At the start of May 2018, I decided that I wanted to get my Amateur Radio (Ham) License. By the end of May, I had completed the test (with a perfect score, I might add) and was awarded my license at the beginning of June.
What is Amateur Radio
Amateur Radio, often referred to simply as “Ham radio” is typically just a hobby. As is implied by the name, radio operators typically just kinda… talk to each other. They have contests to see who can make the most contacts (I.E. talk to the most people) in a short period of time (see ARRL Field Day).
There are also those who use their license to help the general public, by assisting communications in emergency situations where the usual communications infrastructure may be impaired. To do this, people typically sign up to either the ARES or RACES program. Their job usually entails just relaying messages between government agencies and emergency responders. I, for example, am part of the ARES program (Amateur Radio Emergency Service).
How does this compare to the radio equipment you’re familiar with, you ask? Well, I assume you’re talking about things like walkie talkies and CB radio (often called trucker radio). Both of these are generally considered “unlicensed services” (this isn’t exactly true, but in practice, that’s how it works). So you don’t need to go and pay for a license or take a test to be able to use a walkie talkie; all you need is the equipment.
The difference between things like CB/walkie talkies is a bit technical. From a legal standpoint, Ham Radio operators are able to use a much higher transmit power. On CB radio, you’re limited to a maximum of 4 watts. With normal walkie talkies, you’re limited to a maximum of 2 watts.
But with a Ham license? Well, unless otherwise specified, you can transmit up to 1,500 watts! Of course, you’d need the equipment to do this, but the possibilities are endless.
From a physical standpoint though, the difference between CB/walkie talkies is a bit more subtle. If you have a walkie talkie, you might notice that it has just 22 channels. They’re very specific channels too. For this explanation, you need to understand a key aspect of radio physics: frequency.
A quick and dirty explanation of radio frequencies
If you end up getting your license, you’ll eventually get a much deeper understanding of how radio frequencies work. But I’ll try to keep it concise while giving you a relatively accurate description here:
You may have heard the terms microwave, gamma ray, or x-ray. These are example of different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation. The most common type of electromagnetic radiation is light. All the other types of radiation are made of the same oscillating photons as light, but they have different properties depending on the frequency.
Ignore all the numbers there. They correspond to wavelength, which is another way to describe the frequency of a wave. But as you can see, radio waves are a relatively low frequency type of radiation. The lower in frequency you go (the farther left on the chart), the weirder things start to act.
For example, let’s start at the far right. Gamma rays are the highest-energy radiation, but can’t even travel through air. You would say that “our atmosphere is opaque to gamma rays.”
We scale down to x-rays. Our atmosphere is also pretty opaque here.
Now we go down to ultra-violet. This is where our atmosphere stops protecting us. Ever heard of a sunburn? That’s caused by ultraviolet radiation (UV rays) from our sun.
Visible light travels through our atmosphere pretty well. That’s why we can see the stars at night, and the moon, or even the sun during the day. But visible light is quickly stopped by relatively thin things, like curtains, skin, walls, and trees.
Infrared is pretty boring.
But now we get to microwaves. Microwaves act a lot like light, because they travel in a straight-line path, but they’re a little different: to microwaves, a lot of things that stop visible light (like curtains or walls) are practically transparent. Microwaves travel straight through your walls. Do you know your Wi-Fi router at home? Wi-Fi uses microwaves (specifically, either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz). Just because you lose sight of your Wi-Fi router doesn’t mean that you lose your Wi-Fi connection. This is because the signals travel straight through your wall, or maybe bounce around your house, before reaching your phone or laptop. If you have a thick enough wall, maybe it can stop the signal, but generally it can’t.
Now we get down to radio waves. These are so low frequency that they pass through a lot of stuff. Radio waves are pretty hard to stop: they can travel through trees, buildings, or vehicles without breaking a sweat. Get to a low enough frequency, and you can start traveling straight through mountains.
Back to walkie talkies
Okay, let’s take a breather. That was a lot of new information. Back to our walkie talkies, those use microwave transmitters. If you look back to our chart, you’ll see that those aren’t strictly considered “radio waves,” but we often lump them together because it makes sense.
More specifically, walkie talkies use 22 channels, designated as the FRS radio service. FRS (Family Radio Service) is a very limited microwave communication standard. We already talked a little bit about the propagation of microwaves: they travel in a straight line path. Though they can travel through things like drywall, they’re pretty screwed when you’re in an area with a lot of hills and brick buildings.
If you ask an amateur radio operator, they would tell you that walkie talkies use UHF. This means “Ultra-High Frequency,” and is classified as any wave between 300 MHz and 3 GHz. Specifically, walkie talkies use between 462 MHz and 468 MHz. Those 22 channels have very specific frequencies that you can look up on the FRS wikipedia page.
| Name | Expanded Name | Frequency Range |
| MF | Medium Frequency | 300kHz – 3MHz |
| HF | High Frequency | 3MHz – 30MHz |
| VHF | Very High Frequency | 30MHz – 300MHz |
| UHF | Ultra High Frequency | 300MHz – 3GHz |
CB Radios vs Walkie Talkies
I haven’t talked much about CB radio. CB stands for “Citizens Band.” Now that you know a bit more about how frequencies work, it’ll make a bit more sense to you. CB radio, instead of using UHF microwaves, uses HF radio waves (between 3 MHz and 30 MHz). More specifically, CB is between 26.9 MHz and 27.5 MHz.
Because CB uses a much lower frequency compared to walkie talkies, the propagation is a little bit different. Instead of traveling in a straight-line path, they can curve around the surface of the Earth. This means that communications distance is stretched from the mile or two that walkie talkies have to several tens of miles. This is why truckers often use CB to pass the time: you can talk to people who are further away, even past bunches of trees and hills.
Bringing Ham Radio into the mix
How does Ham Radio fit into all of this? What frequencies do they use? Well, this is a legal question. There are actually 3 tiers of the Ham License.
- Technician’s License: This is the first tier. They have free roam on most VHF and UHF frequencies. They’re hardly able to use any of the HF, or long-distance frequencies.
- General License: This is the second tier. Along with VHF and UHF, they have almost free roam on HF frequencies. This allows communication between stations hundreds of miles away.
- Extra License: This is the third and final tier. They have free roam on UHF, VHF, HF, and below. This is the “elite class” of operators, and they have exclusive access to the best channels.
Now just because you have a Technician’s License doesn’t mean you have rights to the entire spectrum. Ham operators only actually have access to certain chunks of those spectrums. For example, in the UHF range, Ham operators are exclusively allocated between 420MHz and 450MHz, not the whole 300MHz to 3GHz. But these allocations are still extremely generous, given that the FCC is usually very strict on how people use radio.
Getting Your License
Getting your license is easy: you go to a testing session, pay $15, and pass a 35-question test. You can find a local testing session on the official ARRL website (Amateur Radio Relay League). That’s for your Technician’s License, which is still very privileged compared to not having a license at all. The General and Extra class licenses have harder tests, but you shouldn’t have to worry about that right now.
For the Technician’s License, questions on the test are pulled from question pools which are altered every 4 years. The current pools contain about:
- Technician Pool Size: 423 questions
- General Pool Size: 462 questions
- Extra Class Pool Size: 712 questions
I have found that the absolute best way to study for the test is to go to HamTestOnline. Though you do have to pay for the study materials, it’s only about $25. They have an adaptive learning environment that very adequately explains everything you need to know for the tests. Since the question pools are publicly accessible, HamTestOnline quizzes you throughout the lessons with real questions. The ones that you don’t get right, it quizzes you again later on.
After taking 2 or 3 weeks to study for my test with HamTestOnline, I actually recognized the vast majority of the questions on the actual test from my studies. I passed the exam with a perfect score and got my Tech license without a problem.
Once you get your license
You may have heard the horror stories about Ham Radio, saying that “you need to buy a $1000 radio to get started.” Though this used to be the case, it’s simply no longer true. I carry a radio with me everywhere I go. It’s my trusty BF-F8HP, which has access to VHF and UHF, can transmit up to 8 watts, and has incredible battery life. Because I bought the 8-watt variant, this cost me about $60. But if you’re willing to drop down to 5-watts (which from experience, isn’t much of a downgrade), you can buy the UV-5R for just $25.
The company that makes these, Baofeng, are often criticized for making “cheap radios.” While from a financial standpoint this is true, I’ve personally found that the build quality and feature set of these handheld radios are more than adequate for a starter in Amateur Radio. Companies like Baofeng are the only reason that so many people are even able to get started in Ham Radio. If I had to purchase a $400 handheld from Kenwood to get started, I never would’ve pursued Amateur Radio.
I should point out that there are absolutely no restrictions on listening to any frequency. You do not need a license to listen! You only need a license to transmit! With just the $25 UV-5R, you can tune into the local police frequencies (I’ve listened to a police officer call in my license plate number as he followed me!). In an emergency, you’re even allowed to transmit without a license, so this can be a valuable resource. You can also tune into the weather radio. Beyond that, you can tune into standard FM broadcast, like the channels you listen to in your car. That’s right, it’s also a source of music and news that you can use without an internet connection!
Conclusion
With my Amateur Radio license, I’ve met a lot of really cool people. I’ve joined the local radio club, which hosts meetings every month to talk about the cool things they’ve done, sharing valuable knowledge. Additionally, I’ve got access to weather radio, police radio, and emergency communications in the event of a catastrophe. Having an Amateur Radio License is a lot of fun!