No Ham License? Listen Anyway In Your Browser
No Ham License? Listen Anyway In Your Browser
hackaday.com
No Ham License? Listen Anyway In Your Browser
43 comments
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So, is Ham Radio like the spiritual ancestor of something like Discord Voice Chat? I'm trying to understand why people do it, besides the technical/tinkering aspects.
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Ham radio can be used as voice chat with friends, but that would be a pretty limited view of it. Here's some things that a Discord Voice Chat cannot do that radio can:
- Chat without internet (e.g. places without cell towers).
- Chat without voice. (digital communications of all kinds; email/text, keyboard-to-keyboard, pictures, etc).
- To build an internet (e.g. building WiFi meshes with extra power [AREDN], AX.25 packet, WinLink).
- Used as a tool during emergencies (see ARES/RACES/CERT).
- Chat completely randomly (it's just one big discord channel, but you can only hear some people).
- Chasing the challenge of unusual radio propagation (earth-moon-earth, meteor bounce, tropospheric ducting, aurora).
- Chasing the challenge of collecting the most point-to-point contacts (contests).
- Chasing the challenge of difficult radio propagation (microwave links).
- Constructing and using radios that you cannot buy off the shelf parts with (usually with those funny microwave guys).
- Higher power versions of things unlicensed folks cannot do (RC toys, Meshtastic/LoraWAN, WiFi, etc).
- Historical preservation (restoring old radios, keeping ship-shore coastal stations running [e.g. Maritime Radio Historical Society]).
- Conducting scientific experiments (HamSCI, and I conducted one listening to the ionosphere during the recent total eclipse).
- Building and controlling satellites (AMSAT).
And there's even more. The way to view ham radio is the government grants you a license to operate on many pieces of radio spectrum so long as you can show your technical ability to not cause harm (interference, safety, and things that will prevent you from blowing up your radio as well as find success in using it). What you do with that spectrum is up to you!
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GREAT answer. It's funny how I got into ham radio because I thought it seemed a cool way to talk to people... and now I almost never use voice and mostly do what you listed above.
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That's pretty cool! Reminds me in some ways of usenet and how people extended what it was able to do. Now I gotta go ask my uncle, who just sold his setup and shack, what he did with it (he's getting older, and it's not as easy to get out there anymore). I always thought he was just tinkering with electronics and chatting with other hobbyists, but sounds like he was potentially doing lots of other things besides.
I wonder if he knows about these online options. Might be able to keep his hobby going in a lesser capacity.
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Why? Because you can. But in terms of useful reasons?
Cellphones, Internet they need infrastructure to work, and that can be disabled either during a natural disaster or war situation. Even by your own government in some cases.
But if I want to communicate, I just need a piece of wire, somewhere to hang it, and a 12v battery and I can communicate for thousands of miles.
Personally I just think that's cool.
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To answer you seriously, yeah kinda! It's a way of communicating without any internet access. You can talk with people around the world if you want. And it opens up to a whole community of people that really like the hobby.
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The guy I know who's into it likes radios and radio waves, antennas, and whatnot. Builds his own stuff. The HAM community also has a tradition of sending these little "contact card" type things like called QSL cards, if you contact someone in Monrovia or something, they can mail you a paper card that certifies, yup, you talked to someone in Monrovia all the way from Kansas or wherever. Can even get one from the International Space Station if you make contact with it, which people do regularly on HAM.
I have an SLR just because I think it's neat. I have a computer based peripheral one and a portable handheld one with a screen on it.
Can listen to shortwave, long wave, am, FM, and all sort of other bands, such as weather, marine, air traffic, trains, pretty much any unsecured walkie talkie and GMRS frequencies.
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For local reception, receivers with RTL2832U chips are a cheap option. They are also called RTL-SDR. I have simply been using a long wire as a "random wire antenna". Some of the older dongles also need an upconverter to be able to tune into low HF frequencies:
An upconverter for the RTL-SDR translates low HF frequencies ‘up’ into ones that are receivable by the RTL-SDR. This is a different method to the direct sampling mode used in the V3 dongles to achieve HF reception.
Quoted source: https://www.rtl-sdr.com/a-homebrew-one-transistor-upconverter-for-the-rtl-sdr/
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I like my rtlsdr. It's great and super cheap.
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rtl433 on github is a joy to collect data and send somewhere
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Also it isnt crazy hard to actually get the basic ham license. Try the hamstudy app and find the local radio club that offers testing.
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I'll give it a shot thanks!
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43 comments
Do you need a license to buy a receiver to listen in?
Edit: the following is for the US
You do not need a license to listen to ham radio with a traditional transceiver. You only need a license to transmit.
There are no licensing requirements for equipment purchases.
I have a handheld ham. The baofeng ones with no license. Come to get me FCC
When I use them to communicate, I use FRS frequencies, which are still not legal technically, but no one will even know.
Nope that's what the web interface is for.
But an rtlsdr is pretty cheap if you want to go that route. I do satellite tracking with satnogs and it's fun.
I think I am technologically ignorant when it comes to radio so... I still have questions.
How does the web interface collect the transmissions? Are all the transmissions made digitally accessible with the interface? Why (other than cost) would I want to use a web interface rather than a traditional receiver?
No, only the British are dumb enough to require a license for a receiver.
You can go buy whatever radio you want and listen to hams tell each other where they're from and lie about how well they're hearing each other. Which is most of what they do on shortwave. 1. Ham radio is a game to most of them, the game is "exchange callsigns with people from as many places as you can." 2. There is a law (CFR 97.113(5)) that prohibits "Communications, on a regular basis, which could reasonably be furnished alternatively through other radio services." I read that as it's illegal to have a weekly Wednesday at 5 PM EDT chat with your buddy in Tuscon on 20 meters because the cell phone network can also accomplish that. So are scheduled ragchew nets legal?
If you're going to play around with an HF receiver, ignore the hams and listen out for numbers stations, they're way fucking cooler than us licensed radio dorks.
Don't transmit without a license. If we can hear you, we can find you. Radio isn't like the internet, radio travels in straight (ish) lines. You're literally shining a light into the sky, we can tell where it's coming from. Hams won't do anything to you. No, that's what the FCC is for.
No