Foundations of Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio Today propagation is what it is, yesterday it was different and tomorrow it will be different again. It's one of the fundamental aspects of amateur radio. We talk about propagation on air, like we do the weather. Rain, sun, snow or storm, there's always something. Of course most of those weather events have no impact on radio. A rain drop isn't going to make a great de...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Recently I read a comment a fellow amateur made about an antenna. He said: "Of course, that antenna is a compromise..." Let me say that again: "That antenna is a compromise ..." It was the funniest thing I'd seen all week and the person making the statement wasn't even trying to be funny. Unless you're looking at the Sun from a distance, or checking out the propagation...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Today we have a standard for our on-air phonetic alphabet - technically it's called a spelling alphabet, but I digress. As you should be aware if you're a licensed Amateur, we use the so-called standard phonetic alphabet. It's used and defined by several organisations, including the International Telecommunications Union, the International Civil Aviation Organisation a...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Today I want to talk about things to say and do in a contest. Before I begin, I must point out that there are many views on this and depending on your aim for the contest, what I'm going to talk about will be different. First of all, a contest is an Amateur Radio activity that starts and stops at a particular time. Often this time is expressed as UTC, or Universal Time...

Foundations of Amateur Radio The hobby we call Amateur Radio is hard to explain to anyone outside. I was recently asked about what it was about the experience that had me hooked. I talked about Summits on the Air, SOTA, Islands on the Air, IOTA, World Wide Flora and Fauna, WWFF and satellite communications. DX hunting and competitions, but I never quite managed to capture what it all really means....

Foundations of Amateur Radio The origins of names of things in Amateur Radio has a long and internet riddled history, with hear-say and false memories added. The humble BNC connector was patented in 1951. BNC doesn't stand for Baby N-Connector, Bayonet N-connector, British Naval Connector, Berry Nice Connector, Berkeley Neucleonics Corporation or any such name. Apparently, it's named after it's in...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Today in Amateur Radio is no different from yesterday, last year, last decade or longer. The hobby today is filled with people who are here to have fun, learn stuff and experiment. This hasn't changed since our hobby came into being. You can argue that the hobby has seen a great many changes. We have seen spark-gap transmitters, valves, transistors, miniaturisation, ch...

Foundations of Amateur Radio There are things that surprise me about this amazing hobby of Amateur Radio every day. One thing that is not a surprise is that some part of the general public thinks that I'm crazy, a lunatic, or worse, someone or something to be feared. Picture this. My car is parked in a car-park, next to some bush-land. Behind the car is a 12m fibre-glass squid-pole with a delta-lo...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Today I learned something new. A good antenna makes a big difference and you can hear it. Of late, I've been using the antennas on the boot of my car and have for some time all but abandoned my 12m spider-beam squid pole. As you might recall, the very first antenna I ever built was a quasi-random length vertical with 16 radials. Each of the 17 wires is about 12.5 meter...

Foundations of Amateur Radio There is a persistent perception among a small part of the amateur community that you need to build, buy or use antennas with a perfect 1:1 SWR to get the best results. Sometimes a contest erupts with who can get the lowest SWR. Without getting technical, since that could take hours and you have better things to do. A 50 Ohm dummy load has a perfect SWR of 1:1 and you...

Foundations of Amateur Radio This week I spent several hours in a park with a mast, guy wires, some coax, an antenna analyser, copper wire, a balun, cable ties and a pair of pliers, not to mention a tape measure, a calculator and several experienced amateurs. We set out to create a linked dipole antenna for a portable activation that we're working on. If you're unfamiliar with the concept of a lin...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Amateur Radio is as much about having fun as it is about learning. Sometimes they go hand-in-hand, sometimes not so much. The 7Ps of Amateur Radio are as valid today as they were 100 years ago, Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Amateur Radio Planning can take many forms, but the basics include creating a permanent checklist. The notion of...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Cabrillo and ADIF are likely two terms you've heard if you've done anything with logging or contesting. So what are they, how do they work and why does it matter? Let's start with Cabrillo. It's a file format used for submitting an electronic log to a contest manager. It was developed by Trey N5KO in 1999 for the ARRL. It's up to version 3.0, but the intent is that the...

Foundations of Amateur Radio There are questions that happen, over and over again. In computing they're called FAQ's, or Frequently Asked Questions. Here are some that happen in Amateur Radio. What radio should I buy? It depends on your budget. Where are you going to be using this radio, at home, in the car, in a park or on a mountain? Will you have power where you are, will you be using HF, or wi...

Foundations of Amateur Radio A regular question that I hear from amateurs, both new and experienced ones, is "What radio should I purchase?". It's a simple question that doesn't have a simple answer. The obvious variables, budget, size, frequency and modes are one side of the coin, and when you start looking, you'll learn that there is a lot of information on the subject. You'll learn that you can...

Foundations of Amateur Radio Recently I had the opportunity to operate mobile in 30 different locations within a 24 hour period. I'd done some preparatory work, in the way of looking closely at maps and plotting my expected route to know where I was and how far it was to the next location. One of the things I noticed while operating was that my signal reports varied greatly. I also noticed that th...

Foundations of Amateur Radio This podcast started life in 2011 when I was asked to record a story I shared during the production of the weekly amateur radio news in Western Australia. I'd been a licensed radio amateur, or ham, for a few months and found myself surrounded by people who perceived the basic Australian foundation amateur licence wasn't worth anything. What use is an F-call? is my resp...