Foundations of Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio A week or so ago I watched a movie that was simultaneously the funniest and saddest movie I'd seen in a while. "Pecking Order". It follows members of the Christchurch Poultry, Bantam and Pigeon Club in the lead up to the New Zealand National Championships, as they battle history and each other in a quest for glory and for the love of their birds. Think "Best in Show" w...

Foundations of Amateur Radio is now available as an eBook. Six years in the making, after much prodding from fellow amateurs, the edited transcripts of this podcast are now available as a series of eBook volumes. Covering our amazing hobby with short discussions about hundreds of different topics. In Volume 5 - Getting on air - read about the perfect SWR, how to become a better operator, what batt...

Foundations of Amateur Radio What is amateur radio? What's not part of the hobby and what is? The more you dig into this, the deeper the rabbit hole goes. I'll start with an analogy to set the scene. In aviation, Sir George Cayley was the first person to investigate heavier-than-air flying vehicles. He invented the aeroplane in 1799. The first full-sized glider, built in 1849 carried the first per...

Foundations of Amateur Radio is now available as an eBook. Six years in the making, after much prodding from fellow amateurs, the edited transcripts of this podcast are now available as a series of eBook volumes. Covering our amazing hobby with short discussions about hundreds of different topics. In Volume 4 - Just get started - follow my journey through the amateur radio community, how to use QS...

Foundations of Amateur Radio There is a saying in my family, which I'll translate into English for you, "No Onno, it's not slippery." This came about when I was ten or so and cycling with my grandmother. It was the middle of winter, it was cold, there was the promise of snow in the air, but nothing had actually fallen. On the little plants, twigs is probably a more accurate term, dotted alongside...

Foundations of Amateur Radio is now available as an eBook. Six years in the making, after much prodding from fellow amateurs, the edited transcripts of this podcast are now available as a series of eBook volumes. Covering our amazing hobby with short discussions about hundreds of different topics. In Volume 3 - Share the fun - follow the third year of my journey, how to make contacts on HF, how to...

Foundations of Amateur Radio The social aspects of our hobby are a never ending feast of variety. Since the requirement for becoming an amateur is that you're interested, the assortment of people who arrive at our doorstep can be described as a motley crew. I once stood in a room with radio amateurs and if I recall correctly, between us we had a surgeon, a naval officer, a sailor, a truck driver,...

Foundations of Amateur Radio is now available as an eBook. Six years in the making, after much prodding from fellow amateurs, the edited transcripts of this podcast are now available as a series of eBook volumes. Covering our amazing hobby with short discussions about hundreds of different topics. In Volume 2 - Find the spark - follow the second year of my journey through the hobby of amateur radi...

Foundations of Amateur Radio A little while ago I spent some time discussing how to test if your radio was on frequency. It generated lots of comment and email with various suggestions on other ways to do this test, but it also caused one listener to ask the question, what's this Upper Side Band and Lower Side Band thing you're talking about? In the past I've discussed the history of these two, bu...

Foundations of Amateur Radio is now available as an eBook. Six years in the making, after much prodding from fellow amateurs, the edited transcripts of this podcast are now available as a series of eBook volumes. Covering our amazing hobby with short discussions about hundreds of different topics. In Volume 1 - Join the hobby - follow my initial journey through the community, what to buy when you...

Foundations of Amateur Radio This morning I spoke with two amateurs on-air. Not that surprising, since I was hosting a weekly net called F-troop for new and returning amateurs. Both amateurs came on-air for the first time in our net, one licensed sixty years ago, the other six days ago. It didn't strike me until long after the net had finished that these two amateurs have a completely different ex...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Today I'm here to tell you that I'm in the process of writing a book, actually seven of them, and to be precise, there's more of editing than writing, since I'm putting together all of my podcast efforts over the past seven years. Nice how that works out, seven years, seven books. Most of the effort is in proof-reading my work. Do I spell radio amateur with capital let...

Foundations of Amateur Radio The frequency you listen and transmit on in a modern radio is derived from a crystal master oscillator, in my case 22.625 MHz. That master frequency is multiplied and divided to determine the final frequency. To get to 2m you need to multiply by 6. To get to 70cm, multiply by 20. Similarly, to get to 40m, divide by 3. Any slight variation of crystal frequency has an im...

Foundations of Amateur Radio You know when you walk down the street and you lift your foot and all of a sudden you realise that you stepped in something and now it's stuck to your shoe? I had that feeling during the week. Last week I mentioned that I had purchased a TCXO, a Temperature Controlled External Oscillator. Lowell NE4EB set me straight by pointing out that XO stood for crystal and that T...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Last week I spent a little time talking about the Weak Signal Propagation Reporters network, or WSPR, pronounced Whisper. You might remember that I set up my radio to receive these signals to see what I could learn. Turns out, I learnt quite a bit. I left the software running for a week. During that time my station reported 456 signals received with a total of 54 stati...

Foundations of Amateur Radio This week I'm going to talk about a Digital Mode you can use with any Amateur License, or even without an Amateur License. You can set-up your radio, hook it to a computer and the Internet and after installing some software, you can join the Weak Signal Propagation Reporters. So how do you start, what does it do and how can it help you? First of all, WSPR, pronounced W...

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day a friend of mine asked a really silly question. How come when I point my YAGI at a direction for a station using the great circle, the signal is there but weak, but when I point it in a different direction, say 20 degrees away from the great circle, the signal improves? Being a good little Amateur, I responded with the logical explanation. Well, two thing...

Foundations of Amateur Radio In the past I've talked about what kind of station I have, how I tend to operate and what kind of tools I use in my day-to-day running of an Amateur Radio station. This week I want to take a closer look at what I do when I participate in a contest. I remember fondly the first contest I ever set-up for, fondly as-in, "What was I thinking?" Let me set the scene. I'd prev...

Foundations of Amateur Radio The way we connect our antenna to our radio depends on a number of different factors. If you've come through the ranks recently, like I have, it's probable that you've only ever considered using COAXIAL cable. It's a single conductor, surrounded by some type of insulator, which in turn is surrounded by a conductive shield, which is protected by another layer. There are...

Foundations of Amateur Radio The art of keeping your station organised and accessible has much to do with choosing wisely which bits to keep and which bits to throw. That's part of the story, but there are other aspects of organisation that will assist you. Rolling up coax is a skill that you need to learn. The over and under method of coiling cable is by far the easiest way to ensure that your co...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Today I have a confession to make. Looking back it's clear that once your brain goes down a certain path, it's easier to follow the path than to find an alternative one. When I was growing up, above my bed, bolted to the wall were two brackets. On top of those brackets, secured with double-sided tape was a radio-cassette player. If you're unfamiliar with what an audio...

Foundations of Amateur Radio You've always been taught that VHF communications are line of sight and that the height of your antenna determines how far your 2m communication might go. So if I tell you that last week I spoke with a station that was 300 kilometres away on the 2m band you might be forgiven in thinking that I had managed to climb up most of the side of Mount Everest to around 7 kilome...

Foundations of Amateur Radio There is so much stuff associated with Amateur Radio that your family might be forgiven in thinking that your hobby is all about being in the middle of a junk-yard surrounded by the carcasses of disassembled gear, components, failed projects, obsolete equipment and scraps of wire, solder and countless screws, resistors and other bits and pieces that are just too valuab...

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day a fellow Amateur was relating their experience in the hobby. They spoke of interference, jamming, breaking in over the top of contacts and generally being hounded by special people who think it's their purpose in life to make life miserable for others. I have spoken in the past about similar experiences that I had with individuals jamming a weekly net tha...

Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I was asked about what antenna should you get as your first one. This question is pretty simple, but the answer is likely much less so. You might recall that I've pointed out that we can prove you physically cannot build the ideal antenna, so by definition all antennas are compromises. You might also find yourself being bamboozled by claims about how an a...