones, and Facebook have made the hobby obsolete are sorely mistaken. Like the booming Maker Faire and "hacker" movements, this hobby offers the opportunity to explore as deeply as and in any direction desired. Similarly, hams are able to combine radio with many other activities like RVing, model building, astronomy, hiking, sailing, weather spotting, and more.
Keith's book, written in an entertaining and easy-to-understand style, gives myriad practical, real-world examples. Also, today's ham radio does not necessarily require a strong knowledge of electronics, although Keith shows how young people getting into the hobby can segue into a career in such areas as engineering, cellular communications, broadcasting, computers and more. Whether the reader's interest is designing electronic gear, meeting new people around the world ranging from rock stars to astronauts aboard the International Space Station, helping with emergency communications, experimenting with antennas, digital modes, or satellites (yes, there are amateur radio satellites in orbit right now!), or other exhilarating aspects of ham radio,
Keith demonstrates how anyone can experience the magic of this amazing pastime. This book makes a perfect gift, too, for anyone considering getting a ham license and joining all the adventure and magic that is there when they are ready to ride the shortwaves.
Excerpt
Even though we amateur radio enthusiasts consider ourselves to be communicators, it is really difficult sometimes for us to convey to other folks exactly what it is that makes our hobby so special to us. What makes it so addictive and fulfilling, so magnetic. Personally, I have been in and out of the hobby for over fifty years now, yet I find its allure to be just as strong now as it was way back when the bug first bit me. And let me assure you, it bit me hard!
That was when I heard those first squeaks and squawks of Morse code, the dits and dahs of those characters riding in on the wind as they formed my call letters. The exciting, exclusive call sign that had been newly-assigned to me by that awe-inducing agency, the Federal Communications Commission. There they were, those letters with the number “4” in the middle that quickly became so much a part of who I was. And despite my nervousness at the outset of that first conversation on the air (a “QSO”), I immediately recognized my call sign ringing back at me out of a receiver tuned to the shortwaves.
That exhilarating reply came in response to a “CQ”—a blind call into the ether—looking for someone—anyone—with whom to chat. And, I must admit, I was half hoping nobody would answer that first time I sent out that blanket request for a contact. The prospects of it all scared me just a little bit.
But when it actually happened, it was nothing short of supernatural!
Now it is true that amateur (or “ham”) radio led to a career in broadcasting for me, but I have no doubt I would still love it just as much, even if I had gone a different direction in life. The hobby has helped many people break into and follow careers in communications, electronics, computers, engineering and more. However, many thousands of other hams have different interests and avocations, many decidedly non-technical. You do not have to be a geek to be a ham.
Oh, I admit that there were years when I did not even turn on a rig—what we call our radios—years when job, family, my book-writing and other distractions took me away from the magic I had experienced as a 13-year-old kid, living down on that isolated farm in rural Alabama. But I always came back to the hobby, and I do not exaggerate when I tell you that each return was even sweeter and more electrifying than the last.
Even though amateur radio had changed each time—sometimes dramatically so with new shortwave bands at our disposal, new and exotic modes of communication available to us, different facets of radio, all calling out to me to come give them a try—I still found the basics of it all virtually the same. Those same intangible attractions were still there. And they were still just as difficult to explain to the great unwashed out there. I still feel sorry for those who do not know or care about the radio spectrum and the electromagnetic waves—the magical pixie dust that swirls around all of us out there on the wind.
It is also true that some doubt the value of the hobby today, it being based on such old technology after all. People have smart phones, video games, the Internet, YouTube, and Facebook. Kids who once might have been fascinated by talking to someone across the continent on the ham radio now do it routinely in chat groups, on Facebook, or via texting. Who wants to hang wire and create radio-frequency energy when all this new technology is all around us?
First, I should point out that there are more amateur radio licensees in the United States today than ever before. We are at an all-time high. The rest of the world has also seen a resurgence in interest in the hobby, including some of its more antiquated technology, such as Morse code.
Still, the questions come.
“Can’t you do the same thing on the Internet?”
“I can talk all over the world on my cell phone. I don’t need a radio or a tower or all that wire in the sky.”
“Why use that Morse stuff when you can just text somebody and tell them what you want to tell them?”
Yes, you can. You can do all those things.
But the people asking those questions are missing the point entirely. It is exasperating to us ham-nuts that they do not seem willing to even try to understand what draws people to amateur radio. And it is vexing to us that we cannot do a better job of explaining the attraction.
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