Ham Radio 101

Daughter Julie's husband, Jack, is a radio ham operator. He is always coming up with conversation on his radio and making contact with people from all over the world. There is a whole lot out there of which I know nothing, ham radios being one such subject.

Jack wrote an email today which I thought I'd share here about the subject of "ham radio in a nutshell". Every time he gets a contact, postcards are shared and the ham operators collect those cards, called QSL cards. He has several dozen neat ones from all over the world.

This is Jack's picture and his call letters:

USA, KA4WWN, JOHN P HENIFORD, 1729 CRICKET RUN RD, YORK, SC 29745; from his email:

My friend Joe, ham operator KP2AE, Extra Class licensee, says, "there's some science in it...". He means whatever contacts you get depend on the Ionosphere. We use High Frequency radio (HF) from 1.3 megahertz to 50 megahertz for long distance contacts. That part of the spectrum doesn't travel in straight line-of-sight paths - it bounces off the Ionosphere, maybe multiple times.

A lot of things affect how many bounces there will be. One factor over a period of years is sunspots. They are solar storms, and they cause heightened ionization in our atmosphere, and therefore , more radio bouncing in HF. Actually we're still in one of the seven - year low periods, probably starting to come out of it so long contacts should soon become more frequent. Medium long wave radio gets the bouncing too, but not as much. That's regular broadcast radio. Very High Frequency, like police use, hardly gets it at all except sometimes it might. Long wave , below half a megahertz, doesn't get it, it's used for sending code to submarines and other special applications. Some hams can use Extra High Frequency, up in the gigahertz range, that can go straight through the atmosphere and bounce off the moon.

I said Joe is an Extra Class. I'm a General Class. Joe passed a more difficult test than I did. The Federal government produces the tests, and we're licensed by the Feds. Some of the things we're allowed to do could interfere with government radio applications, so we have to follow the rules which have the force of law, to avoid such. CB used to be regulated, but there's so much trash on it I think they just gave up the regulation, and should probably abolish it..Family Radio, like campers use, as you know, is regulated only by power limitations. The Feds assign call signs, too. Joe's indicates he was licensed in the US Virgin Islands when he worked there, and he retains that call. Mine shows that I was licensed in the Southeastern US.

So, there you go - ham radio in a nutshell.

Enough said. Thanks, Jack, for sharing your expertise.