Ham Radio For Dummies. H. Ward Silver
and assistance for new hams.
THE HAM RADIO BUSINESS CARD
A ham radio tradition is to exchange postcards called QSLs (ham shorthand for received and understood) with their call signs, information about their stations, and (often) colorful graphics or photos. If you are a stamp collector, you can exchange QSLs directly with the other station. There are online equivalents, too. Whether you prefer paper or electronic form, your QSL is your “ham radio business card” just like Ria N2RJ’s in the figure below. You can find more sample QSL cards and information about the practice of QSLing in Chapter 14.
Hamfests and conventions
Two other popular types of gatherings are hamfests and conventions. The traditional hamfest is a ham radio flea market where hams bring their electronic treasures for sale or trade. Today’s hamfests often include training or instruction opportunities along with commercial vendors for a complete “one-stop shop.” Some hamfests are small get-togethers held in parking lots on Saturday mornings; others attract thousands of hams from all over the world and last for days, an in-person complement to eBay and Amazon.
Hams also hold conventions with a variety of themes, ranging from public service to DX (see “Radiosport — Competing with Ham Radio,” later in this chapter) to technical interests. An increasingly popular feature is the all-day “university” format focused on a certain type of operating, a technical specialty, operating training — or all three combined!
Hams travel all over the world to attend conventions where they might meet friends formerly known only as voices and call signs over the radio. There is no better way to enjoy travel than being assisted by local hospitality!
Emergency teams
Hams don’t need a lot of infrastructure to communicate. As a result, they bounce back quickly when a natural disaster or other emergency makes communications over normal channels impossible. Hams organize as local and regional teams that practice responding to a variety of emergency needs. They support relief organizations such as the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army, as well as police and fire departments.
www.hwn.org) when storms are active. During wildfire season, hams deploy in support of fire crews across the West. They staff camp communications and set up radio gear in the field, often in remote and difficult locations. Many hams also act as NOAA SKYWARN (www.weather.gov/skywarn) severe weather spotters in their local communities, assisting the National Weather Service.
After disasters of all types, hams are some of the first volunteers to help out, on the job providing communications at emergency operations centers and in the field. Hams trained as emergency response teams help government agencies by handling health-and-welfare messages, performing damage assessments, and providing point-to-point communications until normal systems come back to life. Ham radio also provides the hams themselves with personal communications in and out of the affected area. To find out more about providing emergency communications and public service, see Chapter 10.
Community events
Hams provide assistance for more than just emergencies. Wherever you find a parade, festival, marathon, or other opportunity to provide communications services, you may find ham radio operators helping out. In fact, volunteering for community events is great training for emergencies!
FIELD DAY — HAM RADIO’S OPEN HOUSE
On the last full weekend of June, hams across the United States engage in an annual emergency-operations exercise called Field Day, which allows hams to practice operating away from their regular stations. You can find Field Day setups in parks, at schools, near athletics venues, even in fields! An amateur emergency team or station probably operates in your town or county; go visit them! The American Radio Relay League (ARRL), the national association for amateur radio, provides a Field Day Station Locator web page (www.arrl.org/field-day-locator) that shows you how to find the team or station nearest you.
Radiosport — Competing with Ham Radio
Just like playing a sport or exercising, hams like engaging in challenging activities to build their skills and station capabilities. Called radiosport, these encourage continuous improvement of both the operator and the station. Competition provides training and that pays off for public service or in emergencies! Here are a few of the most popular radiosport activities:
DX: In the world of ham radio, DX stands for distance, and the allure of making contacts ever more distant from one’s home station has always been part of ham radio. Hams compete on the shortwave bands to contact faraway stations and to log contacts with every country. They especially enjoy the thrill of contacting exotic locations, such as “DXpeditions” to uninhabited islands and remote territories. On higher frequencies, even the microwave bands, hams guide their signals along weather systems and ionospheric features, even bouncing signals off the moon, to make contacts far beyond the “radio horizon.” When conditions are right and the band is full of faraway stations, succumbing to the lure of DX is easy.
Contests: Contests are ham radio’s version of a contact sport. The point is to make as many contacts as possible during the contest period— sometimes thousands — by exchanging short messages. These exchanges are related to the purpose of the contest: to contact a specific area, use a certain band, find a special station, or just contact the most stations.
Awards: Thousands of awards are available for various operating accomplishments, such as contacting different countries or states. There are award programs for contacting islands, summits, parks and trails, counties — almost any type of station or location. Awards are great incentives for improving your station and your operating skills.
Special-event stations: These temporary stations are on the air for a short time to commemorate or celebrate an event or location, often with a special or collectible call sign. Each December, for example, the Marconi Cape Cod Radio Club sets up a special temporary station at the location of Marconi’s Wellfleet transatlantic operations. Find out more on the club’s Facebook page, KM1CC - Marconi Cape Cod Radio Club (www.facebook.com/KM1CC).
If you enjoy the thrill of the chase and the feel of a good workout, go to Chapter 11 to find out more about all these activities.
Communicating through Ham Radio Contacts
If you were to tune a radio across the ham bands, what would you hear hams doing? They’re talking to other hams, of course. These chats, called contacts, consist of everything from simple conversations to on-the-air meetings to contesting (discussed later in this chapter). I discuss contacts in depth in