Foundations of Amateur Radio
488 episodes - English - Latest episode: 9 days ago - ★★★★★ - 30 ratingsStarting in the wonderful hobby of Amateur or HAM Radio can be daunting and challenging but can be very rewarding. Every week I look at a different aspect of the hobby, how you might fit in and get the very best from the 1000 hobbies that Amateur Radio represents. Note that this podcast started in 2011 as "What use is an F-call?".
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Episodes
Lessons Learnt
September 28, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 7.36 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Lessons Learnt Learning to me is an ongoing process. For some reason that's not a universal experience. I've met people who cram for an exam, pass their test, get the certificate and hang out their shingle. The retained knowledge is spotty and vigorously defended as the final word on the topic. It's never been like that for me. I tend to walk through life intensely curious about the how and why of a thing. Take my recent adventures operating a new to me radio ...
Going on an outing
September 21, 2019 16:00 - 3 minutes - 5.61 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Going on an outing After my fun and games working out how to manage power for a temporary radio set-up, away from my shack and normal infrastructure, I had the pleasure of actually going out to get on air and make some noise. A national contest was on offer and it's always been a favourite of mine. It's simple to log, you can work as much or as little as you like and there's generally a good community spirit associated with it. After mapping my way around the ...
Planning for an outing
September 14, 2019 16:00 - 3 minutes - 6.11 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Planning for an outing Recently I had the opportunity to use a new radio whilst I was far away from my shack. It wasn't unexpected, I took the radio with me, planned for the experience and packed light with intent. My original packing included a 10m length of coax, my analyser, some antenna weights, wire, rope, power leads, BNC adaptors, barrel connectors and a balun. Total weight came in at about 7kg. More than double the weight of the radio itself. The bigges...
Boating adventures
September 07, 2019 16:00 - 3 minutes - 6.66 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Boating adventures The other day I was on a boat. That's right, me, on a floating thing, on the water, the ocean actually, steering and everything. I should confess that when I was younger I spent most weekends sailing as a sea scout in Holland. Managed to become a bootsen, that's the bunny in charge of a boat. Sea scouts, zee verkenners, was also my very first introduction to amateur radio through JOTA, Jamboree On The Air, where scouts across the globe come t...
Gate-keeping, special people and bullies.
August 31, 2019 16:00 - 5 minutes - 9.37 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Gate-keeping, special people and bullies. One of the recurring topics in my experience of amateur radio is that associated with people who use the hobby as an excuse to sow discontent. That comes in many forms, at the extreme end it's harassment, but it also comes in the form of gatekeepers and nay-sayers. It's important to realise that while this behaviour is not limited to amateur radio, we seem to have more than our fair share of the negative element. When ...
New Entrants are Everywhere
August 24, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 8.19 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio New Entrants are Everywhere The hobby of amateur radio has been around for a long time. It was here before I was born and it will be here after I become a silent key. The same is true for you. While there is a recurring discussion about the death of the hobby, the reality is that our community changes continually. People come and go all the time. Reasons for change are as varied as the number of people you care to look at, from interest through to family, from m...
What's in a Watt?
August 17, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 7.34 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio What's in a Watt? We need more power. I'm giving her all she's got, Captain! She cannae take anymore. I'm sure your Scottish ancestors are rolling in their graves right now, but in our community of radio amateurs we have a tendency to advocate the use of more power. More power fixes all problems and hides all sins. Another way to look at that is to think of the station with more power as an aligator, all mouth, no ears. Before you dismiss this as another avoc...
It broke and now what?
August 10, 2019 16:00 - 5 minutes - 9.95 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio It broke and now what? Imagine you're a new amateur. You've woken up in the middle of the night because insomnia seems like a good way to use amateur radio as an excuse to get on air and make some noise. You turn on the radio, key up the transmitter and the next thing you know it's dark. The breaker that powers your radio popped and there's no more glow coming from the hardware that's warming up your shack. You get up, reset the breaker, tighten up your dressin...
What's in a word?
August 03, 2019 16:00 - 5 minutes - 9.44 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio What's in a word? When you join a new community you learn very quickly that each community has its own language. A word in one community has a different or extra meaning in another. For example, the word "Snowflake" in one community might refer to a phenomenon related to water and freezing, in another community it refers to a person who is sensitive, easily hurt and offended. If you mix the two meanings all manner of misunderstanding ensues. In amateur radio, o...
How far can I talk on radio?
July 27, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 8.35 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio How far can I talk on radio? A question that regularly hits the enquiring minds of people who are not (yet) radio amateurs is one about distance. For both amateurs and those who are not ye) inducted into our community the concept of distance speaks in ways that other parts of our hobby don't. It's a simple concept, between these two points, how far can you talk? The interesting thing to me about this phenomenon is that distance isn't a metric that we as amateur...
What's allowed on our bands?
July 20, 2019 16:00 - 5 minutes - 9.8 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Recently there was a discussion on social media about the legality of various types of transmissions. Before I get into the specifics, it's worth looking at some of the rules around this. I will point out that this isn't exhaustive, but it gives you an idea of what I'm talking about. In Australia, the rules about this are encapsulated in the Radiocommunications Licence Conditions Determination, referred to as the LCD. It essentially says that you must not operat...
Your Software Defined Radio around the home
July 13, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 9.08 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio What would you do if you found that at random times your garage door opener didn't work, or the Wi-Fi network dropped out, or you couldn't switch off a light with an RF controller? That's the position I found myself in and the times at which this was happening were madly unpredictable. One moment everything would work fine and the next all things radio would just stop. As a radio amateur you're likely nodding your head and thinking, radio interference, there's ...
The Software Defined Radio vs. Traditional Radio choice
July 06, 2019 16:00 - 3 minutes - 6.95 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio For some time I've been explaining how some of the internal workings of a Software Defined Radio operate with a view to getting into the nitty gritty of the why and the how. This exploration is happening within the context of a world where there are countless choices for selecting a radio to match your budget. Increasingly that selection process starts with a simple question: Should I purchase a Software Defined Radio or a traditional radio? This is not a new qu...
The Regulator
June 29, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 8.33 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio From time to time our hobby changes. While the idea that we're all a bunch of old men playing with spark gap transmitters, or using strange noises to the annoyance of others, the reality of amateur radio is markedly different from that stereotype. The changes we experience come from many different sources. As amateurs we're always trying something new, inventing things and building stuff. That type of change is integral to the hobby and in many ways it's why our...
From Milk to Direct Conversion in a Software Defined Radio
June 22, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 8.81 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio It seems my analogy with milk glasses hit a nerve when I explained some of the inner workings of a simple Analogue to Digital Converter, also known as an A/D Converter or ADC as part of my exploration into Software Defined Radio. Thank you for your comments, suggestions and corrections. I did make an error when I said, grab eight of them and you'll have a byte, I'll get into that. Thank you for pointing it out. With my milk glass analogy, if you missed it, wit...
Milking Software Defined Radio
June 15, 2019 16:00 - 3 minutes - 6.01 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio One of the unsung hero components of a Software Defined Radio is the A/D or Analogue to Digital converter. Its job is to convert the analogue signal that's coming in via the antenna into a digital signal that is processed by software. I've talked about the difference between analogue and digital before and many explanations talk about converting things into zero and one. There are a few steps before that. Imagine a row of identical glasses, let's say eight. Gra...
When digging gives you more understanding, the magic of software.
June 08, 2019 16:00 - 5 minutes - 9.79 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Today I'm going to go sideways to move forward. In amateur radio we consider circuits, components such as transistors, inductors, capacitors, crystals and how they're connected to each other. The framework in which that exists is embodied by the field of electronics and how these components can be mixed together to shape a radio that you can build or buy. In a software defined radio there are electronics and components to be sure, but the bulk of the work is don...
Software Defined Radio offers another path to the same information.
June 01, 2019 16:00 - 5 minutes - 9.33 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Over the past few weeks I've been describing how some of the fundamental concepts of software defined radio work and how some of these operate and interact with each other. You might think of some of these ideas and technologies as unrelated to the hobby of amateur radio, or not relevant to traditionally built radios. Nothing could be further from the truth. Before I go on, I've been trying to find more elegant terms to distinguish between radios built with mo...
Digital Origami in Software Defined Radio
May 25, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 8.3 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio As a quick recap of what I've discussed before, a Software Defined Radio is a tool that essentially measures the voltage at the base of an antenna system and sends that to a computer for processing. The faster you measure, or sample, the better the representation of what's coming in via the antenna. The traditional view is that you need to sample at least twice as high as the highest frequency you want to represent. You may also recall that an antenna system do...
SDR: How many colours inside a Software Defined Radio?
May 18, 2019 16:00 - 6 minutes - 12.2 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio If you were asked to make an image of the Sydney harbour bridge and only use four dots, the viewer might struggle to determine what was the bridge, the sky, the water and the Sydney Opera House. Regardless of the number of colours available to you, the number of dots would not be enough information for most people. You might have a nice piece of art on your hands, but it might be ineligible for the Archibald prize. Even if you were allowed many colours, and just ...
SDR Sample Rates: How fast is fast enough?
May 11, 2019 16:00 - 5 minutes - 10.3 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio If you measure the voltage at the base of an antenna and record the readings, you end up with a collection of numbers that represent the voltage over time. These numbers, or samples, can be used to represent the antenna signal inside a computer. An antenna system voltage is an example of an analogue signal, continuous over time, the recorded readings, the samples are an example of digital, discrete and intermittent. It's possible to reconstruct an analogue sign...
Software Defined Radio is fundamentally a different way of looking at radio spectrum
May 04, 2019 16:00 - 5 minutes - 9.54 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio We think of radio as operating on a specific frequency. We select an antenna resonant on a single band. We configure the radio for that same band and then turn the dial or the VFO, or Variable Frequency Oscillator to a particular frequency within that band. All of our language is geared towards this concept of tuning, of picking out, selecting one special tuned, resonant frequency and listening to it. I've said this before, but that's not actually what's happen...
How does a Software Defined Radio or SDR work?
April 27, 2019 16:00 - 5 minutes - 10.1 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio If you've been around the hobby in the past decade, you may have come across the invention of a Software Defined Radio, or SDR. You might even own one and if you've looked into how it works, read the explanation that essentially describes it as a traditional radio where all the components are implemented in software. To me that's like explaining how a radio works by waiving your hands and saying: here is magic. How it actually works is something all together mor...
Antennas out of sight and out of mind ...
April 20, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 7.79 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Previously I've spoken about the dynamic nature of your station. Even if from day to day use, nothing changes, things around you are always in flux. Propagation changes, power fluctuates and the environment in which your antenna operates is dynamic. Mobile stations even more so. A few days ago we had a gale come through, strong enough to do some major damage, rip off some roofs, break some trees, cause flooding, cause power outages, plummeting temperatures, the ...
Fragility of Communication
April 13, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 8.42 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Our day to day life is full of communication. We listen, although less and less, to the radio for news and entertainment, sometimes mixed together as food and games for the masses. We can communicate with family, friends and the rest of the global population using a telephone. With the internet as a transmission medium, we exchange text, sound and vision with impunity to anyone who stumbles across it on a mind boggling collection of outlets, websites, social med...
When you hear a distress call ...
April 06, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 7.47 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio When you get your amateur radio license you become part of a select group of humans who are required to notify authorities if you happen to hear an emergency transmission. Not only that, you're required to offer assistance. The regulator in Australia, the ACMA, says this about it: When a distress call is heard, you must immediately cease all transmissions. You must continue to listen on frequency. You must record full details of the distress message, in writing...
Overcoming Microphone Anxiety
March 30, 2019 16:00 - 5 minutes - 10.5 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio If the thought of keying up a microphone has you break out in a cold sweat, or the notion of making a mistake sends you into fits of anxiety, the idea of performance in public makes your heart pound, this is for you. Amateur radio is a hobby of communication. The lowest barrier to entry is a hand held radio and making voice contacts with the rest of the community. There is an underlying assumption that this is likely to be the most common way that you'll start g...
The Station Log
March 23, 2019 16:00 - 6 minutes - 12 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio A topic that rarely if ever gets any serious air-time is the humble station log. It's a process where you track what contacts you've made with whom, when and what conditions prevailed at the time. Notice first of all that I mention that it's a process. A station log is made up of several different moving parts and if you're new to this you might think of your station log as a physical thing. You can actually buy things called Station Logs, looks like a book, it ...
What's in a Chirp?
March 16, 2019 16:00 - 3 minutes - 6.45 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio On Thursday the 3rd of July 2008 at 6 minutes to 7 at night a developer called Dan KK7DS started to scratch an itch and published the results. The next morning before breakfast Dan added more. Since then about a hundred people from around the globe have contributed to that project. Some people made little changes, others made large contributions over many years. In all, on average, the project saw a change every 29 hours over more than a decade of contributions....
Creativity comes with practice
March 09, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 7.64 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio I grew up with Lego, plastic blocks that you can put together in infinite variety. My oldest Lego kit hails from 1964, kit 324: House with Garage and it's still in pretty good nick today. It's missing the tree and the car and the garage door is broken and a few blocks have vanished, but putting it together the other day reminded me of the art of building. Today I still play with Lego. In fact after a hiatus of several decades I pulled out my old boxes and starte...
All the power in the world and not enough battery!
March 02, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 9.06 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio The transceiver you use to get on air and make noise needs power to operate. The traditional voltage for our amateur equipment is 13.8 Volts. Why not 12 Volts you ask. The short answer is chemistry, but let's move on, there is lots to cover. Generally that 13.8 Volt is specified with a +/- symbol and some percentage. For my radio it's 15%, which means that if I plug it into power that's somewhere between 11.7 Volt and 15.9 Volt, I'm good to go. Then when you lo...
More WSPR adventures
February 23, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 8.75 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Previously I've spoken about the joy of making something out of not much. On that theme I've covered WSPR, the Weak Signal Propagation Reporter, a mechanism to use a modest station to report signals received, which is something any suitably interested person can participate in, no license required. For a time I had my radio, a Yaesu FT-857D connected to a Windows XP notebook running WSJT-X, a piece of software that has the ability to set the frequency of your ra...
Modern Tools for a Modern Hobby
February 16, 2019 16:00 - 3 minutes - 7.31 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio The hobby we call amateur radio is enormous. One amateur called it a thousand hobbies in one and that just about sums it up for me. Being bored inside this hobby is not an option, because there is just so much to do and see. Yesterday I found a completely unrelated aspect to our hobby, call it the one thousand and first hobby associated with amateur radio. A friend came over and handed me the separation kit mount for my Yaesu FT-857D, it's the bit of plastic tha...
How effective is your station?
February 09, 2019 16:00 - 5 minutes - 9.57 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio We tend to spend most of our energy looking at antennas and power to evaluate how well our station works. Based on a better antenna or more power, you're likely to make more contacts is the general gist of the process. Being a QRP operator, power rarely comes into the conversation, 5 Watts is what you get, leaving antennas as the prime method of discovering how effective we can be. Recently I received an email from Layne AE1N, pointing me at an article he wrote...
How to select a mobile operating location
February 02, 2019 16:00 - 5 minutes - 9.29 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Operating your amateur radio station at home, in your shack, is one of the often discussed aspects of our hobby. Much has been said about installation, antennas, grounding and the like, but what if you want to operate mobile? Picking a location, of all the locations available to you, can be quite the task. For some it's daunting, others find it challenging, others take to it with ease and often you find yourself overwhelmed by choice. What makes a good operating...
Brand New Callsign
January 26, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 7.87 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Today I have a new callsign, it's exciting, special, kind of strange, to be known as something other than VK6FLAB. It's hard to overstate how much of your identity as a radio amateur is linked to your callsign. It's a strange phenomenon to those who are not amateurs, or who have only just joined the community and are still learning to remember what callsign they have. We think of callsigns as semi-permanent fixtures, but realistically they're far from that. In ...
The reported death of Amateur Radio due to FT8 is an exaggeration
January 19, 2019 16:00 - 5 minutes - 10.2 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio In 2017 a new digital amateur mode called FT8 joined the ranks of inventions related to our hobby. Since then it's taken the amateur world by storm, filled the bands with contacts and attracted a strong following among radio amateurs across the planet. Making contacts with low solar cycle numbers has never been so easy. Together with that following comes a growing chorus of those who decry this addition, the filling of our air with useless noise and it's too eas...
Fan Vertical Antenna
January 12, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 8.13 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio One of the single most recurring topics within our community is that of antennas. Everywhere you look is a story or a photo or a website or a contact about an antenna that came into being because somebody had an idea. Now if you've been in the ideas field for a while you'll have learnt that having the idea is often just the start of the process. After that there's planning, sourcing, building and testing. If you're lucky you'll end up with something and a story ...
Empirical evidence and the scientific method
January 05, 2019 16:00 - 4 minutes - 7.91 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio The hobby of amateur radio is a curious animal. It sits at the junction between empirical evidence and the scientific method. On the one hand it's all about physics, electricity, magnetism and the science behind those. On the other hand it's about trying something out and seeing what happens. When I started in this hobby, I was all about the science. I wanted to know "Why is it so?" "What evidence is there to support that?", all the typical questions you might a...
QRP EME project update #1
December 29, 2018 16:00 - 5 minutes - 10.7 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Over the past year and a half I've been working on a secret project. Today I'd like to share what I've been up to. To set the scene, I'm not doing this on my own, a fellow co-conspirator is Randall VK6WR who became an amateur about 20 months ago. Randall has a long association with the Engineering Development Array and the Murchison Wide Field Array, two of several radio telescopes that are built on one of the few radio quiet areas in the world and located near t...
What are you proud of?
December 22, 2018 16:00 - 4 minutes - 8.03 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Often we forget the things we've done or achieved and every now and then it seems like a solid use of time to reflect a little on what went before and what that did. Recently I asked various amateurs what they were proud of having done or achieved in the past year, their little personal victory, their thrill to keep coming back to the hobby. For me it was the research and production behind "Is man-made noise really vertical?". It took several weeks to research ...
Contest Headphones and glorious HF SSB
December 15, 2018 16:00 - 3 minutes - 7.23 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Recently I managed to get some quality on-air time when I participated in a contest. This isn't about contesting. Although I suppose tangentially it is. It was a most enjoyable experience shared with some friends and because we did it at a local radio club, Sunday morning had all manner of visitors joining us for a little social chat, just the ticket for breaking the monotony of calling CQ. Normally when I do a contest I wear headphones, actually it's a headset,...
How do I get a better antenna?
December 08, 2018 16:00 - 3 minutes - 6.44 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio The question that new amateurs most often ask after "What radio should I buy?" is "How do I get the best antenna?". In a household where you're the only antenna affected aficionado the question is likely more along the lines of: "Why do you need another antenna?". The answer is pretty much the same, an antenna is fit for purpose, generally only one purpose. Going from A to B without walking might involve a car. If it's just you, one seat is enough, if your loc...
When does knowing more make it harder?
December 01, 2018 16:00 - 2 minutes - 5.44 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio The other day one of my non amateur friends asked for some help. He wants to set up a receiver for his bush fire brigade that's available via the internet so his community can listen to the communication channels when there are fires around, or when a volunteer is out of radio range but still wants to hear what's going on. His question was about hooking up an antenna. We started to discuss what he already had and it turns out that he has enough coaxial cable in...
Are you an Elmer?
November 24, 2018 16:00 - 3 minutes - 6.61 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio In our hobby there is a term "Elmer", referring to someone who helps new amateurs find their way inside the community, locate resources, understand techniques, etc. It's part of what we might consider the folklore of amateur radio. I started this with the intent to quickly introduce the concept of an Elmer and then spend some time talking about our own role in this adventure, but as is often the case, I was side-tracked by my own investigation. There is a push ...
When failure doesn't matter ...
November 17, 2018 16:00 - 3 minutes - 6.73 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio The other day I read a message from Theodore KS5I who has been around the block a couple of times. He recalls the excitement he experienced when he was first licensed in 1967, the year I was born. He described that at the time transistors were just coming into their own and it was so wonderful to be learning about them. The closing sentence sealed it for me: Theodore wrote: Perhaps, its time for some of us more mature operators to release the past so our hands...
The Golden Age of Amateur Radio is Now
November 10, 2018 16:00 - 3 minutes - 6.42 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Imagine a world where electronics are pervasive, a transceiver can be purchased for the price of two Big Macs, kits are designed and built using simple tools at home, software makes it possible to invent new methods of communication on an almost daily basis, where long distance contacts are made throughout the day using milliwatts while ionospheric propagation is at an all-time low, where national parks and peaks are being activated at an increasing rate, where n...
Everything you wanted to know about amateur radio but were afraid to ask!
November 03, 2018 16:00 - 3 minutes - 6.91 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio There are people who ask questions and there are people who answer them. Sometimes the people who answer even know what they're talking about, but sometimes they just repeat what they've been told without any form of critical thought. The reason I raise this is because when you're a new amateur with a shiny new license, you're like a little puppydog, going from tree to tree to have a sniff. Does this smell good, what about this, ooh, that's a nice smell, I wond...
Get on air and make some noise ...
October 27, 2018 16:00 - 5 minutes - 9.57 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Get on air and make some noise is a phrase I use often to encourage amateurs to be active on-air and use the bands that are available to us. One thing that's often glossed over is how to actually make that noise. It can be scary to make that first contact. If you've got your radio installed, your antenna erected, your operating position set-up just right and you're ready to actually key your microphone, how do you do that and how do you get the attention of tho...
Celebrate accomplishments
October 20, 2018 16:00 - 3 minutes - 6.76 MBFoundations of Amateur Radio Mistakes are common in all aspects of life. Sometimes they are only known to you, other times they are public knowledge and open to ridicule and lambasting. Getting on air for the first time is an accomplishment and often the initial source of mistakes, mishaps and great frustration. Once you've made it on air, the reception to this feat is often underwhelming, people around you don't appear to appreciate the amount of effort you went to in order to key your micr...