what is up everybody
welcome to the hammerhead crash course
welcome to saturday thanks for coming
out
on your busy weekends and see what's
going on in ham radio hopefully we got
some new people some people who haven't
taken that plunge yet into the world of
amateur radio and hopefully today helps
you out a bit
we'll get started soon please enjoy the
memes
[Music]
all right everybody how's it going
thanks for clicking on the channel
clicking on the hammer new crash course
i appreciate it again today we're going
to be looking at ham radio from
a new person's perspective somebody
joining for the first time or interested
in finding out more so we're going to
try and keep it as low technical as
possible we obviously have to talk about
some technical issues but hopefully i do
it in a way that makes a lot of sense
thanks everybody in the chat there this
is a live stream so there are people
watching live and
i expect you all to keep me honest when
i start getting to the slides and
getting to some work here now this is an
hour-long show and there is no way that
i can get you anyone completely up and
running in amateur radio in an hour that
is just too
difficult to do
but there are videos and many other
things on my channel that will show you
more of those details if you want to
just search you know when you go to the
channel there's a little magnifying
glass just search on it for anything
you're looking for or click on the
playlist uh are you new to amateur radio
you know and it's got a ton of videos in
there to help you out so
okay
what i'm gonna do is i normally give a
couple of little blurbs of stuff uh in
the beginning i'll try and keep it short
because you know these are these are
kind of time based anyway field day is
next weekend it's always the fourth
weekend of the month of june and so
it'll be the 25th and 26th
next week
i will be at the hb races radio amateur
civil emergency service
camp out set up that they have in
huntington beach california the north
side of huntington beach on the bluffs
right by dog park is where they will be
set up so i will be out there so make
sure if you're interested come on by
field day particularly if you're looking
to start out in amateur radio field day
is where you want to be you definitely
want to come out and watch and attend
and participate in field day it is where
we take our radios out into a public
space
usually something off grid and have kind
of a
practice in emergency communications we
generally try and run off grid when we
do field day so it's always a lot of fun
make sure you come out there and we run
for usually 24 hours so that's generally
what people do it's kind of like a
contest but we don't take it too
seriously anyway all right
link in the description where did it go
there it is link in the description to a
giveaway i'm doing which i will pick a
winner would i say winner will be
announced july 2nd so july 2nd we'll
announce a winner for the hrcc
uh giveaway that i'm doing which is for
one of the gp7 shortwave radios
actually a lot more stuff too countycom
sent me a bunch of boxes of some loot
and a lot of it i already own and some
of it i just would rather send to you
all so that's what we're going to be
doing we're going to do a giveaway
stream on the
second which is a saturday okay
all right let's dive right into this i
know you were wanting to get started in
amateur radio or some of you might be
and so we'll we'll keep this topical and
to the point and we'll have a little
chit chat at the end
if you are new in amateur radio i highly
recommend here's a spoiler alert if you
want to really fast track your way to
ham radio understanding consider joining
our discord server uh it's pretty much
24 7. we have thousands of people that
are online every day on the discord
server and they answer a lot of
questions they help a ton of people out
uh
i try to help people as much as i can
but you know i'm i actually have a job
and i have kids and a family and all
that stuff so it makes it difficult but
that's where the discord comes in it
really does help a lot of people so if
you're interested
make sure to check that out
all right so if you just got your
license congratulations there's the
first thing so cheers to you all for
getting your license
if you have no license what is all this
and want to know what this is about
appreciate you watching and uh sticking
with us
all right so what is radio first we're
going to be using a term called
abstraction today abstraction is
something that that i use in software
development it is a term that we use
often in technical spaces where
we want we want to make a complicated
thing less complicated
if a box
does a very
inside this box is a very complicated
design circuitry component etc etc
we abstract this box to just call it a
black box for instance and that
abstraction just allows us to focus on
what the box does right we're not
worried about what's in the box we're
not worried about how the box functions
right now we just want to know what the
box does so what is radio we're going to
black box it a bit we're going to
abstract away what a radio is what a
radio does what is it it's a box that's
transmitting energy
it is transmitting energy out of the
antenna
another box can receive that energy
and take that energy and produce
information from it the information can
be voice it can be data it can be little
flashy lights it could be whatever right
radio is just a way
of sending
energy over the air wirelessly to be
received by another box that can receive
that energy and do something with it so
if i hold up a handheld ham radio
key down and start talking the
information that my radio is
transmitting is my voice that's the
information that's being transmitted so
if you start to abstract away some of
the complexities in radio it makes it a
bit easier in this case it's a black box
it sends energy or receives energy kind
of keeps it simple that way
so what are radio waves
the energy that's transmitted from the
black box is oscillating right it goes
up and down it's a wave the rate that
the wave goes up and down is its
frequency how much of the waving it's
doing is going to be expressed in the
form of megahertz or the oscillation
rate
this is easiest to demonstrate and think
of when you think of a slinky if you if
you lay a slinky on a table and hold it
out you'll see that it's it's obviously
a coil i appreciate that but if you were
to look at it kind of as a wave right
this oscillating up and down up and down
up and down well if i take you know if i
grab five inches of slinky and i pull it
apart
that's oscillation rate is slow it's a
low oscillation rate low megahertz
lower frequency
if i take the slinky and i crunch it up
back together that's a very fast
oscillation rate the up and downs happen
way faster in this given time period of
five inches or so if you're going across
versus if i took one little piece and
stretched it to five inches there's many
many less ups and downs
that's pretty much how
oscillation of radio waves and what a
radio waves is that's that's pretty much
it so when we start talking about lower
frequency and it's going to get a little
confusing stick with me when we start
talking about the lower frequency
oscillations in megahertz versus higher
frequency oscillations in megahertz now
you know what i'm talking about that's
the idea
all right i got a super chat from
frank great topic just got my call sign
yesterday after waiting to receive my
permanent residency which is a must-have
to get a license here zl4 fr thank you
frank and we got one from bill grant
thank you both appreciate the super chat
hello from hall beach
none of it none of it canada on 20 meter
fta but i don't think i will reach you
ve7oda
so i'm not on ft8 yet i'll save that for
the after chat where we'll be hanging
out with everybody um so yeah make sure
you uh you hop on over to the after chat
on the discord go ahead and join now it
makes things easier so we impart
information onto that that oscillating
radio wave
right there's a couple of ways it's done
again
we're black boxing this we're going to
keep this easy this is an easy way to
get started in amateur radio
our radios can take information like
voice like i already said i'm talking
into a radio yes i am and it's
transmitting out via rf or data and it
modulates that onto the wave and the
antenna and the the energy is pushed out
of the antenna that's basically what's
happening if another radio picks up that
energy and is using the same
mode of operation then it will be able
to
reassemble that information if you will
and play it out to you or play it to
your computer appropriately that's
pretty much all that's happening from an
abstracted sense now we're not talking
about how it's done we're just saying
what is done and focusing on the what is
very important
josh insert call sign here says
just pass my tech just waiting on
callsign well congratulations josh good
job from one josh to another
congratulations
so what is amateur radio then right so
now we've got a a box a black box it's
pushing out energy that energy is
information is contained to that energy
that can be received by another box that
then
shoots that information at you either as
sound waves or as data or as whatever so
what's amateur radio what does that have
to do with any of this
it's really just the access space the
playground the sandbox if you will in
megahertz where we can transmit and
receive that rf energy
there are
um we have allocations at the very wide
stretched out sink slinky low megahertz
spaces
all the way up to the really tightly
packed slinky high megahertz spaces and
we use different radios on those
different frequency spaces
the basic rule of thumb to keep in mind
is that amateur radio ham radios it's
called is a worldwide hobby and service
and generally our frequency spaces are
protected we have allocated frequencies
some are not all the same not all
countries have the same frequency
allocations but we generally have spaces
that we can all kind of meet on the air
together and talk worldwide or send data
or do whatever we want to do
there are more rules that are going to
be country by country based in case
you're in the united states the fcc
or your country's governing body but the
core idea is that amateur radio is
sectioned off frequency spaces for radio
amateurs to transmit and no one else
that's the idea
and we are going to uh we're going to
talk a little bit more about that right
now so what is amateur radio we're
extending this out now from going from
the rf spectrum the radio spectrum which
includes the electromagnetic spectrum
which is that top left image contains
everything from very low frequencies
the radio spectrum that we use today
infrared so now you are talking about
energy in the form of infrared energy
visible light energy ultraviolet x-ray
gamma-ray and cosmic rays those are all
part of the same electromagnetic
spectrum rf radio frequencies again that
energy that we're radiating out of or
receiving on our radio belongs to the
electromagnetic spectrum
if you tell it to that lower image it
now breaks it out a little bit we
identify different megahertz spaces
again that
that oscillating wave spaces we break
that down into different names we call
them different names
the very lowest side so
really stretched out
really stretched out slinky we call very
low frequency and where does that take
you um you can see
10 it tops out at 10 just above 10
kilohertz so not even one
megahertz oscillation 10 kilohertz super
super wide okay
um then we get to low frequency which
takes you up about 100 kilohertz and
then you get into medium frequency and
hf which is high frequency now though
it's the that's the bread and butter of
amateur radio and and we'll break this
down even further
hf radio high frequency radios where
shortwave radio stations exist as well
as all of the frequency allocations for
amateur radio there are a ton of things
that are on um hf frequencies and the
little slices these little playgrounds
these safe places if you will that we
can go to as radio amateurs and use is
you know pretty nice to have because it
covers pretty much all of the hf bands
ray kq4atf
uh says josh met you in dayton a few
weeks ago you jason and the others ham
youtube guys have been instrumental in
my education pass my general today hey
congratulations cheers on i'm passing
your general very very nice
so as you go up from hf you get to vhf
and that's very high frequency right
next to that is ultra high frequency
super high frequency and then i believe
that's extended high frequency extra
high frequency
extra high frequency okay
i want to make a special note here and
we'll talk about this later but it's
really important to understand this
point
when you go from hf to vhf some things
change with how the energy your rf
you're putting out functions
when you are on the lower side of hf all
the way up through the higher side your
radio
wave your radio frequency energy has a
chance depending on a lot of situations
again we're black boxing it making it
simple
of bouncing off our atmosphere and
coming back down to earth
that's called refraction it's part of
radio wave propagation and we use that
to make contacts with people say on the
other side of the planet
when you cross from hf to very high
frequency so from high frequency to very
high frequency again slinky's coming
together coming together coming together
coming together into vhf now our rf
energy punches through the atmosphere
and keeps on going
this is both a good thing and kind of a
bad thing in the sense that good that we
have the capability to refract
rf when we want to by using lower
frequencies but bad in the sense that
you can't use your little handy talking
most the time to do super long distance
contacts but what does that give us well
vhf uhf and higher all the way up to
extremely high frequency
those are the frequencies that we use to
communicate to things in space
having an atmosphere bounce your rf back
at you it is not conducive to
communicating to satellites the iss
whatever so
we always make sure to use because you
have to uh vhf uhf signals for when
we're doing amateur radio satellite or
talking to the iss what yeah what have
you so anyway that's uh that's just a
little bit of talk there on how and what
the radio waves are and you can see that
expressed in that little rainbow section
you can see infrared is at the end there
once you get past 100 gigahertz you
start getting into infrared energies and
visible light versus rf radio
frequencies and yeah it's part of the
same spectrum
breaking this down now going back to
where are these little parking lots of
rf spaces that are allocated for ham
radio
well i generally break them up into two
ways icom apparently does too they break
it up into the vhf uhf space and the hf
high frequency space
now this is uh
this is most of them not all of them but
i i'm putting this here for a reason
the leftmost image is the amateur radio
vhf uhf band plan that is the frequency
spaces and you can see it right nine uh
here on 33 centimeters it says 902 to
904 up to 928 megahertz and if you go
down to two meters which is the 2 meter
band as we call it it starts out at
144 megahertz and goes up to
148 megahertz okay
so
these bands 23 centimeters 33
centimeters 70 centimeters 1.25
centimeters 2 meters and 6 meters are um
completely open accessible to all
amateur radio licenses here in the us it
varies in other countries but generally
all the vhf uhf bands are completely
open for any of the levels of licensing
that we have in the united states so
that's good
on the right hand side though things are
a little bit different when you look at
hf high frequency radio not all of the
bands are available to all of our
license levels and we'll talk about
license levels in a little bit but i
want to show you and and give you a good
understanding of what we're talking
about when we're talking about megahertz
so if you go back to two meters what do
we say two meters is 144 megahertz uh up
against 148 megahertz so that's the
bookend space if you take your radio and
turn the dial and go from 144 to 148
that's two meters
the closest high frequency band in
megahertz again stretching that slinky
out is going to be 28 megahertz on 10
meters through
29.7 megahertz that's the 10 meter band
10 meters is generally best during
high solar sun cycles which is an 11
year process that we're going through
right now the high solar sun or the high
the energy of the sun having lots of sun
spots produces more ionization that hits
our atmosphere and energizes our lower
layers of our atmosphere which makes 10
meter more effective and 10 meters
really good right now yay it's a good
time to be a ham
you start going up in meters so from 10
we go to 12 from 12 to 15 17 20. that's
the length of that slinky stretching
the
off the one full oscillation from peak
to peak peak valley peak is stretching
out and getting longer and longer and
longer it's lower frequency right so
when you get to my favorite band or one
of my favorite bands 20 meters down here
we've gone from now 28 megahertz on 10
meters down to 14 megahertz on 20 meters
14 megahertz up to
14.35 megahertz that is the frequency
range for 20 meters
i highly recommend you get and download
a band plan if you are a ham radio
if you are ham radio licensed or ham
radio curious and are interested in
potentially getting a license go
download a band plan and have it
available print it out keep it with you
it makes things a lot easier for reasons
that we'll probably talk about a little
bit
so we call these spaces right look going
back a step we call them the bands why
do we call them the bands because
they're expressed in meters
bringing back the slinky again if we say
seven meters we can go back up and look
at that seven meters where's uh sorry
seven megahertz
no
i'm having trouble hearing you
why
um so 40 what did i say 70 and he
thought it was siri that's probably what
happened 40 meters here is 7 megahertz
and it tops out at
7.300 megahertz but we still call it 40
meters because that again that slinky
has been stretched out to 40 meters
oop wrong way somebody wrote this one uh
so stretch of slinky that should be
40 meters
there's no seven meter band josh what
are you talking about
there you go
so stretch of slinky to 40 meters one
oscillation that's the length the
physical length of that wave so if i'm
operating my radio on 40 meters
that is 70 or 7 megahertz that physical
rf representation is a 40 meter rf wave
so if you understand these concepts
then congrats this is the basis of of
radio in in most situations this is
basically how this all works right so if
you got that congratulations if not um
take some of those terms that i talked
about that you may have issues with and
google them or
join the discord that i have the discord
link is in the description there are a
lot of people that will answer your
questions and uh or a comment right now
okay
so i mentioned licenses what's the
licensing about so ham radio in pretty
much every country where ham radio is a
thing and allowed
there's a licensing process
not defending it at all in fact there's
a whole slide just on talking about it
but the thought is is that
other radio services right if we look at
gmrs and frs in comparison to amateur
radio there's some huge differences
two of the big ones other radio services
and let's just take gmrs right gmrs is
super popular right now and and it
deserves to be it's it's good it's
helpful it's useful
not as useful as ham radio though why
so gmrs is a channel based radio service
there are 20 something channels you take
the radio and you go channel one channel
two channel three and you can hit scan
and scan around the channels and that's
what you do
channel the the gmrs radios generally
are um upwards are in the uhf frequency
spaces so closest to amateur radio 70
centimeter band
amateur radios and and most hts that
most hams have are dual banded so you
get 2 meters and 70 centimeters whereas
gmrs is just one band it's channel
locked and it's band locked so if they
don't seem to work for you at that time
or you're not able to do what you need
to do that's it choose a new service get
on cb get on frs get on whatever for
most people it's fine they take it off
road
they use it for being in a campground
they use it when they're on a hike not a
big deal um but but
um do keep in mind that the other radio
services are channel locked frequency
locked to specific bands and that gives
amateur radio a lot of
latitude because we can just pick up
radios that work on different bands if
we want that
bouncing our rf off the atmosphere
we get an hf radio and there we go if we
want to
talk to the satellites or just go on a
hike or whatever we can use a radio like
the one that's there on the left and it
works just fine that radio is
70 centimeters and two meters as well so
you get both bands for the different
capabilities that you may need and why
would you want different bands well they
all perform a little bit different they
all have a little bit of a different
functionality different capability than
just
one band in this case two meters
generally for me has done pretty well
goes a bit further 70 centimeters works
a bit better in like a congested suburb
environment that's generally my
experience
all right so the fcc license in the u.s
it's different in other countries
is broken up into three
levels
technician general and extra
technician is pretty much
all the vhf uhf band spaces frequencies
you have access to all of it some hf
very very little some hf you get a bit
of 10 meters and you get some of the
other hf bands but the lower frequencies
again stretched slinky frequencies the
low low frequencies you're restricted to
morse code only and the mode of
operation that we call it which is
continuous wave
so just it's in daws for you starting
out you may not have that capability so
i appreciate not the best situation but
that's what it is right now we'll talk
about that in a little bit too
a general has access to all the amateur
radio bands all those little slices that
i showed you on that icon sheet
all of them but
reduced they don't get access to every
frequency on that band to get every
frequency you need your extra license
and extra is the last step the highest
level and gives you access to everything
in the united states license so
appreciate
that
spud says hey great uh presentation ki 5
mmf thank you thank you very much
appreciate it
my advice is go ahead and get your
technician um and general in one sitting
if you can i feel that i have felt and i
continue to feel
that
hf is where it's at i love i love vhf uh
i love all ham radio there's no there's
no denying that but i have the most fun
on hf high frequency ham radio i like to
make those
long contacts i like to see
other interesting countries appear on my
waterfall or hear their voice come over
the speaker hf is the best it's also
what you need generally if you're going
to participate in the many of amateur
radio games that we have i call them
amateur radio games people probably
don't like that but if you've ever heard
of parks on the air or summits on the
air where we go to a national estate or
national park or the top of a high
summit and activate our radios activate
meaning turn them on set them up make 4
or 10 contacts depending on if you're
talking about soda or
poda then you basically get points
unlocking or activating points for that
given location
now you can make this work with vhf in
uhf
it's a little difficult difficult though
because one of the natures of the vhf
uhf bands is they punch through the
atmosphere meaning they're really only
line of sight your rf is going to come
straight out of the antenna basically
and it's going to go and go and go and
keep on going until it's absorbed or
gets to space and then it's just off off
and away
so because of that you can't really talk
to another state another country with
vhf uhf we use hf for that hf is where
it's at for poda and soda
so studying for the licenses there's two
two methods to make it really simple for
you traditional books uh link is in the
description to traditional books that
you can get off of amazon
we are at an interesting time right now
we are um going through a questions pool
change for the technician license which
goes in the new question pool goes into
the uh to effect at the end of this
month june 2022 so if you're thinking
about buying a book um go ahead and wait
until the question pool swaps or make
sure if you're watching this after i
originally went live that you're looking
at the date range on the book if it's
close to being expired don't buy it it's
not worth your time because the question
pool is going to change
i generally like the gordon west books
wb6 noa and the fast track series on
amazon these are all on amazon by the
way the fast track series also comes in
an audio book form which i used when
driving to work i found that really
helpful when i was studying for my extra
license which i got a couple years ago i
think
hamstudy.org is the other one
hamstudy.org is a free website and they
also have an app that is a paid for app
but the website is always free you can
just use the website on your phone if
you so like to do that hamstudy.org is a
fantastic way to study for the test it's
very streamlined it's very simple they
give you practice exams meaning you know
practice tests come out same test
questions but
they mix up the order just like you
would see
if you were sitting down for a test you
take many many practice tests many many
practice tests right
at some point you're going to get um
it'll tell you when you've seen all the
questions what percent of the questions
you've seen how many times you've seen
them and it'll start telling you which
sections of the test you're not that
good at and those you can then target
using the website to show you
the sections or sub sections within the
test that you need to spend more time on
i know uh there's yeah
trust me when i say this go to
hamstudy.org start taking practice tests
and then look at your history and it'll
show you really fast which sub elements
or subsections you are lacking in and
it'll help you study those questions
more prominently once you get i've
always said this people disagree with me
but once you get to about 75 percent
pass rate i tell i just say go take the
test people are generally way more
cautious and careful when they're taking
a test versus practice tests so if
you're getting a 75 percent on practice
tests where you kind of just blase
on the toilet in the morning whatever
you do
you're probably going to do just fine
when you take the live test so keep that
in mind
all right so how do you get to your
license though i just said how do you
study how do you get your license uh
there's there's a couple ways to do it
you can still test in person which is
the way i did it i guess the old school
way back in my day
we had in-person testing and we liked it
and then covid came along and now we
have online testing which frankly i
think is a a great idea to do online
testing
so two links here if you go to google by
the way we're going to talk a little bit
about google too let me get going here a
little bit further
if you go to if you just type in a
double rl find a test you'll find a link
to a
web form that you can just
say here you know where you're at and
say okay here's all the locations of
testing sites for getting your license
and that works just fine for in-person
testing however if you want to test
online you can go to hamstudy.org
forward slash
sessions ham study right hamstudy.org
the one you were taking your practice
practice exams from well during covid
they created a method and software to
allow for remote online testing and now
they hold these sessions to get people
tested online via zoom and get them
their license i highly recommend if you
can swing it test online if you want
your license very quickly the fcc has
gone paperless mostly paperless for as
much as what they can do
if you test online and pass you'll have
your license within a day or two some
people have got it same day which is
absolutely insane because i think i
waited two weeks or something like that
back in my day i waited two weeks
here's a big big big big big big big one
if you are someone who has heard about
or has concerns of people knowing your
address when you become an amateur radio
operator
you need to go get a po box before you
take your test before you go on the
fcc's website and create an frn number
you need to go get a po box then you use
that po box as your home address for the
fcc to send you mail which they seldom
if ever do
and that will keep your po box as your
home address versus your home as your
home address when people look up your
call sign
that is the only way to do it uh most
effectively in the united states
make sure you do the po box thing for
sure
and do it before
before
you create an frn number and attach all
this info to the fcc before you get your
license has to be before
all right so now you're saying wait
there's a test
why is there a test why
because i'm gonna answer these questions
that i get all the time
i'm not being an apologist
i'm not defending the fcc i'm not
defending all the other countries that
have tests i'm just merely trying to
explain why
it exists
given the free
and open nature of amateur radio in
comparison to other services right
what were we talking about earlier gmrs
frs the baby brother of gmrs
those radios are locked to a band and
they're locked to channels and they
don't have a keypad and frs has a
antenna that is permanently affixed to
the radio
they are consumer goods they are
consumer products they are not there to
necessarily further or advance the
technology of radio
um or
do
many of the other things that we do in
amateur radio right they are
commodity items they are
things to make communication happen not
to create better understanding of radio
waves and radio wave technologies so i
believe this is me talking that because
amateur radio is such a
more open-ended experience you can go to
whatever frequencies you want you can
put big amplifiers on your radio you can
build your own antennas you can make
software that interfaces with your radio
and sends data over the air can't do
data on gmrs right
oh you can't a bit but you know what i
mean you're not sitting there
doing chat room stuff um with your gmrs
radio
so the gatekeeping at least i believe
the fcc is believes that there needs to
be some kind of gate some kind of
barrier something that helps to protect
the quality of the ham radio bands they
believe that it's this test and the
levels of the test and particularly when
you go from technician to general the
general test is a bit harder than the
technician why well hf one can argue
you're now potentially affecting many
many more people if you run awry with
your signal or start doing some bad
actor type stuff so
that's part of the reason for that
um
i'm not sure how to verify this is true
or not but that is what people believe
that this
that we have to have a test to instill
this baseline knowledge in people's
brains and they'll just remember this
forever and they're trained up and they
can be effective radio operators me
personally i don't really believe that i
think that um i think that it's a speed
bump and the speed bump once out of the
way the real learning starts you can't
convince me of otherwise because you're
not in my brain and you know you don't
know how my brain works so a lot of what
i remember from the test is not the
stuff that i want to remember from the
test so i'm still grabbing catalogs and
textbooks and searching online to
relearn those things when i'm sitting
down to like look at a circuit for
instance i remember most that stuff and
if you do good for you but most people
don't
so advice knock the test out just get it
out of the way you learn more doing than
not so
ah that's what i recommend if you
disagree that's okay these are my
opinions you can disagree with them if
you want to spend six months to
completely and fully understand every
licensed uh question
more power to you if that's what you do
for fun
cheers i want to be on the radio so i
recommend you just take the test if you
want to be on the radio too so you got
the license in hand now what generally i
and i've i've got thoughts on this one
too
new people to ham radio generally seem
to gravitate towards vhf uhf radios
right they're relatively inexpensive
yeah put the antenna on top
boom there you go start talking pretty
straightforward
people generally go into one of two
directions so get themselves in ht
or they'll get like a mobile radio
because they're out in the sticks a bit
they can't hit the repeaters with an ht
so they need to use a mobile radio right
all that stuff you know great more power
to you i think most people started with
vhf uhf most people most people these
operators are generally working at the
higher frequencies so slinky
compressed slinky high frequency stuff
line of sight stuff which can be fun
that's where you get access to
satellites right fm satellites the
linear linear satellites but it's also
geographically limiting i find
further
i have had many a story i don't have
this problem i walk down the street and
trip over repeaters southern california
is the absolute like
i don't know if it's the densest area
for repeaters but it's one of the
densest areas in i would argue the world
possibly um anyway
so um you could live in an area where
there's maybe only one ham club and and
maybe only one repeater and you may not
like the people on that repeater and you
may not like the topics of discussion
they have on that repeater
well if that's where you live and your
radio can only talk around where you're
at at any one time that's kind of
limiting right
so that's why again i recommend if you
can get closer and started out on
hf with some rare exceptions vhf uhf
transmissions are all line of sight
they're only which you can see
a little bit further
but you get the idea
so i recommend again starting out the
the fast track the smoothest path to
getting started in ham radio i recommend
everybody go do this by the way um go
get yourself a
an sdr dongle of some kind and if you
don't want to buy one i get it
don't want to put up an antenna that's
okay
link in the description to the kiwi sdr
online software software defined radio
database it's basically a website that
is the interface for a radio and you can
see the radio frequencies scroll up or
scroll down on the waterfall and you can
get a complete understanding of this
whole parking lot mentality of here's
one space in 40 meters for amateur radio
and then look at that just a little bit
below it that's the shortwave broadcast
stations and okay cool let's go look at
500 i'm sorry five megahertz five
megahertz that's wwv the atomic clock
out of colorado right you can see all
that with an sdr online kiwi sdr or web
sdr whatever you want to use and it'll
give you a much better understanding of
how radios work and what's going on with
radios by actually doing listening to it
and it's free it's totally free so links
in the description but i do recommend
the um the the
new elec sdr that top dongle if you're
on a budget and highly highly highly
recommend sdr plays line of sdrs i am
unaffiliated with any of these companies
i will mention though the links in the
description to any of them is an amazon
affiliate link if you find this helpful
and you want to give back a little bit
use my link it does help out the channel
doesn't cost you anything else but hey
appreciate it thanks okay
um these sdrs are super useful for lots
of things too i use them uh when i do my
antenna testing when i go to the park
sdrs are the key to making that work and
tells no lies sdr tells no lies it tells
you exactly
the power of the signal that it's
received they work beautifully i love
sdrs everybody should have them oh and
go watch my video on
using a cheap android tablet
you can interface the sdr dongles with a
cheap android tablet a 100 lenovo tablet
works just fine
so tip
think like you are on your own with ham
radio okay here's here's josh's hot take
once upon a time i recommended everyone
find a club and i still do find a club
sure if you find a good club
fantastic you lucked out
but what if we pretended we were on our
own what if we pretended we were all our
own little island our own little ham
shack floating in the ocean if you will
how would you find the info you wanted
how would you learn more about ham radio
right some people can learn this way
where they do things on their own they
look online for resources they read
books
i think
well some people thrive in those
environments i think everybody if they
assume the mentality that they're
responsible for their ham radio career
and journey they will get more out of it
and they will grow quicker
so
if you are responsible and in the
driver's seat of ham radio i feel like
this is a very good mindset to start out
on that you are on your own but if you
join a club you may have a faster time
if you get an elmer it may make that
journey a little bit faster and
knowledge will come a little bit quicker
all true things but don't expect it to
be the only way you can definitely go
your own if you can function on your own
then you can answer your own questions
how would you do that per se
google your questions literally uh radio
insert radio name here
set up fta google uh insert radio name
here
aprs configuration
google right just all that right
anything the keywords i i know i this is
the hammer deal crash course not the
googling things crash course but i found
that people don't google effectively i
thought we might have gotten past that
but i think some people have a difficult
time with googling now and then
keywords are the key points right
keywords for the program the company the
the model of the radio all of that stuff
is what you need
and here's a hot tip
download the pdf manuals for all your
radios i i love uh i love me
i love me a good manual so here's my
here's my 818. i just bought this in las
vegas right my manual but guess what
i didn't aggregate it on anything i
can't search on anything so having the
pdf is absolutely what you want because
then you can search for what you're
looking for after you buy your first
radio highly important always download
pdfs and if you're so inclined and you
have a cheap kindle or cheap e-reader
shoot all of your manuals for all of
your things in your life in your home to
that e-reader i'm telling you this will
save you
so much time
oh let me go back yeah google your
questions generally generally you're
going to get google's hits on youtube
which is going to be good in most cases
but
consider the creator
some of us are not all the same some of
us are different spots in our ham radio
journey that's neither good nor bad i'm
not throwing any shade at anybody here
all i'm saying is if you are looking for
a definitive one two three four five of
how to set up ft8 then you may have to
look at a couple of videos until you get
exactly what you're looking for
qrz
hit and miss uh curez that i've found is
there's a ton of really good posts this
is qrz.com by the way
keeping this simple get everybody
started in ham radio there's a website
called qrzed.com
it's kind of like facebook of ham radio
and there's a forum and in that forum
there are some pretty bad actors that
make people feel pretty bad about
themselves and they really like doing it
it's a lot of fun for them but with that
said there are other posts in the forums
that are really helpful with that are
ran by really good people that have a
really good deep dive in explaining
things in effective way so for that i
will say qrz is hit and miss you will
often sometimes have to dive into qrz to
find some information but there you go
uh reddit generally good although for
some reason it feels like we've got some
qrz expats that are going to reddit and
they're starting to
throw their poop around a little bit and
that's a bummer because i think reddit's
um
it's a better community than qrz
is on the general uh but yeah there's
some people there they're really kind of
starting to bring it down and that bums
me out too because reddit's usually a
good place
so what's the best way for my point of
view participate in an online community
um i
i think i can say
and this is again my opinion i think the
the ham radio crash course discord is
our shining jewel of the best example of
an online ham radio community you can
have
one of the best for sure the long island
cw club is fantastic as well those guys
are amazing i highly recommend you join
them too go watch my videos on that but
um the hrcc discord community is i think
the best we've got the some of the best
admins we don't
it's a it's a welcoming place it is
inclusive on purpose and if it's not you
tell the out the admins or any of the
elmers and we'll get it taken care of
because that's not how ham radio should
be we should be able to work together
and have fun and answer questions
you have any questions i've answered 500
times the same questions and i don't get
salty with people or make them feel bad
about themselves over asking a dumb
question yeah they're dumb questions
yeah they could have googled it yes i've
posted videos on it but it's it's human
we're just being humans out here right
people are people and people are going
to ask questions like that so i really
truly appreciate the hrcc discord you
guys make that
it's my discord but it's it's you make
the community
and the facebook group is pretty good
too but i just don't like facebook that
must so there you go groups.io sometimes
really really helpful if it's a specific
thing so what was where was i why was i
on groups i o recently
uh i can't remember it was a piece of
software and and that was the the
you you basically go to groups.io for
like a specific software a specific
radio to get your specific answers so if
you're really hardcore into
a particular thing particular radio
whatever that's where to go
hey 442 people watching right now i just
looked down and saw the number so thanks
so much guys i really truly appreciate
it and uh yeah it means a lot to me so
okay
ham radio technology today it's a great
time to be a ham i've said this many
times we have access today to
well-priced retail radios and loads of
quality used gear if you do your
homework
buying an ht what time are we got oh my
goodness okay we're speeding up buying
an hdr mobile vhf radio um i already
mentioned this what's your local signals
like you're i'm in southern california i
got lots of local signals if you don't
have lots of local signals skip the ht
go straight to mobile
if you have to do that if the repeaters
are scarce you might want to focus on
your energy towards mobile i just said
that if you're a techie type person and
have digital repeaters digital ham radio
digital voice still sending that energy
out over the antenna it's just
what's it's modulated uh encoded into a
digital format into a digital codec
audio turns it's a dac so it's an audio
to digital conversion so audio signal
comes in digital
digital data comes out and gets shot out
of the r uh the radio out of the antenna
all right so there's digital modes
that's not really a starting point
necessarily from my point of view by the
way here's my repeater this is what my
repeater uh forest looks like and i'd
say almost all of them i could i could
hit them from my house
so finding repeaters
repeaterbook.com if you must start out
on vhf uhf you will likely want to find
a repeater what is a repeater i've said
it a couple of times now and some of you
who may be starting out for the first
time saying what is even going on what
is a repeater a repeater is a big radio
usually on a mountain or on the top of a
tower or the antennas are on the top of
the tower and it allows for simultaneous
transmission and amplification and
rebroadcasting or re-transmission of
your signal so that lots and lots of
people can hear you if i have a five
watt handheld and i want to talk to
let go back go back and i want to talk
to
the whole south bay area from
east los angeles down to long beach down
to where i'm at in cerritos and norwalk
and all that i would need to use a
repeater my little handheld can't do it
so we squawk into a repeater
like mount wilson
it hears my signal and while it's
hearing my signal at the same time it's
re-transmitting my information my voice
on a slightly different frequency and
everybody can hear it that's how
repeaters work again black box real
simple
national calling frequencies if you must
vhfuhf make sure you have the national
calling frequencies loaded in your radio
again southern california i'm incredibly
spoiled there is always people talking
on the simplex and monitoring the
simplex frequencies particularly 146.520
if you don't know what that is that is
the 2 meter band
about in the middle of the about middle
of the uh the frequency space again
tight
tight slinky
146.520 is the two meter calling
frequency it's like the hey anybody out
there what's going on frequency that we
use
so buying your first ht when i started
out the budget options the budget
options were two hundred dollars and up
it wasn't until
the bow fangs hit the market in the well
2013 to 2015-ish time frame where the
time frame where the uv-5r just kind of
took off like like wildfire you expected
to pay 200 right you that was just it
you got it you got yourself a yaesu ft60
and you liked it and you had and that
was a good radio it's still a good radio
but you can't compare it to the cost of
the bow fangs
we'll talk about that a little bit more
on that except um in a second but not
all hd's at the bargain basin level are
exceptional quality so even if you're
getting
thirty dollar twenty five dollar thirty
dollar baofengs and tyts and um other
radios like that
just because they're sub 100 dollars
that doesn't mean that how do i want to
say this
if you paid more than a baofeng at
twenty-five dollars say about one for
seventy-five dollars that doesn't make
that a good radio okay just keep that in
mind i highly recommend before buying
any ht even though they're incredibly
cheap that you do some research on them
particularly what it's like to program
them by hand for repeaters highly
recommend that you do that i will tell
you though that the two that i like that
are the cheapy radios is the ft-4xr it's
a great little cheap radio it's 75 bucks
to 85 bucks depending on where the crazy
prices are at and the uv-5r the uv5r is
just fine as well as the radiod um
what is it uv
g
v
u v 9 g u v 5 g
u v yeah i think it's uv 5g anyway the
radii it's basically a bow thing that
has better filtering in it
so a note to further this on baofeng
some most baofengs have poor internal
filtering and create harmonics i know
those are those are big words for an
introduction right onto radio here all
that means is if i had
so if i had uh have my radio on 146.52
meaning
146.520 and i started transmitting
if a radio has bad harmonics you're
going to see the power is going to be
output right on 146.520
but then every harmonic you're going to
see a little blip of energy blip blip
because there's poor filtering on the
radio which is basically making you
transmit outside of band
potentially because china don't care
china don't care about um filtering that
would be expensive so keep that in mind
in some cases a lot of chinese radios
are good
baofengs not so much quality has
improved over the years though and many
now pass the fcc requirement part 97
rules part 97 is not a topic for this
video is way too much to get started
with and i only have five minutes left
please don't end your stopping your
shopping search with the baofeng or the
buff wang or the
fung
there are other better radios for not
much more money even other chinese
brands deserve another look like wushan
or ocean if you say that but wushun is
generally what i know them as
if you do own a baofeng and wouldn't
have become a ham without its low-cost
point of entry don't sweat it we're all
better off as a community for you being
one of us don't let anyone shame you
because you got a balfang
generally though buying mobile radios is
i like mobiles mobile radios are not
just for the car i use them in the home
as well although we use that name to
reference larger radios with higher
output than your ht generally mobile
radios are 50 watts on 2 meters and 70
centimeters so much like the ht just
bigger has a higher power output making
it a lot more useful in most situations
mobile radios require external power
sources and an external antenna
and with a mobile radio you will be able
to work simplex contacts easier if you
hear people on
146.520 or
like to monitor it for emergency
purposes like maybe your house butts up
to a national forest and you know
they're hikers out there sometimes it's
really good to have gmrs radios turned
on
hts
mobile radios on national simplex
146.520
megahertz is really important as well
so my recommendation on starting out for
hf
so starting out on hf can seem daunting
there are some tips we've already talked
about sdrs
to be honest i feel like if you really
do
spend a little bit of time with sdrs
you'll get a much better idea of what
we're trying to accomplish when we talk
about getting onto hf radio
seek recommendations from elmer's clubs
and ham friends but get second and third
opinions and you can do that by watching
youtube videos reading reviews like from
the awrl and there are some really good
blogs out there as well like thomas
witherspoon so he's also on youtube make
sure you subscribe to him 100 watts
should be your benchmark for an hf radio
that's what you're looking for you want
100 watts output and a base station
radio with knobs
from my point of view is preferred when
starting out i know there are an sd you
may have
learned right showed yourself ham radio
via an sdr a usb sdr and you're used to
that okay i might give you the nod then
if you're doing a radio with a lot of
heavy in the menu screen stuff but
generally i like i like a good knob as i
say in my videos for all my uk folks to
drive them crazy
waterfalls will help you understand what
is happening but you you pay for this
feature waterfalls are incredibly
expensive they add cost to the radio
just case in point
that 818 i bought right there 600 600
something dollars versus the 705
relatively similar uh radio 705 is much
newer though uh 1200 right so
all right
waterfall check check check radios with
internal sound cards if you want to do
data if you want to do digital modes
like
shoot
data
out of your radio if i keep saying data
you'll get it right uh star trek next
generation data
no
if you want to connect your computer and
have your community computer talk to
your radio and have your data from your
computer get transmitted out over hf
you want something with a usb port it's
going to make your life a lot easier one
cable
that's the way to do it
and last for hf don't skip on the
antenna don't skimp at all most
important actually i think that's not
true at all i i
had an old other slide devoted to a
dentist for most of us now we're talking
hf antennas
if you're getting started okay hf
antennas can be incredibly daunting i
appreciate that for most of us we will
need
need to use a compromised antenna
both in placement in size in cost we're
all dealing with
compromised antennas and don't let
anybody make you feel bad about that aim
to build or buy however
resonant antennas for your desired bands
and you can google this so i just said a
ter i just said a big word
resonant antenna what does that mean so
you could google hf resident antenna
plans hf antenna
hf resonant antenna project on google
see what you get you get back you're
going to get something that might work
just fine for you an example of a
resonant hf antenna is a dipole a dipole
is
perfect and if you add more elements to
that dipole you got a fan dipole and i
got a multi-band
dipole good stuff if you'd like to hear
um me explain a little bit about
multi-band antennas go look up the video
i posted a week or two ago on the eagle
one antenna
really interesting antenna really
interesting idea and i wanted to to use
it as a way to explain to people that
there are internal realities we just
face and have to deal with
so that's why i really like
resonant antennas anyway go watch that
video
uh let's see but but don't let the
pursuit of the perfect antenna slow you
down from getting on the air that's the
biggest thing the the biggest line that
you must if you're if you're doing hf
you've got to remember
to get on the air get on the air is
important sometimes building a dipole is
the best option it's cheap
easy to make and we'll get you a lot of
satisfaction when you get it up and
running you'll be really proud of
yourself there's this old saying um it's
better to be
it's better it's better to have
a 380 automatic in your pocket than a
1911 on the the night nightstand well
it's better to have an antenna on the
air a compromised antenna on the air
than a a perfect antenna in a shed right
okay maybe one more slide on antennas
there can be a lot of ham radio
mysticism when it comes to antennas
fully understanding them is a pretty
large task take your time research
research and research if you haven't and
you want to get it's father's day
weekend if you want to buy a fellow
person who's ham curious maybe a dad
whatever get them the awl handbook it
would be invaluable tool for them to
learn um more about antennas
somebody oh ha ha km or d so do i that's
why i said it i also i also have one all
right what else do i got i think that's
it questions all right
run with chebron says pigeon man
absolutely jody says for those
uh for those new to the hobby and not
sure what they might be interested in
the awr handbook annual has the first
section covering the 500 sub hobbies
perfect jody perfect you always have
good drops and we came to the same
conclusion there i love the handbook uh
definitely definitely get yourself the
awl handbook they're they're inexpensive
i i think they're a good buy
well
boy howdy i did that in exactly an hour
that's impressive that was not timed in
any way
i will make a mention here this uh this
whole channel runs off of your support i
do appreciate it things like patreon
and obviously membership here on youtube
and hamtactical.com
sure patreon we love that sure youtube
membership we love that but maybe you'd
want to buy yourself some merch maybe
some really good coffee that's not just
me saying it many people have said it's
fantastic and a bunch of other merch and
the merch ideas all come from my podcast
that i do with my wife leia ham radio
crash course podcast for instance one of
my favorites still to this day thank you
for contact 73 which is the old
chinese take out container
design thank you for contact seven three
we we gotta do it please copy now that i
think about it we gotta do a please copy
yeah i love it i've got to agree
of course you do
anyway
all right everybody i think we're gonna
wrap it up on that one big thank you to
the patrons patron picks is just around
the corner because who buddy um we have
field day next week man next week
a field day next week i'm even ready for
that i don't know if i'm staying
overnight or not yet guys so if you're
going out there maybe ping me on
on discord or whatever um
to see if i'm going out there also for
everybody that's hanging out still right
now
we're gonna go to the discord after chat
after this so if you'd like to follow
along link is in the description
i'll be live on twitch as well so hope
you join us over there
um
yeah and that would be great so yeah big
thank you to the patrons appreciate it
didn't get a lot of questions but we're
burning the uh
we're burning the midnight oil here a
bit late night stuff
all right
yeah thanks everybody i appreciate that
i hope the uh the stream was good this
this time i know it's getting uh tough
people are getting busy they're getting
outdoors they're getting ready to go on
vacation so
i appreciate a one hour long stream like
this can be a little daunting for people
to sit down to but if you got through it
i appreciate it and if you enjoyed it
give me a thumbs up would mean a lot
all right
hey the anime how's it going anime
and if you follow me on patreon um i'll
be dropping the links um the slides
there
likely tomorrow sometime this weekend
but it is father's day
so hey all the fathers out there
appreciate you i'm sure your kids do too
and uh we definitely need you
to teach your kids
your family ham radio so get to it all
right
everybody have a good
father's day and a good rest your
weekend i'm going to the discord i hope
you join me over there too 73 everybody
[Music]