Any ham radio users? I want to get into it, what should I know?

Any ham radio users? I want to get into it, what should I know?

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>ham radio

you got the diet right at least

Just go to your local ham radio group, they can even lend you some things

Get licensed

Buy a cheap scanner, even a rtl-sdr will do, and listen to what's out there.
Odds are you'll realize they're mostly fucktards and that you don't want to play in their sandbox after all.

>get scanner
>set up and listen for a few hours
>throw it all away because it's pretty much a bunch of boring bullshit after that

that is one polish looking meal

Not op but I figured I could ask this question here. MURS has a power restriction of 2 watts. My baofeng radio can do one watt on the low setting but from my understanding it is still illegal to use it because it isn't certified. If I were to use it would the fcc be able to track me down?

Talk to the international space station.

I've been a licensed ham for well over a year now. In that short time, i've met new people in the valley, and around the country, few living up to the fucktard reputation. i've used IRLP to talk to other country's, including Antarctica. I've saved at least 6 people who were stranded where their phone wont work, usually either out of gas or a flat tire. I've volunteered to help coordinate and aid in many of the local races and events, fixing countless flat bike tires and tubes,spotting heat stroke and hypothermia, and doing first aid on many, many, scraped up arms and knees. I've figured out how to broadcast telemetry and location over APRS, so i can go into the ass end of nowhere without giving a fuck, and call for help if i need it. And i've done it all on a pair of cheap $30 Chinese baofengs and a technicians license.


All in all, i have zero regrets. And i haven't even touched HF frequencies yet with the exception of field day. If you really want to get into it, start at QRZ.com, go to resources, practice radio exams, and technician test. practice until you can regularly get above 26/35 questions right, then go find your local club and ask them when they are taking exams.

Could they? you bet. we make a game of hunting down hidden transmitters so if ever needed, we can find unlicensed or problematic radio operators. if they/we find you, odds are you'll get a handful of warnings asking to cut it out before somebody pulls the federal law card.

Will they? most likely not. Baofengs are kind of a special snowflake radio. they are very cheap and excessively popular, despite being in a big grey area of legality. some countries ban the sale or use of baofengs, but the us hasn't taken major action yet. as long as you are being responsible and staying on approved frequencies, no one should be sour about it.

Yeah, but he wants to play with you on Sup Forums.

Just curious, how do you/they find out? How do they know I'm nut just using a regular fcc aproved radio?

We call them bunny hunts/fox hunts. there's quite a few names for it i imagine. it all involves using a directional yagi antenna with a handheld radio to track down where the signal from a hidden transmitter is coming from. as we get closer, the signal becomes more clear, and we go further off frequency to deliberately introduce more interference, and in turn, find which direction the signal is most clear in. its only a matter of time until we find the source. This is how we do it anyway.

Now replace that hidden transmitter with a generic fucktard. maybe he's not licenced. maybe he's broadcasting music (forbidden by the FCC). maybe he's interfering with a local repeater by broadcasting simplex too close to the input frequency. Regardless, the same method is used to find the problem child. and the more he talks and transmits, the easier it is to find him.

Now as long as you stay on the frequency's you're supposed to be on, and keep power down where its supposed to be, its not interfering with anything. i can't see why we would go looking for the source, regardless what radio you have.

tl;dr stay responsible and no one gives a fuck about your shitty Chinese equipment.

listen to it on the internet instead
websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/

Does anyone under 70 do this?

There's not too many of us. but we're out there.

That's pretty autistic

Unless HAM to you means Realtek SDR, it can be an expensive hobby. If you intend to transmit over the amateur bands, don't even bother with SDR unless you have $1k+ to spend. Devices like HackRF and USRP don't transmit very far.

UC Berkeley has an undergrad ham radio course, I took it. Neat stuff, we bounced signals off airplanes

How in the shit do you bounce a signal of an airplane? I've heard of people doing this to the moon, but that's a big fucking target.

Nevermind. That was a retarded question. I guess that's basically RADAR.

>Devices like HackRF and USRP don't transmit very far.

Transmission distance depends on the Antenna and power.

jmalsbury.com/how-to-talk-to-a-36-year-old-space-probe-isee-3-with-gnu-radio-a-usrp-and-a-big-dish/