Good introductory article at FOX News from 2011
Radio Days Are Back: Ham Radio Licenses at an All-Time High
iPhone, beware?
The newest trend in American communication isn't another smartphone from Apple or Google but one of the elder statesmen of communication: Ham radio licenses are at an all time high, with over 700,000 licenses in the United States, according to the Federal Communications Commission.
Ham radio first took the nation by storm nearly a hundred years ago. Last month the FCC logged 700,314 licenses, with nearly 40,000 new ones in the last five years. Compare that with 2005 when only 662,600 people hammed it up and you'll see why the American Radio Relay League -- the authority on all things ham -- is calling it a "golden age."
"Over the last five years we've had 20-25,000 new hams a year," Allen Pitts, a spokesman for the group, told FoxNews.com.
A bit more:
With more people joining the hobby, local ham radio businesses are growing as well. Amateur Electronics Supply in Las Vegas sells everything to do with ham radios, from transceivers, amplifiers and antennas to handhelds.
“We have clientele from all walks of life," manager Luke Rohn told FoxNews.com. "We have church groups who are interested in ham radio for a viable source of communication in times of natural disaster. We have young kids that find ham radio interesting. Maybe they’ve heard about it through their father and grandfather and it’s a lot of fun for them.”
According to the American Radio Relay League, retirees and emergency groups are among the main reasons for the nearly 30,000 new hams that pick up the hobby each year.
Ham is a boon for safety as well as a fun pastime: When normal communications methods fail and cellphone towers are jammed, ham radios will still work and can help out in disaster situations, because they don’t require towers to relay the signal.
“Amateur radio came into play very much during the major earthquake in the Bay Area in 1989. The only thing I had was a little handheld radio. Nothing else worked, telephones didn’t work, cellphones didn’t work, amateur radio just kept right on working,” Pritchett said.
It is easy to get into and a lot of fun - you get to talk with people all over the globe. You do need to take an exam to get licensed but it is simple and the Federal Communications Commission publishes the questions and the answers so you can study beforehand. This is an excellent website for practice: QRZ.COM. You register at the site and this allows it to keep track of which questions you do well with and which ones you don't. The next time you take a practice test, you will see more of the ones you have trouble with. Take a test or three in the evening, couple times/week and you should be ready for the technician test in two months or so.
Your equipment cost starts around $75
Hand held unit: Baofeng Black UV-5R - $34
Antenna upgrade: Nagoya NA-771 - $17
Extended Battery Pack: ExpertPower® Baofeng BL-5L - $15
Programming Cable: Baofeng Cable - $8
Programming Software: Chirp - $Free
See you on the air!
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