{"id":24,"date":"2017-01-29T19:46:53","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T03:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andrewbaze.com\/tempblog\/?p=24"},"modified":"2017-02-05T17:30:55","modified_gmt":"2017-02-06T01:30:55","slug":"what-is-ham-radio-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.andrewbaze.com\/wparchives\/radio\/what-is-ham-radio-2\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Ham Radio?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>What is <strong>ham radio<\/strong>?\u00a0 It\u2019s the term people use to refer to amateur radio, a fun hobby for many.\u00a0 But why \u201cham\u201d?\u00a0 Some people speculate that it\u2019s because certain people involved in amateur radio back in the old days really loved to talk, to and would \u201cham it up\u201d, telling long stories to their buddies when they\u2019d get together on the airwaves to chat.<\/p>\n<p>How does ham radio work?\u00a0 The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has set aside certain frequencies for people to use for non-business-related communication.\u00a0 People use these frequencies to talk to each other using different kinds of radio equipment.\u00a0 Not only can you talk back and forth on these radios, you can also send text messages, transmit GPS coordinates, talk to repeaters, send and receive TV signals, bounce signals off of satellites or even the moon.\u00a0 Some people have even used hand-held radios to talk with the International Space Station!\u00a0 That\u2019s right \u2013 a person on the ground aims an antenna upward, tunes a radio to the right frequency, and has a conversation with an astronaut who is also a ham radio operator.\u00a0 Pretty crazy, right?<\/p>\n<p>To use a radio that works on amateur radio frequencies, you need to take a simple test and get a license.\u00a0 The first license, called \u201cTechnician\u201d, is not difficult to get, and there are a variety of books, CD\u2019s, and websites available to walk you through the questions and answers which are all published already.\u00a0 Once you\u2019ve reviewed the material and feel comfortable, you can take a test and get your own license!\u00a0 Many ham radio clubs administer the tests, and will be happy to help you with the simple paperwork at the same time.\u00a0 Soon after, you\u2019ll get your call-sign from the FCC, and you can get on the air!<\/p>\n<p>These links will provide some additional, general information about ham radio:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20160116153736\/http:\/\/www.arrl.org\/what-is-ham-radio-1\"><u><span style=\"color: #0066cc;\">http:\/\/www.arrl.org\/what-is-ham-radio-1<\/span><\/u><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20160116153736\/http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Amateur_radio\"><u><span style=\"color: #0066cc;\">http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Amateur_radio<\/span><\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What is ham radio?\u00a0 It\u2019s the term people use to refer to amateur radio, a fun hobby for many.\u00a0 But why \u201cham\u201d?\u00a0 Some people speculate that it\u2019s because certain people involved in amateur radio back in the old days really loved to talk, to and would \u201cham it up\u201d, telling long stories to their buddies &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.andrewbaze.com\/wparchives\/radio\/what-is-ham-radio-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">What is Ham Radio?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-radio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewbaze.com\/wparchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewbaze.com\/wparchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewbaze.com\/wparchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewbaze.com\/wparchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewbaze.com\/wparchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewbaze.com\/wparchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":819,"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewbaze.com\/wparchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions\/819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewbaze.com\/wparchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewbaze.com\/wparchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andrewbaze.com\/wparchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}