TechStuff Hams It Up

Jonathan Strickland. Hey, there, that's right, the studio A the old the old bird, the old lady. She's a she's going undergoing a bit of a of a of a renovation, complete tear down and reconstruction phase, and it is going to be bigger and badder than ever once, uh, the six week period is up. We are recording this on week one of that six week period. Of course, this will this will publish much later so or maybe not much later, but later and uh and we'll be well

on our way to returning to our studio space. But in the meantime, we are in an empty office. And I heard there would be turbo lasers on the new one. I hope I on lasers, because those end up completely disabling a ship without actually causing it damage. Well, you know, we do what we can fit in the budget at any rate. So we are currently in a tiny, unused office that is getting increasingly warm as we go. So why don't we just jump right into this week's topic,

which happens to be a highly requested topic. In fact, let me run through this really quickly. We have received requests from listeners such as Robert Art, Karen, Josh, David, Joe, Patrick, Steve, and our good friend Humble Floyd the Trucker. Uh, this is uh, this topic is ham radio or amateur radio. This this is what we got a lot of us for this after we did CB radio quite a while ago.

And uh, you know, we have a lot of a lot of different topics on our list that we go through, and this was just one that's been there for a while and and Chris said, you know what, we really need to tackle this, and I agreed, alright, So, uh it seems like it's all in fun, you know, and mostly well you know what I was getting to that. I'm sorry, Um, no, it seems like it's all in

good fun. I mean, as a portion of the radio spectrum dedicated to people getting on there and meeting people from all over the world as a spectrum that allows you to talk and the signals carry for a long distance. But it's but as Jonathan pointed out, it's not necessarily all for fun. Here in the United States. Part of the reason that the Federal Communications Commission grants these licenses is so that people can use these frequencies to broadcast

emergency messages. Is in the event of something going horribly horribly wrong, right, you know, normal communication methods may be interrupted, but often you can find someone with a radio transceiver who is able to continue to communicate with the outside world or possibly with people just across town to trying to coordinate efforts in case of need for like an

emergency rescue or rerouting traffic, that kind of thing. And uh, there are several ways that that amateur radio differs from citizens band radio or CB radio, and one was one that Chris mentioned just now, which were licenses. You must have a license in order to operate within the amateur radio frequencies. And there are many of the frequencies. They're they're in bands, and they are throughout the radio frequency spectrum. Uh,

and it's different from country to country. Not every country uses the exact same bands too, you know, they don't group everything together in the same bands that we do in the United States, which is a good thing in a way because it keeps people from talking over one another. Yeah,

the interference is cut down a little bit. And however, that does mean that on certain frequencies, you theoretically should be unable to contact people in the In countries that are working on a different frequency, they shouldn't be on that one. Uh And the whole radio spectrum is is pretty wide. You know, it's not a tiny little thing. It's um, I actually downloaded a little Yeah, I don't know the thing here about the radio spectrum. And yeah,

he's saying, wow, because it's pretty huge. Um. In fact, at I can't even read it because it's shrunk everything down. But yeah, from about Jonathan's going to hold this his computer up to the microphone so that you all can hear whatever. Everyone take a look. Everyone, don't don't crowd. Uh No, But from about nine killer hurts. Uh to, let's see how what does it go up to all the way to scroll down into their right three hundred giga hurts. Nine kill hurts the three hundred gig hurts.

That's the full spectrum there, and large sections, large chunks of that spectrum are dedicated to specific um UH services or UM like emergency services have certain sections allocate to them and no one else is allowed to broadcast in those television, AM radio, FM, radio, these kind of things have dedicated spectrums, right, and then outside of that, you have a few spectrums that are set aside specifically for

amateur radio. And UH. We mentioned the licenses. It's interesting you can only access certain certain bands depending on what your license is. You can't, you know, just because you get a license to work in amateur radio, at least in the United States, if you get a license to work amateur radio, that does not automatically mean that you can access the entire radio frequency set aside for amateur radio. Up there are three sets of our three different levels

of licenses in the United States. There's the Technician Class license, which is the the base license, and the way you get that is you have to answer a thirty five question multiple choice examination. You have to pass this examination, and the examination focuses on things like the operating practices, regulations, electronics theory, like what you know like our our podcast that we covered basic electronics theory. Yeah, you have to have a good grounding in that in order to be

an amateur radio. Didn't mean it that way, you know. All right, Well it's so warm in here, I almost let loose with an actual curse word. Um, that's Josh's job. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and they don't beat him. Have you noticed I get beat for saying taken the out of but he doesn't anyway, Sorry for the beep, Hey Liz, how you doing so so? Anyway? Yeah, that you have to. The exam covers the regulations, operating

operating practices, electronics theory, that kind of stuff. Also information on VHF and UHF signals, which are talking about, you know, ultra high frequency and very high frequency radio signals. Now, those high frequency radio signals also happened to be the ones that don't travel that far comparatively speaking, you can use those to communicate with someone who's in the same town that you are in. But here's the thing about

radio frequencies. It's kind of interesting. Uh, when you talk about you have to you have to keep in mind there are two different measurements that are going when you're talking about radio frequencies, the measurement in uh in hurts, which is the number of waves per second, right, and then the length of the wave, which is inversely proportional. You know, the shorter the wave, the more you're going to get going through in a second because they're all

traveling at the same speed. You know, I always have a problem with wavelength and amplitudes. Alright, So alright, radio travels we're talking about we're talking about the speed of light year essentially, right, Electromagnetic radiation we're talking about we're talking everything is moving at the same speed. If you have a really long wavelength, you're going to get fewer repetitions within a second than if you have a very short wavelength because they're both traveling at the same speed.

All right, So these high frequency radio waves are happen to be very very short and um and so they don't travel that far. And the reason they don't travel that far is because the long waves have the benefit of being reflected by the ionosphere and the sphere is way the heck up there, but it tends to that's that's a technical term. That's stuff from the science lab.

That's why I'm not going that far into detail. But the ionosphere can reflect long radio waves and UH and depending on the time of day, UH, it can reflect certain wavelengths better than others. It does change throughout the day and the night UM and also other radio other electromagnetic UM interference can can affect it as well, things like the Aurora borealis. That's actually electromagnetic UH phenomenon there, it's not just pretty lights, So that can also reflect

radio waves. Well, if you're using really long radio waves that and they bounce off the onmosphere, you can actually transmit messages all the way across the world. So you and I could use a Ham radio operating on these very long radio frequencies to talk to people in Australia. However, we would have to have a higher class license than just the basic because the technician class license does not give you access to those radio waves. So the next

level up would be the general class license. Now that gives you a larger UH range of frequencies that you can use, including the really big ones, so you can start talking to people who are on the other side of the world and UH and you have to pass another thirty five question examination and it gets a little more specific. It's a little more advanced, so you have to have a better understanding of electronic theory as opposed to a grounding UM, as well as operating procedures and

all that kind of stuff. And then the third and final level in the United States is the Amateur Extra Class license UM. And the reason you would want this is because at certain and certain bands or radio traffic is pretty heavy because that's where everyone's operating. So you if you wanted to get the Amateur Extra Class license, you would have access to the most elite bands of frequencies where you could, uh, there's not as much traffic.

You can you're more likely to be able to get your messages through, and you can even use it for experiments like things like Earth to Moon to Earth transmissions where you're actually bouncing you know, you're aiming your radio signals up at the moon to bounce off and come back down. That's pretty cool. It is pretty cool. And UM,

that is different than the other two. Instead of having to answer a thirty five multiple choice question, you have to answer a fifty U fifty multiple choice question examination and past that. Uh. And there's something that's interesting recently about all three of the examinations that has changed just over the last few years. Yes, yes, there's one thing you no longer need to know in order to become an amateur radio specialist or a user relates specialist is

the wrong term entirely, but an amateur radio operator. You know what that is, right, Hit me with it, baby, Morse code. Yes, you no longer need to know Morse code in order to become an amateur radio operator, a licensed amateur radio operator. And I used to be that that was one of the requirements you had to learn

Morse code. Morse code was one of the the most probably the most popular way of transmitting information via ham radio for many years, and the reason for that is that at certain signals, the quality of the radio transmission is fairly low. So it's hard to transmit information like voice info at least on the older radios, the lower powered radios, and under certain like I said, certain radio frequencies.

So if you were to try and transmit voice over those signals, it would just kind of come in staticky and and unintelligible. But you use something like a series of of dots and dashes beefs, those would go and transmit much more effectively. And so that was, you know, and it was also kind of a carryover from the telegraph days, so you went from telegraph to radio and it just made sense because the the fidelity wasn't there for voice yet, and it kind of stuck for a

long time. It's still one of the more popular methods of transmitting data over ham radio, but it's not the top one anymore. Voices taken over right now. Ham radio. Uh. You may wonder where the term came from. It actually comes from telegraph, because there was a book by G. M. Dodge, Uh that's just realized how funny that is, um called The Telegraph Instructor, And in it, uh, the author identifies

a ham as uh, someone who's a really bad telegraph operator. Um. And in the days when everybody was sharing a frequency, some people would come in more um intensely than others, and they would be able to talk over everyone else because they had a stronger signal. Well, Um, those people were identified as hands because they were basically stepping all

over everyone else's conversations. And the people those people, um were you know, the type of people who were taking that as a badge of honor and not not that they were taking their behavior as a badge of honor. But they thought uh uh, they sort of basically lashed onto the term and said, yeah, you know, we're amateurs. Were you know, d I why radio operators were gonna you know, this is what we're calling ourselves. And it basically doesn't have that meaning now, but it did at

one time. Yeah, it sounds like it was actually pretty pretty uh similar to the theatrical use of the word ham you know, that would be someone who steps all over everybody else in an attempt to get all the attention. I could think of someone on this podcast who fits that description. Boy, are my ears burning for some reason. Uh. And you know I mentioned earlier about the the really long radio waves being bouncing off the honosphere. I meant

to mention this too. I'm sorry that I didn't, but that the shorter waves, uh, they are either absorbed or they actually passed through the ionosphere and go out into spapace. So that's the thing is these radio waves aren't It's not that they you know, peter out. It's that's not the case. It's not that that's why they're not getting to the other side of the world. It's because instead of bouncing around the atmosphere and back down to the Earth.

To the Earth, they actually passed through the atmosphere and keep on going. So people who are in that that first class of amateur radio operators are technically sending signals out into the ether towards aliens who will eventually come and either ask us where all the cool Ham operators are or they will eat us. I'm thinking the ladder me too. So um speaking of never mind, Uh wow, I don't know where you were going now I'm not

sure either, all right. Um. So one of the really cool things about this is the fact that it is very a very d i y sort of hobby. I mean, you can, you know, take your license test, get your license, go ahead and buy a radio, or you can build one yourself. Yeah. This is another way that this is different from CB radios that you know, with CB radios, you you can't build your own siss has been radio. Uh,

you have to purchase a licensed one. Um, although we did get that one email about how you can you can kind of get around that, but in general you're supposed to to buy a licensed radio for CB radio as opposed to Now that's different for amateur radios. The amateur radio operators can create take up the hobby of building their own radios and then using them to transmit and receive information, and which I guess explains why you need the electronics theory in the test. Yes, and they

can be much more powerful than CB radios could. I think CBR radios were limited to some crazy thing like five watts. But amateur radio so that's pretty big difference there and now. And amateur radios come in all shapes

and sizes. You can find some that are a little handheld devices that you might tune to a repeater so that you send your signal to the repeater and the repeater receives signals through one frequency and transmits them through another and then essentially, well you know, it kind of boosts your signal UM or you could, uh, you could

have an amateur radio that's huge. I remember reading one thing saying that it could take up half an attic where you've got this enormous amateur radio station UM in order to to transmit received signals and UM and every single amateur radio operator gets a call sign, and unlike CB radio where you can pick your handle, these are call signs that are assigned to you and It all depends on where you live, what country you're in. You know how each country has its own method of assigning

these call signs. In the United States, the call sign has a prefix in a suffix. The prefix is all based upon where you live. UM that the it's usually a letter and then a number or a couple of letters in the number UM And some states get multiple call signs. I assume that means that that those are just have more amateur radio operators in them. It would make sense. So can you guess which two states have

the have multiple call sign prefixes? Which too? There are two states in the Union that have multiple call sign prefixes. I find a guess. I would think California in Texas. You are so wrongly Alaska and Hawaii. Oh well, you know when you say that, it makes sense now you think, yeah, that area. But these are the two that are the most isolated from the rest of the nation. So there

you go. And yeah, So Alaska's call sign prefixes are A L. Actually there's quite a few that's A L zero through seven, k L zero through seven, in L zero through seven, w L zero through seven, And Hawaii's are A H six through seven, k H six through seven, n H six or seven and w H six through seven. Yep, yeah, it's kind of interesting. And so yeah, the the that if you if you hear the beginning of a call sign,

you know where they are operating out of. And here's another interesting thing is that most countries allow amateur radio operators to operate within their borders even if they're not from that country. So let's say that you get your license in one country and you travel to another now, and so in some countries they'll let you go ahead and operate, you know, as if you held a license there.

Others may require you to actually pass an examination, a local examination before you're allowed to use your your radio skills. But what do you do about your call sign? Because your call sign identifies where you are, right, we just talked about that. Well you said where we're from. Well, it's not just where you're from, it's where you it's where you're transmitting from. So what what you have to do is you have a U addendum to your call sign.

You keep your regular call sign and then you add a little slash and then you give the prefix for the area that you are currently in, and that indicates that you are you know, you're from this one region, but you're actually broadcasting from another region for the time being while you are in transit. That's that's good to

know because. UM. Another thing that I thought was pretty cool about HAM radio as I was doing my research, and I had always wondered seeing the license plates of cars that had their HAM radio UH call sign listed on the license plate like they do in some places, UM, which was you know these were not Just because there are some radios that take up half of an attic doesn't mean that all HAM radios are like that. No, some are very portable, yes, and and and there are

some people who use them in cars. So I would assume that if you're doing if you're traveling with your radio, you're going to have to make that you know, you would have to change that whenever you would move into a new region. Now most most of the UM, most of the regions are pretty big. Actually, I can think of two reasons why Alaska and Hawaii would have those multiples. One, Hawaii is made up of series of islands, so probably

each island has its own. But Alaska is enormous, so that would also make sense, so that it may not even be the remote uh, nature of these two states, but also just the fact that one is not a single land mass and the other one is a freaking huge land mass. But at any rate, the I didn't understand that that that extension you have on there, well, it's the one for the inside of a bear. I've been eaten. I think I'm still in Alaska, might be

in Canada by now, who knows. Um. But yeah, the way, the way, the way you would say it is you would give your normal all sign, and then you would say portable, which it indicates that you are on the move, and then you would give the prefix for whatever region you were in. And like I said, most, uh, most of these call signs cover a fairly large area. So it's not like if you went from one state to

another you would necessarily have to change. You might have to go two or three states before you are in a new call sign area. And this is the kind of stuff you need to know before you take your exam. Um and there are it's funny, they're actually a lot of ham radio operators are are really really passionate about this hobby. That's not a funny part. I mean, it's it's that makes sense. But yeah, they're very passionate about it,

and they're very eager to share their knowledge. And so if you run to a an amateur radio operator or ham radio operator and uh, and they are willing to impart that knowledge to you. UH. The common term for them is do you happen to know this? I don't know this one Elmer's I saw that and had wonder, I have no idea someone's going to write in and explain to us why they are called that. I don't know. That's interesting though. Yeah, I was like, huh, I bet

there's a reason for that. I'm sure there's a story behind it, but I couldn't find it. While I was looking for I was looking at like all the technical specs and then so by the time I reached that point, I was like, look, too late. I gotta go around the horn now. UM. Yeah, if you're if you're wondering, there are several organizations. I mean there there is the International Amateur Radio Union, which is a very large organization, and then here in the United States, the American Relay

Radio League can also clue you in. Um, if you're looking for more information about about doing this, and it is it is fairly affordable hobby. As far as electronics go. Um, you know, even uh having buy the equipment, it can started under two hundred dollars in the United States, So that's that's not terribly expensive, Um for a you know, uh sort of out of the way you know, not on not on this store shelves at Walmart sort of of equipment. So that's, um, that's pretty cool. It's not

that terrible barrier to entry. Yeah, it's definitely. It's it's kind of got an old school appeal to it. I mean, I think unfortunately, I would say the the rise of the Worldwide Web has taken a lot of the appeal of of ham radio out for anyone other than radio enthusiasts, because the web has made it very easy to make

contact with people on the other side of the world. Now, before you know, amateur radio was one of the few ways you could actually have a conversation with someone who was countries away without spending any extra money on the actual transmission. You didn't have any long distance phone charges or anything like that. You didn't have to send mail

and wait forever for it to come back. You could have a real time conversation with someone and uh, and and it didn't cost you any more than what you had spent on your examination and the equipment you were using. That was it. But um, the web has made things so much easier that that people who are still interested in radio, of course they haven't lost any passion for the for the hobby, but it's I think it's probably

harder to get people into it. Well. On the other hand, though, if it's something that uh, and you know that it's this way with it just about any hobby that I've encountered, you know, there are always people who really enjoy the

exclusivity of it. And I'm sure for those people who like the the idea that they're doing something that few other people are doing, you know, just enough to have a conversation with, that's probably going to be an appeal to some people that dedicated to you know, keep the activity alive and keep interest up in it. And it's definitely a skill set, I mean it's not you know, building a radio requires a lot of skill, and operating

Morse code and understanding Morse code requires skill. And and you know, they have competitions, other Ham radio competitions that are pretty interesting where within a certain given amount of time you have to collect um as many call signs as you possibly can, verified that you have collected these call signs. And usually it's an international thing where you're trying to collect call signs from across the world. That's

the d X competition. Yeah. Yeah, and so you you have to try and collect as many as you can and and you know they have to be verifiable. You know, essentially you're going to have to appear in someone else's book too to show that yes, you did. Actually, you can't just write call signs down at random. Um. And we should also mention I'm surprised we've done this long without mentioning it. We've talked about Morse code and we've

talked about voice. Those are not the only two methods of communication you can you can send through amateur radio. There's more. Yeah, like television. You can actually use some of the spectrum to send amateur TV two people. Now, granted that these don't tend to travel that far, so you're tending you tend to display it to people who are in the area. But it's like creating your own public access ye. And there's a packet radio teletype right,

so packet packet information would be like the Internet. This was this We can thank con for this. Um about the con uh he uh it's very cold in radio um he uh. Con and surf. Yes, the the fathers of the Internet or people who worked on our pannet and then continued to work as arpanet uh sort of made way for the Internet. Um. One of the one of the networks that got pulled into the Internet was

the radio network. And once you were able to send packets data packets through radio frequencies, that became an actual part of the Internet. So when you think Internet, I mean we almost I tend to think of the Internet as computers and smartphones now things like that, devices that send data like that in that method. But really there's a radio element to it as well. And and amateur radio operators can use packets and send send data through

the radio. And the radio teletype that you mentioned used to have to have really specific equipment to use that. You know, you have to have a big teletype machine, like the like the ones you used to see in the newsroom. Yeah, like the one that's featured in the Boomtown Rats song. I don't like Mondays yes anyway, so uh think yeah, it took it. It's the very first line. It's kept so clean and it types to a waiting world. Uh. So yeah, you used to have to have these big machines.

Now you can use software on the computer and uh. And have you have your computer hooked up to a transceiver and the computer acts as the teletype machine and you can receive and send messages using radio teletype. And then there's the PSK delivery as well. So we we had to mention that because otherwise someone would write in and say, hey, you know, you talked about voice and you talked about Morse code, but there's more to it than that, and there is and uh and people are

using light Yes, I saw that. Yes, LED communications essentially to to deliver the same information. And you know, as long as you have line of sight, uh, the LED is able to transmit the signal that way rather than the traditional ways. Yeah. That's I'm like, how do you call that radio? Still? Yeah, that's that's photonic man. Yeah, And I really wanted to get into that more, but we're running out. We're running out of time. We're running out of time. And you know what I read. I

read that same article, but I need to read it. Yeah, I want to. I want to get it explained to someone else. Yeah, because that was one of those where I'm like, this is really super cool and I just barely understand it. Well. I hope that that was a good little discussion on HAM radio. There's so much more that we can talk about. Like we said, every single nation has its own frequencies and its own licensing procedure.

But if you're interested, there are lots of websites out there that can direct you to uh TO resources to become an amateur radio operator, and you're sure to find an elmer who's willing to talk to you about it, she's excited about it to mentor you in that. So moving on, I wanted to talk very quickly about a little listener mail. This listening mail comes from Kevin from Peoria. How are things in Peoria? Peoria? Today? It's a folk song? Okay,

he says, Hello. I just had a quick comment. Chris had mentioned in your last podcast about microwaves how much he hates microwaving bread, and I completely understand. Here's a tip that my fiance taught me. First, thoroughly wet down a paper towel and then unravel it. Next, wrap your bread works particularly well with breadsticks in the wet paper towel, microwave for a fifteen to twenty seconds, and then carefully remove and discard the very hot paper towel. Then enjoy

the soft, warm bread stuff. It stays soft and warm for much longer than usual this way. I didn't believe her until she did it for me one day and it worked. Believe me, it has revolutionized my dining experience with leftover bread sticks. Thanks for the great podcast. I especially like the puns. You are welcome, Kevin, and thank your fiance for us for helping us roll in the dough whacket issh racketed do. I can't believe you. Just

all right, guys, we're gonna wrap this up. If you want to learn more about ham Radio, visit our website, it's how Stuff Works dot com. We've got blogs. Remember you can check those out. You'll see those links on the right hand side. Or you can always just go to blogs dot how stuff Works dot com if you want the direct route. And remember we no longer do tex Stuff Live. Tech Stuff Live is on hiatus while

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