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A bit about #hamradio for non-technical people explaining why it can be fun (personal view).
Thread #4: What I've done with the hobby / https://twitter.com/DrAlanRobinson/status/1263850359560290309
Thread #4: What I've done with the hobby / https://twitter.com/DrAlanRobinson/status/1263850359560290309
/ So I first got interested in radio when I was about 9. I built my own radio following the instructions in a Ladybird book called "Making a Transistor Radio". That was around 1976.
I used to love hunting down new stations & as I got older I sometimes wrote off /
I used to love hunting down new stations & as I got older I sometimes wrote off /
/ for schedules from commercial Shortwave stations. I joined the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) and I still have the lapel badge somewhere!
I had some decent receivers when we moved into a countryside cottage and it had room for an antenna that was about 100m long! /
I had some decent receivers when we moved into a countryside cottage and it had room for an antenna that was about 100m long! /
/ In 1984/5 as I was doing my A levels I sat the exams needed to obtain my ham license, and I got my call-sign (G1OJS) in 1985. /
/ Back then, unless you could demonstrate proficiency in sending and reading Morse code, you were not allowed on the HF bands and instead had to use VHF or higher frequencies. This was a pain because there was no chance of worldwide contacts, but occasionally European ones. /
/ Nevertheless, I had a VHF radio working in the 144 MHz band and a cool directional antenna on the roof of my parent's bungalow in the summer before I went away to university. I took a little handheld set with me. /
/ After uni I dropped the hobby & just used portable receivers occasionally. Then my first wife and I had kids, and we moved away from my home town, and I had no time for hobbies apart from drinking wine and listening to music. /
/ It wasn't until about 2006 that I suddenly decided to get back into the hobby. Me and my (2nd) wife moved to a house with a garden big enough to put up an antenna, and I set up an operating station in the garage. I had an awful lot of fun but again gave up in 2012 /
/ when I took up motorbiking instead. When we moved house again in 2014, we moved to a bigger house but one with a smaller garden and I thought I wouldn't be able to do ham radio again.
BUT
In 2018 I realised that if I stole the little-used guest room for a hobby area, /
BUT
In 2018 I realised that if I stole the little-used guest room for a hobby area, /
/ I could put an antenna for at least some of the HF bands (see earlier threads) in the loft. Roof tiles don't get in the way of HF radio at all, and the apex of the loft is as high as any antenna I've ever put up before. It worked a treat. /
/ Since then I've developed an automated antenna *system* in the loft, with *two* antennas for most of the bands (directional, pointing different ways & controlled by a switch in the guest room) with the correct antenna for each band selected automatically /
/ By using a system of electrical relays controlled by a "band data" output on my radio transceiver.
I've even managed to innovate some antennas that are pretty efficient on the lower frequency band, so that I can use any of the HF bands using "indoor" (loft based) /
I've even managed to innovate some antennas that are pretty efficient on the lower frequency band, so that I can use any of the HF bands using "indoor" (loft based) /
/ antennas. So I can even use the 1.6 MHz band, which should have an antenna 40m tall if outside, using an antenna only 10m long. It works pretty well too.
Nowadays like a lot of radio hams I'm using "digital modes" - in other words /
Nowadays like a lot of radio hams I'm using "digital modes" - in other words /
/ "modulating" data onto the carrier waves rather than voice. There is a particular data mode called #FT8 which allows a contact to be confirmed once every minute or two, makes *great* use of available transmitter power, and is driven by software running on my PC. /
/ using this mode I've had contacts over distances of over 5000 miles and into more than 200 different countries.
I'm enjoying innovating the system and building little electronic gizmos to go with it, tuning up the antennas etc.
It takes me back to my childhood sometimes, /
I'm enjoying innovating the system and building little electronic gizmos to go with it, tuning up the antennas etc.
It takes me back to my childhood sometimes, /
/ which is great.
I'm sure I'll ditch it and move onto something else at some point, but for the moment it is providing a lot of pleasure.
And it is mentioned in the report I got back confirming my #autism diagnosis
. /
I'm sure I'll ditch it and move onto something else at some point, but for the moment it is providing a lot of pleasure.
And it is mentioned in the report I got back confirming my #autism diagnosis
. /
/ And that's the end of Thread #4
