Foundations of Amateur Radio

Starting in the wonderful hobby of Amateur or HAM Radio can be daunting and challenging but can be very rewarding. Every week I look at a different aspect of the hobby, how you might fit in and get the very best from the 1000 hobbies that Amateur Radio represents. Note that this podcast started in 2011 as "What use is an F-call?".

Bald Yak, week 4, time

Bald Yak - week 3 - Push To Talk

Bald Yak - week 2

Bald Yak - week 1

Suddenly there were 700...

Why does your Wi-Fi connection drop out when cooking lunch?

A new radio every week ...

Unexpected miracles ...

The venerable QSL bureau

Amateur Radio connects you in unexpected ways

Surprising ideas that change you forever

What does an actual minimal set-up look like?

How effective is the IARU?

Dark Sky for Amateur Radio

The history of our hobby

Adult Fans of Amateur Radio

Keep It Simple Stupid

How to lose more than half of your membership?

In the beginning was the contact

Internet access across HF radio

What kind of hobby is amateur radio?

Does the IARU actually represent you?

Being a Maverick is part of the deal

Planning for Contest Success

About Australian Callsigns

How does the IARU work?

Problem Solving or How to Access a Radio Remotely?

Identity in Amateur Radio

Long Wave Radio

The ARRL incident of May 2024

The origin of our amateur bands

On the nature of Inspiration ..

Automatic FM DX decoding

A place for everything and everything in its place..

The origins of the International Amateur Radio Union

Weaving radio into your life.

RF is all around us ... starting your own station frequency survey

It's all just text!

Are you up for a global party?

What's with all that lack of noise?

The skyhook dilemma ...

Technology at its finest ...

The Art of finding an operating location

Getting things done .. or not.

Writing to the regulator about amateur beacon and repeater licenses.

What is amateur radio as an emergency response?

What is the right mode for emergency communications?

What is a repeater or a beacon ... really?

New arrangements for Australian Amateur Radio

How to see 56 MHz of bandwidth...

The Art of operating QRP

Finding the right frequency.

It's the little things ...

The visibility of our radio community.

Report on Radio Harmonic Power

What about promoting the hobby?

Spontaneously getting out and about ...

Failure to simulate ...

Let's compare the same antenna in different locations...

Let's talk about reciprosity...

Let's talk about gain ...

Let's talk about noise ...

How much does your coax and antenna matter?

Gadgets on Demand

All the power in the observable universe expressed in milliwatts ...

Between decibels and milliwatts ...

Wet and Blue adventures with coax ...

Checking attenuation numbers ...

How much attenuation is enough?

Starting to measure spurious emissions ...

Gathering Data rather than Opinions ...

Jumping into the unknown ...

How fast is Morse code?

Will the real inventor of Morse code please stand?

Is Morse really built around the most popular letters in English?

Adventures with Morse Code

The nature and ownership of information

Asking a professional in the community...

Planning and making lemonade

Where is your community and how resilient is it?

What is our legacy?

Accolades in Amateur Radio?

A Linux contest logger ...

Considering the language of our community ...

Measuring the Solar Flux Index at home ...

Propagation during the 2023 Solar Eclipse

Doing the same thing over and over again ...

Why is radio regulated?

The antenna system

How much antenna is enough?

Lost in space ...

The Contester In Me...

What's with a negative SNR?

Acronym not found ...

Antenna Testing Day ...

Are all spiky antennas the same?

Some Amateur Radio ABCs ...

Do you really know when the best time is to go on air?

The evolution of software in radio ...

Path loss and very small numbers ...

What is the difference between handheld, mobile and a base radio?

What should we be learning?

Where does propagation data come from?

What's the weakest signal that WSPR can decode?

One Volt ...

Which way did it go?

Morse is dead ... long live Morse!

Attenuators, the missing link...

How low can you go?

The nature of learning things...

What's in a VFO?

My Virtual Workbench

A plan for distributed SDR decoding

The sedentary myth of radio.

Setting a little personal challenge ...

This space left intentionally blank

The Amateur's Code for future generations...

The Patriot in Amateur Radio

Finding balance in Amateur Radio

Being friendly in Amateur Radio

Progressiveness in Amateur Radio

Loyalty in Amateur Radio

Consideration in Amateur Radio

A code for amateurs

The microphone gain game ...

What's with the repeater offset again?

Take a long hard look at our community ...

Much Ado About ...

The power supply connector dance contest...

Defining a standard on Contest Scoring

If you had money, what would your amateur adventure look like?

How to isolate and by how much?

Smith, the chart to end all charts ...

Can you build an all HF band concurrent WSPR transmitter?

What are the rules for calling CQ on a repeater?

The Thunder and Lightning that destroyed my station ...

When should I go on air?

Augustin-Jean Fresnel, Zeppelins and a picket fence ...

The Science of Amateur Radio

The art of troubleshooting the digital world.

How far can you go?

After the chaos ... building the ideal shack

In the beginning there was chaos...

Planning for an emergency...

Why do we communicate?

Introduction to the terms of contesting

It beeps!

What happens when you plug it in?

How to compare radios

Pictures can say more than words

Testing your radio's audio frequency response

What's in a Dream?

Bringing an upconverter into your life

When I said Parrot Repeater ... I likely had a different picture in mind.

Products made from unobtainium

Leaving the hobby ...

What testing equipment is essential?

How does your gear measure up?

Getting Amateur Radio propagation data at home

Amateur Radio and the art of getting started ...

One Timezone To Rule Them All

The Rebirth of Homebrew

Defeating the Pitfalls of Predicting HF Propagation

What have you been up to in Amateur Radio lately ... Gary VK2OVA

The Ripple Effects of making change ...

How to run an SSB contest without using your voice ...

The inherent redundancy of a compromise antenna

Standard Information Exchange in Amateur Radio

You in the community ...

The sun shines on our hobby in unexpected ways.

We need more glue in our hobby ...

The Fox Mike Hotel Portable Operations Challenge

What's in a sound?

Taking your shack mobile

What's in a unit?

Being an equipment custodian

All the things that aren't amateur radio...

The diversity of our hobby is breathtaking.

How are contests scored?

Share if you care...

What Open Source means to our hobby and why it's important.

What mode is that?

When you share the hobby grows ...

Here be Dragons, venturing into uncharted territory ...

Removing technology for a change

What radio should I buy as my first one?

Bringing chaos into order

Streaming a dozen repeaters with an RTL-SDR dongle

Soldering Irons and Software

Getting started on WSPR with a PlutoSDR

Ergonomics in your shack

How much bandwidth is there?

The massive physics phenomenon just over eight minutes away ...

The dynamic nature of your shack

When you just have to try things ...

Portable experiences ...

The remote edge...

Making observations

Word of the day: software

How many hops in a jump?

You Can't Always Get What You Want

Running out of things to do ...

What's in a prediction?

Changing of the guard ...

The Vagabond HAM

The APRS of it all ...

The other radios in the world ...

The impossible task

Testing a link, on a band, at a time.

When will it ever end?

If you want to do HF in an apartment, where do you start?

2m reciprocity and other assumptions

Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance

When one WSPR receiver just isn't enough

For that one special event ...

It lives ... crystal radio with three components

The excitement is palpable ...

Antenna testing in the field.

The making of a Crystal Radio

An ionospheric monitoring service at home

csdr will rock your world ...

New day, new mode ... SSTV

Simplicity among the complexity ...

Yak Shaving ...

What is so different about using software for signal processing?

When you run into a pounce ...

After channelling your RTTY ...

Channelling RTTY

How much do you really know about your radio?

First Digital DX contact!

What do you talk about?

What's the point of this hobby?

Homebrew radio for the 21st Century

What is a repeater offset and how does it work?

Your antenna is a filter (of sorts).

If you WSPR and nobody hears you ...

Using something for an unexpected purpose can give you many great rewards.

How to pick a field operating position?

The humble coaxial cable

The antenna and coax you use matter.

Buying and using pre-loved equipment

How much is a bit worth?

So, you want to be an amateur?

Permission to be curious

First ever digital contact!

When was the last time you played?

Breaking the isolation one QSO at a time.

Listening from the ground up

What level of preparedness are you at?

On the shoulders of giants we stand.

All bands + All modes + All countries

The impersonal nature of digital and other myths

The chicken and the egg, which comes first, the antenna or the radio?

Exploring an understanding of filters and circuits.

How I care for my connectors

How I host a weekly amateur radio net for new and returning amateurs

Is this frequency in use and other lies we tell ourselves.

The lessons we teach.

What's in a plan?

Where do you start?

What does Amateur Radio mean to you?

Lamenting the decline of the hobby.

How did you get here?

The SDR earthquake will change our hobby forever

Morse Code and You

What's in a Whisper?

Putting a radio in a car.

Where is North?

In pursuit of a challenge

First Solo

World Wide Radio Operators Foundation

How to make contesting interesting to an audience?

Leave some bread crumbs behind

Lessons Learnt

Going on an outing

Planning for an outing

Boating adventures

Gate-keeping, special people and bullies.

New Entrants are Everywhere

What's in a Watt?

It broke and now what?

What's in a word?

How far can I talk on radio?

What's allowed on our bands?

Your Software Defined Radio around the home

The Software Defined Radio vs. Traditional Radio choice

The Regulator

From Milk to Direct Conversion in a Software Defined Radio

Milking Software Defined Radio

When digging gives you more understanding, the magic of software.

Software Defined Radio offers another path to the same information.

Digital Origami in Software Defined Radio

SDR: How many colours inside a Software Defined Radio?

SDR Sample Rates: How fast is fast enough?

Software Defined Radio is fundamentally a different way of looking at radio spectrum

How does a Software Defined Radio or SDR work?

Antennas out of sight and out of mind ...

Fragility of Communication

When you hear a distress call ...

Overcoming Microphone Anxiety

The Station Log

What's in a Chirp?

Creativity comes with practice

All the power in the world and not enough battery!

More WSPR adventures

Modern Tools for a Modern Hobby

How effective is your station?

How to select a mobile operating location

Brand New Callsign

The reported death of Amateur Radio due to FT8 is an exaggeration

Fan Vertical Antenna

Empirical evidence and the scientific method

QRP EME project update #1

What are you proud of?

Contest Headphones and glorious HF SSB

How do I get a better antenna?

When does knowing more make it harder?

Are you an Elmer?

When failure doesn't matter ...

The Golden Age of Amateur Radio is Now

Everything you wanted to know about amateur radio but were afraid to ask!

Get on air and make some noise ...

Celebrate accomplishments

Everything you know about dipole (calculators) is wrong ...

Random bits of wire ...

Is man-made noise really vertical?

Antenna Polarisation and you

Cloud Warming in style or what is NVIS?

How can I talk to my friend?

Nothing like the standard of Morse Code ...

How to start your own net ...

Getting Started ...

The mysterious three phase power ...

Water and Electronics a match made in hell ...

Heated Elements and Circuit Boards

The Contesting Coin Toss for the rest of us

Programming Repeaters ... Revisited.

Which repeaters should I put into my hand held radio?

How to get the best Amateur Radio gear?

The Power for your Radio

Get a Contesting Buddy

Logging of a Different Kind

The Internet of Digital Radio

How to find other Amateurs on Air

How does a waterfall display work?

Why do you contest?

Preparation for an outing ...

SWR assumptions

Learning on 2m FM

Shakespeare and Coax Stub Filters

Experience comes from doing ...

eBook Volume 6 - short

You and the IARU

Coax Loss vs Connector Loss - now with more coax

eBook Volume 5 - short

Coax Loss vs Connector Loss

Amateur Radio Minimalism

eBook Volume 4 - short

What improbable antenna solution works?

What criteria do you have for your ideal shack?

eBook Volume 3 - short

What do you know now that you would have liked to have known when you started in amateur radio?

How should I promote my contest?

eBook Volume 2 - short

Antenna gain and polar chart magic

Just enough radio ...

eBook Volume 1 - short

Virtual Radio

eBook Volume 6

Building a better community?

eBook Volume 5

What is amateur radio?

eBook Volume 4

No Onno, it's not slippery and other lessons ...

eBook Volume 3

Amateur Motto: Do No Harm

eBook Volume 2

How does Single Side Band work?

eBook Volume 1

60 years of amateur radio

Leave judgement outside the shack ...

How can you measure what frequency your radio is on?

How does a Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator work?

What did you hear last week?

Hearing very weak signals

Radio signals don't travel in straight lines

What to pack for a Contest?

Ladder Line is not Evil

Organisation around your shack

A transistor radio curve-ball ...

Tropospheric Ducting explained

Storing your Amateur stuff ... everywhere.

Amateur Radio Regulation and Enforcement in Australia is Broken

Which antenna should I get first?

Amateur Radio is about Experimenting and Trying!

How does PSK or Phase Shift Keying actually work?

How does RTTY work?

Qualifications for using a Digital Mode

Mechanical Filters

Contesting Protests

Our Amateur License System is Obsolete

Quick Fixes and Maintenance

What's in a name?

Mobile experiments with high power.

Magic and Curiosity in Amateur Radio

Using an Alex-Loop, very satisfying ...

Getting an elusive contact ... fly-fishing style.

What if the Radio Spectrum was a data souce?

The evolution of our hobby is now ...

Things you can learn from a new operating environment ...

What to say on-air?

Amateur Radio Community Standards

Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder

An Amateur Radio Code of Conduct

What is SOTA?

Adding a stroke to your callsign ...

Life's too short for QRP...

What is a resistor?

Checking your On-Air signal...

If they're shooting at you - you know you're doing something right!

The spirit of our hobby ...

This hobby is dead ... NOT!

Sun-Spots and Amateur Radio

What does MARS have to do with Amateur Radio?

A nifty idea looking for a purpose in 1947 changes the world as we know it...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder ...

More strange antennas!

Tuning up strange antennas ...

Do we really understand our hobby?

SOTA goat adventures ...

Passion and Politics

Coax vertical dipole and other musings ...

Manufacturer drivel and antennas ...

Messy shacks are the way we do things around here.

Amateur Radio Satellites ... more than two in the sky.

DTMF is something we use regularly ...

The joy of Amateur Radio

Where do you start with this Amateur thing?

What happens if you move the feed point in a dipole?

DX, common ground on a common term?

Propagation is everywhere!

The birth and legacy of IRLP.

Make your own propagation map!

How to melt coax ...

What is SWR?

What is station security?

Unpredictable radio waves ...

Learning from your mistakes ...

Paper Logging tips and tricks ...

The FM Capture Effect and other Amateur Radio magic...

Don't ever yell into a microphone and other neat things ...

The band is dead and there are no contacts to be made...

How old is the mode you're using?

Alternating Current and Direct Current are the same thing ...

After the contest ... the debrief.

How to make contacts during a contest?

The logistics of being in a contest while mobile

Training, Traumatic or Fun, you decide...

How to get started ...

A surprise might be just around the corner...

Harmonics and calling CQ

Lower and Upper Side Band, why is it so?

Logging software ... what to choose?

What can you say on-air?

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

Coax impedence, 50 Ohm and 75 Ohm, why is it so?

Q-codes in voice

Operating Procedures

Lucky Lightning Escape

The CAT interface

Bandplans and Edges

What's in a Repeater?

Experimentation is about failure ...

What is the best antenna?

The humble dipole ... contraption.

Sizing your battery.

Where did all the amateurs go?

Reviewing the introduction of the Foundation License.

How to manage your first pile-up.

Have a look or search online at the previous editions of this podcast.

Contesting, something for everyone ...

SDR diversity and Ah-Ha!

We should stop requiring electronics to be amateurs.

Picking better language to talk about our hobby ...

Radios are not quite appliances ...

Fieldstrength and Chickens

Change one thing at a time ...

How to get started in a contest

Tools in my shack

Wet string and 10 Watts

Propagation and reality

Getting started with portable operation

Antenna Calculators

Use it or Lose it ... make a contact today!

Propagation predictions and operating your radio

Every Antenna is a Compromise!

Phonetic Alphabets

What to say in a contest...

1000 hobbies under one roof

Names in Amateur Radio

Do your thing and find friends to play with

Radio Amateur - the local lunatic

Delta Loop for Portable Operation

Hunting for the perfect SWR.

Tuning a dipole, bring your friends...

7Ps of Amateur Radio - be prepared

Cabrillo and ADIF file formats

Amateur Radio FAQ's

What radio should I purchase?

Different soil types ...

Welcome