HOME PAGE AMATEUR
RADIO IN THE
Efforts are always being made such as to encourage pupils in local
schools to take up the club’s offer of tuition to qualify for a Novices Amateur
Radio Transmitting licence. Mobile phones and the Internet now of course
present enormous competition to Amateur Radio, with their greater ease of
communication. But once the Amateur Radio equipment has been bought, you can
freely stay ‘on air’ for unlimited time, and it provides a far greater
challenge to both young and old to make contacts over long distance
communication, due to problems of atmospheric interference, and overcrowding of
the Amateur bands at times. Contacting someone many miles this way is something
to be proud of, and is why a system of sending post cards confirming contacts
was involved many years ago, know as QSL cards.
The Internet has virtually no controls, apart for the possible threat of
civil actions such as libel, and infringement of copyright, whereas use of the
airwaves is strictly controlled in every country throughout the world. This
especially applies in countries whose governments impose severe restrictions on
freedom of speech. Special licences are granted by the relevant authorities,
for use of the airwaves to all the Public Services, Radio and TV stations,
Taxis and Buses etc. In most countries special licences are also granted to
members of the public for personal use, subject to various conditions. In this
country these primarily fall into two main categories, use of the 27 Megacycles
Citizens Band, and a variety of licences for Amateur Radio. There are
restrictions in place for both of these categories. In general one should not
interfere with other users, advertise, use foul language, cause offence by discussing
Politics or Religion, or pass on third part messages, that would compete with
other services such as the telephone, etc.
Radio Amateurs are also obliged to study the principles of Radio
Propagation, and regulations relating to the relevant licence, and pass a test,
which used to include Morse, depending on the type of licence. By International
agreement, most countries such as ours, have now abandoned the necessity to
pass a Morse test, although some Amateurs still use Morse because of its
ability to be understood, even through considerable atmospheric
interference. Many regular users of text with mobiles phones are not aware
Morse can be sent much faster up to 25 words or higher per minute. Radio
Amateurs are also bound by rules, where they must periodically identify
themselves with an individual Callsign, which in the UK is proceeded by 2E or G
or M such as G2LL, G1HHH and G6HH allocated to our Hastings Electronics and
Radio Club. No such call signs are issued to anyone using the Citizens Band,
nor are they expected to identify themselves, hence the nicknames used by long
distance 'truckers' in the USA. CB operators do not need to pass any form of
test to qualify for a licence, but are restricted to the use of the 27 Mhz and another band. Radio Amateurs can use a
wide range of frequencies for all sorts of purposes like Amateur TV and Data.
Radio Amateurs sometimes known as HAMS, such as here in the
In the past those who did not wish to learn Morse, were restricted to
the higher frequency bands, suitable mainly for local contacts. Use of these
bands have now been vastly improved by the use of Repeaters, similar to those
used by Mobile Phones. The three maintained by the Hastings Repeater Group,
which is part of our club, provide possible clear contacts within a radius of
70 miles of
Further details of training and
other Radio Clubs can be found at Radio Society of
You might find this of
interest. Radio Amateurs' Emergency
Network RAYNET
and BEGINNERS
GUIDE TO ELECTRONICS AND RADIO
See details of an interesting alternative completely harmless form of
foxhunting, popular among Radio Amateurs by going to FOXHUNTING
Gordon Sweet M3YXH gordonsweet2000@yahoo.co.uk