Whatever Happened to Ham Radio?

[rch]

It's my name.

Just kidding, of course!

My personal experience is that one's tolerance for puns on one's name is in inverse proportion to the rate at which one meets people who appear to think that they are the first person ever to think of that  pun.  YMMV

DOI:  surname "Hayter"

[apelly]

sad to say there are a fair bunch of amateurs that are uncomfortable with women in the hobby, especially women who are technically with it..

I find that surprising. Have you seen that here?

If people are interested in the same stuff as me, and they're not too thick, then they're interesting. Especially if they know more than me!

I am of the opinion that most men are interested in different problems from most women, but I have the advantage of not caring what other people waste their time on.

Of course there are a fair bunch of the in-your-face, know-it-all, wankers, and nobody likes them anyway.

[AF6LJ]

sad to say there are a fair bunch of amateurs that are uncomfortable with women in the hobby, especially women who are technically with it..

I find that surprising. Have you seen that here?

Not at all; that is refreshing.

If people are interested in the same stuff as me, and they're not too thick, then they're interesting. Especially if they know more than me!

I am of the opinion that most men are interested in different problems from most women, but I have the advantage of not caring what other people waste their time on.

Of course there are a fair bunch of the in-your-face, know-it-all, wankers, and nobody likes them anyway.

This place has been nothing but welcoming.

[GreyWoolfe]

Welcome Gwen, it's good to see another YH in amateur radio.
This forum is more polite than others I have been involved in, sad to say there are a fair bunch of amateurs that are uncomfortable with women in the hobby, especially women who are technically with it..

Thankfully, not in the club I belong to.  Our secretary is a YH, she holds a General class and is also a VE doing reading for blind hams taking tests.  She is only 1 of quite a few women.  We let anyone in our club, hey, they let me in

[AF6LJ]

Welcome Gwen, it's good to see another YH in amateur radio.
This forum is more polite than others I have been involved in, sad to say there are a fair bunch of amateurs that are uncomfortable with women in the hobby, especially women who are technically with it..

Thankfully, not in the club I belong to.  Our secretary is a YH, she holds a General class and is also a VE doing reading for blind hams taking tests.  She is only 1 of quite a few women.  We let anyone in our club, hey, they let me in

Our club also has a number of female members.
We have a good board of directors which I am proud to be a part of.

[vk3yedotcom]

One of the great things about  ham radio is you don't need to feel guilty about cooped up inside on a nice day because you can take gear with you and operate portable.

This video describes and demonstrates a balanced antenna coupler suitable for use with tuned feeder dipoles.  These are effective antennas that work on multiple bands. 
Conditions weren't the best though some DX mobile stations were heard and some solid contacts within Australia were made.  The second location tried was quieter than the first and has been tried as a successful field day location.

[MrSlack]

Thanks for posting that. My intention is exactly that I.e. portable operation. Can set along the coast somewhere isolated, pop up an inverted V and have some fun.

Portland (UK) looks a fun place.

[vk3yedotcom]

This is a good summary of some of the more modern ham activities

[cdev]

Women have an aptitude for technology, and their contributions are complementary to those of males. Its not well known but a very great many of the first computer programmers were women.

[janoc]

Just check out AI6TK

I bet quite a few will recognize the name behind that call.

[Howardlong]

I didn't realise she had a call, is that recent?

There are some people who deserve honorary licenses, like they dish out honorary degrees at universities, and she's one of them.

[brainwash]

Just wanted to touch on a point that has likely been said here. At least in Europe, but I expect everywhere, you need a ham license for getting special permits: airplane, boat, etc. AFAIK, getting them as a package means the exam is probably a little less involved, as friends who have done it tell me. Mostly because the equipment you are using for communication is basically plug-and-play.
Trying to say there are other avenues for getting people into the hobby.

[cdev]

Yes - "Scorched Chips!" ! (don't you love it!)

https://www.qrz.com/db/AI6TK/




Quote from: Howardlong on Today at 12:06:31

I didn't realise she had a call, is that recent?

There are some people who deserve honorary licenses, like they dish out honorary degrees at universities, and she's one of them.

[janoc]

I didn't realise she had a call, is that recent?

There are some people who deserve honorary licenses, like they dish out honorary degrees at universities, and she's one of them.

AFAIK, she did the exam last year.

[janoc]

Just wanted to touch on a point that has likely been said here. At least in Europe, but I expect everywhere, you need a ham license for getting special permits: airplane, boat, etc. AFAIK, getting them as a package means the exam is probably a little less involved, as friends who have done it tell me. Mostly because the equipment you are using for communication is basically plug-and-play.
Trying to say there are other avenues for getting people into the hobby.

That's news to me. Where is this information from?

You do need to pass exams for airplane, boat and similar stuff, but that is fairly different from the HAM exam - you have much less "tech" there and stuff like Q-codes and country prefixes. A lot more emphasis is instead given on the practical operations, especially the safety critical stuff - phraseology, emergency coms, the various service-specific rules, etc. Then for marine ops there are often differences for inland/river stuff which is mostly UHF/VHF and sea, where you will have to deal with long range HF too. I believe both require separate exams.

Maybe you can do a HAM exam together with an exam for e.g. marine or aeronautical service as a package, but having the former is certainly not required for the latter. In fact, they are often administered by completely different institutions as they are different services. Certainly most boat captains and airplane pilots don't have amateur radio licenses.

[brainwash]

I haven't studied the curricula to see if they differ, but I have one friend who recently passed the aviation (VFR) and another friend which is due for the maritime (small boats/yachts) exam. I'm pretty sure neither of them has any idea how impedance works nor how VSWR can be altered, but they both had a separate ham exam as a requirement.
AFAIK they both receive callsigns, but not sure if those callsigns can be used outside their purpose (i.e. not on the vehicle).
Not sure how the US ham requirements differ from the European ones, as I'm not involved with this.
There are actually extra Q-codes for air and sea that need to be learned.

Maybe someone can clear the air on this.

[cdev]

That's likely so they can communicate with others on HF, VHF, who may be nearer, and listening, in the case of an emergency.

So they wont hesitate to break into an ongoing QSO to call for help when only hams are nearby and clearly listening.

[brainwash]

Well, they to need to speak to the control tower and port authority on each trip, so I guess that's the main use. Airband is VHF and AM, not sure about maritime, they might go with lower frequencies at longer distances. All those radios have "standard" ham controls like frequency, bandwidth, squelch and modulation.

Just as a curiosity, the pilot license exam can be taken in Germany in either German or English language. The German one gives you access to all airports, while the English one just to English-speaking airports. While I'm pretty sure most tower operators speak English, their airport might not be listed as one, so you can't land there normally if you don't have the proper language exam. This might not seem like a big deal, but on these small airports you have a parking fee of about 15 EUR per day while on something like Frankfurt Airport the parking/landing fee is really prohibitive. Busy airports are also likely to request you to do really tight maneuvers in order to optimize the airspace, which might be tricky to do with a small/old airplane.

If anyone knows more about this stuff feel free to jump in, my experience with this has mainly been indirect.

[German_EE]

Ham Radio is still alive and well. As for the ladies in the hobby the finest example I can think of is Tisha Hayes AA4HA who is probably one of the finest RF engineers I've ever had the pleasure to meet. If you're curious, here's her Linkedin profile:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tisha-hayes-90a43015

We need more like Sue and Tisha

[janoc]

That's likely so they can communicate with others on HF, VHF, who may be nearer, and listening, in the case of an emergency.

So they wont hesitate to break into an ongoing QSO to call for help when only hams are nearby and clearly listening.

For emergency coms you don't actually need to be licensed - in an emergency, anyone can operate the radio and even transmit outside of the allowed bands/power.

OTOH, few marine and aviation radios can transmit outside of their respective bands, so the idea of someone tuning over to e.g. 2m HAM band to call for help is a bit unrealistic. Moreover, many radios have a button for the direct selection of the emergency frequency(ies), which are internationally standardized. Those are monitored 24/7 by the authorities, e.g. coast guard, air traffic control, even air force. So you really don't need to think about whether some HAMs are listening when you need to declare an emergency.

[janoc]

Just as a curiosity, the pilot license exam can be taken in Germany in either German or English language. The German one gives you access to all airports, while the English one just to English-speaking airports. While I'm pretty sure most tower operators speak English, their airport might not be listed as one, so you can't land there normally if you don't have the proper language exam. This might not seem like a big deal, but on these small airports you have a parking fee of about 15 EUR per day while on something like Frankfurt Airport the parking/landing fee is really prohibitive. Busy airports are also likely to request you to do really tight maneuvers in order to optimize the airspace, which might be tricky to do with a small/old airplane.

Actually English is mandatory for the aviation exam, it is the official ICAO communication language. If you don't have the aviation English exam, you will not be able to fly abroad and to the larger airports where the majority of the communication is in English. May not be an issue for ultralight pilots or similar that stay around their home club, but most pilots take the English exam anyway.

If for nothing else then for your own safety - that big 747 on approach flown by a foreign crew may not understand from your German/French/.../etc chat with the controller that you are on a conflicting trajectory, so they will have no spatial awareness of you unless the controller tells them where you are (few small planes carry TCAS-capable equipment). Which they should, but the controllers are only people too and can forget, be overloaded or just miss something, especially a small plane. This has led to some near misses and even accidents in the past and is the primary reason why English is mandatory today as the communication language in aviation.

I am pretty sure that one can fly to a German general aviation airport without having the exam in German language, only with English. Otherwise no foreign pilot would have ever been able to fly to Germany outside of the big airports.

Here is the list of what you will have to learn/obtain for a German private pilot license:
http://www.aerotours.de/en/lapla-leichtflugzeugpilot-699.html

And actually Wikipedia has a good summary of what you need for the radiotelephony license:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprechfunkzeugnis_(Luftfahrt)#BZF_I

For a private pilot license you need at least the BZF1 or 2. The testing is done in German but there is a part where the candidate must demonstrate English communication capability, unless doing only BZF2 exam (German only, but then not allowed to fly outside of Germany. Commercial pilots must have BZF1 including English).

Then to actually be able to communicate in the given language the candidate needs also a separate language proficiency certificate (ICAO-4 level or higher).

The list also shows that there is no HAM license prerequisite for the aviation radiotelephony certificate.

I didn't search for the marine radio requirements but they are most likely similar.

[borjam]

I haven't studied the curricula to see if they differ, but I have one friend who recently passed the aviation (VFR) and another friend which is due for the maritime (small boats/yachts) exam. I'm pretty sure neither of them has any idea how impedance works nor how VSWR can be altered, but they both had a separate ham exam as a requirement.

A ham exam? I don't believe so.

The ham exam is normalized, http://www.sarl.org.za/public/licences/SARL_CEPT_AND_HAREC.pdf

And its requirements are quite different from what an airman or a seaman will need.

I imagine that one of the subjects covered in their exams is proper radio operation for the concerned radio service (be it maritime or air communications) but that has nothing to do with ham radio.

Moreover, neither a pilot nor a seaman is supposed to know how to adjust an antenna. An exception were radiomen (who had to be proficient in Morse code and were also responsible for the mainteinance of the electronic and communications equipment) but I don't think radiomen exist anymore.

[janoc]

I haven't studied the curricula to see if they differ, but I have one friend who recently passed the aviation (VFR) and another friend which is due for the maritime (small boats/yachts) exam. I'm pretty sure neither of them has any idea how impedance works nor how VSWR can be altered, but they both had a separate ham exam as a requirement.

A ham exam? I don't believe so.

Exactly, there isn't one. I have posted a link of what is actually required above.

[borjam]

For emergency coms you don't actually need to be licensed - in an emergency, anyone can operate the radio and even transmit outside of the allowed bands/power.

Right, although it might depend on the country. Anyway the only radio operators with the privilege of operating modified equipment that might transmit outside of its assigned bands are hams.

OTOH, few marine and aviation radios can transmit outside of their respective bands, so the idea of someone tuning over to e.g. 2m HAM band to call for help is a bit unrealistic. Moreover, many radios have a button for the direct selection of the emergency frequency(ies), which are internationally standardized. Those are monitored 24/7 by the authorities, e.g. coast guard, air traffic control, even air force. So you really don't need to think about whether some HAMs are listening when you need to declare an emergency.

As far as I know, radio equipment intended for a certain service (maritime, mobile, air band) requires an approval process. In order to pass that approval equipment must be unable to transmit or even receive outside its assigned bands and, moreover, modifications must be reasonabiy difficult to perform. Even commercial ham equipment is subject to technical limitations. However, it is legal for a ham to use modified equipment.

So, in short. It's illegal to use a ham transceiver onboard a ship to communicate on the maritime mobile frequencies. However, it's legal for a ham to modify a maritime mobile transceiver in order to make it work on ham bands, as it is legal for a ham to operate self built equipment.

It's extremely unlikely that, for example, a ship in distress calls on a ham frequency. It would be possible if there was a ham onboard maybe. And anyway the safest bet would be to call on the officialy monitored frequencies. Maritime operators are not even used to think in frequency terms, they see their bands as a number of numbered channels.

Now and then there are discussions in the ham community about the usage of "emergency" frequencies within ham bands, and some people imagines that they should be monitored. Actually those frequencies are the preferred ones to allocate in case hams help in an emergency situation and they need some clear frequencies to operate.

[borjam]

Regarding the value (or lack of) ham radio, well, I think it's one of those things that people will really appreciate in case it eventually disappears.

I am now reading a very nice book: "Most Secret War: British Scientific Intelligence 1939–1945" by RV Jones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Victor_Jones. It's an account of the electronic warfare in WWII from the British point of view. We tend to forget about it but it was much more sophisticated than it seems.

One paragraph in particular surprised me. He discussed the differences observed between the British and German radar equipment. British equipment was more of a best effort, experimental thing, while German equipment was much better engineered and with a much better build quality. But turns out that German radar operators were almost clueless in technical terms, while the British operators were much more knowledgeable and often able to improvise, change procedures, or adapt to changes.

He said that the main source for radar operators in the UK was hams. They also had hams monitoring frequencies from home and reporting (this documentary covers it: ). And, curiously, Germany had abolished amateur radio right after Hitler's ascent to power. Probably the nazis saw citizens communicating with foreigners as a threat.

Of course we are in very different times. But at the very least amateur radio is a good reserve of people with at least some knowledge of radio communications and in many cases the ability to improvise functional installations.

At least in Spain the law mandates that hams must help in case of emergency.