What is Amateur Radio?

Preface on what is Amater Radio all about.

   Every day we see and hear about people communicating with one another over short or long distances with either the GSM telephone network day by day, by wire phone lines and by transmitting through the air waves. Such as like the Television Broadcast, Radio Broadcast, Commercial, Data, Morse (usually over the short wave bands) and Voice transmitions over the air waves.

   Now we will see what Amateur Radio is all about. People who persue the hobby of using a personal radio station to communicate, purely for non-commercial purposes, with other radio hobbyists call it
Ham Radio or Amateur Radio. They call themselves Amateur Radio operators or ham radio operators or just plain "hams".

   Ham Radio is a world wide hobby for many people all over the world that enjoy communicating with one another by means of friendship, exchanging ideas of technical and enviromental understanding. Radio operators also exchange the signal report heard or send to the other stations and by doing this they exchange also cards with one another, also known as the QSL cards. QSL cards by the way are cards that confirm a contact with other stations that they made a contact with. By this they can have prove to others that these contacts have been made. By doing this if they make over a 100 countries and by getting all the contacts and QSL cards, they can win an award, known as the DXCC Award.

   Radio hams must also have a log book, so when they have made a contact and would like to confirm this, (so they also would remember and if so to win the DXCC Award to have to show to the commity of the DXCC Award) so they will have to know if they made this contact before or not with the other station. The log book consists of the following: Date, Time started, Time finished, the Station that they were in contact with in that particular day or night time, Modulation used, Frequency, Power of their transmiter, Sent report, Received report, QTH (Location of station), or Locator Square, Name of operator and QSL sent / received.

The Amateur's Code.

   Here we will see the Amateur's code which will tell us what we do or say over the air waves. As you will see is that we also have our own law over the air waves.

The Radio Amateur is:

CONSIDERATE...never knowingly operates in such a way as to lessen the pleasure of others.

LOYAL...offers loyalty, encouragement and support to other Amateurs, local clubs, and the Society or Oganization (A.R.R.L., R.S.G.B., C.A.R.S. e.t.c) through which Amateur Radio in his country is represented nationally and internationally.

PROGRESSIVE...with knowledge abreast of sceince, a well-build and efficient station and operation above reproach.

FRIENDLY...slow and patient operating when requested; friendly advice and counsel to the beginner; kindly assistance, cooperation and consideration for the interests of others. These are the hallmarks of the amateur spirit.

BALANCED...radio is an avocation, never interfering with duties owed to family, job, school or community.

PATRIOTIC...station and skill always ready for service to country and community.

- The original Amateur's Code was written by Paul M. Segal W9EEA, in 1928.


   Additionally if you feel free to see also more about Amateur Radio, then please check out these sites for more details.

The ARRL Home Page.  ARRL - Home Page

The RSBG Home Page.  RSGB - Home Page