49 Fun Facts About Ham Radio

The 'ham' in ham radio began as an insult aimed at whom?

Telegraphers with poor Morse skills were mocked as 'ham-fisted' by 19th-century professional wire operators; radio amateurs later adopted the jibe as a badge of pride.

Which body establishes the amateur radio service through its Radio Regulations?

International Telecommunication Union Radio Regulations define the amateur and amateur-satellite services and allocate their bands; each national government then licenses operators and issues call signs.

Under FCC rules, how often at minimum must a US station give its call sign?

Every ten minutes during a contact, and at its end, a US station must transmit its call sign under FCC Part 97 rule 97.119; some other countries allow longer intervals.

What 1927 definition distinguished a radio amateur from commercial operators?

Personal aim, no pecuniary interest: the 1927 Washington International Radiotelegraph Convention defined an amateur as a person interested in radio technique purely for personal aims and without any monetary reward.

What is the worldwide umbrella body for national ham societies?

IARU, the International Amateur Radio Union founded in Paris in 1925, federates national societies such as the ARRL and RSGB and represents amateurs at ITU conferences.

In 2011, about how many people worldwide were estimated to be active in amateur radio?

2 million people worldwide were estimated to be regularly active in amateur radio in 2011, including about 830,000 stations in the Americas, 750,000 in Asia-Pacific and 400,000 in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Radio amateurs are credited with discovering which propagation phenomenon?

Skywave propagation — signals refracted back to Earth by the ionosphere — was demonstrated by amateurs in 1923, when transatlantic contacts on short waves showed bands dismissed as useless could span the world.

How many amateur stations did the 1909 Wireless Blue Book list in the US and Canada?

89 amateur stations appear in the First Annual Official Wireless Blue Book of the Wireless Association of America, published in 1909, the first such callbook for the United States and Canada.

In amateur radio, what does the abbreviation 'DX' denote?

Long-distance contact is what 'DX' denotes — the term was telegraph shorthand for 'distance' — and chasing DX, especially rare countries, is a core amateur pursuit.

What are scheduled on-air meetings of operators called?

Nets are directed by a net control station that calls in participants in turn; some are emergency-preparedness drills, others weekly social round-tables or traffic-handling sessions.

Which of these is an amateur radio operating award?

Worked All States (WAS) is an ARRL award for confirmed contacts with all 50 US states; DXCC, for 100 countries, and Worked All Continents are other well-known awards.

Which voice mode is favoured for long-distance contacts because of its efficiency?

Single sideband suppresses the carrier and one sideband, so all transmitter power goes into the remaining sideband in about 3 kHz of bandwidth — far more efficient than AM for long-distance contacts.

Morse code transmission is also known by which two-letter abbreviation?

CW stands for continuous wave, the keyed unmodulated carrier used to send Morse code; it gets through under weak-signal conditions because it needs only a few hundred hertz of bandwidth.

Until what year did international rules require Morse proficiency for frequencies below 30 MHz?

2003 was when the World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-03) made Morse testing optional for access below 30 MHz; the United States dropped its own requirement in February 2007.

Which internationally understood shorthand system is used in Morse contacts?

Q code signals are three-letter groups beginning with Q, such as QTH (location) and QSL (acknowledgement), devised for maritime telegraphy in 1909 and adopted by amateurs in Morse and voice contacts.

Which digital mode, popular since 2017, allows efficient weak-signal shortwave contacts?

FT8, released in July 2017 within the WSJT-X suite by Joe Taylor and Steve Franke, exchanges 15-second structured messages and decodes signals well below the noise floor.

Packet radio, developed in the 1970s, uses which protocol?

AX.25, an amateur adaptation of the X.25 data-link protocol, frames packet-radio data with station call signs as addresses; TCP/IP is often carried over it.

EchoLink and the Internet Radio Linking Project are examples of what?

RoIP — radio over Internet Protocol — describes systems such as EchoLink and IRLP that link repeaters and operators worldwide by carrying voice across the internet with VoIP techniques.

On which band does fast-scan amateur television typically operate?

70 cm — the 420–450 MHz band in the United States — has room for a full-bandwidth analogue or digital television signal, unlike the narrow lower bands, so fast-scan amateur television lives there.

What do hams commonly call the room or building housing their station?

The shack is the hams' name for the room or building housing their station, a term dating from early wireless days when gear was often kept in a makeshift outbuilding.

Through which programme do astronauts make amateur contacts from the International Space Station?

ARISS — Amateur Radio on the International Space Station — schedules contacts between licensed crew members and schools; it succeeded the SAREX shuttle programme of the 1980s and 1990s.

What must most countries' candidates pass to receive an amateur licence?

An examination covering electronics, propagation, operating practice and regulations is the standard route; most administrations tie licence privileges to the level of exam passed.

What is the entry-level amateur licence in both the UK and Australia called?

Foundation is the first of three licence grades in both countries — followed by Intermediate and Full in the UK, and Standard and Advanced in Australia — with a short syllabus and modest power limits.

Which US agency issues amateur radio licences?

Federal Communications Commission Part 97 rules govern US amateur radio; the FCC grants licences on the basis of exams run by volunteer examiner teams and assigns call signs from its database.

What is the highest US ham licence class?

Extra — formally Amateur Extra — sits above Technician and General and grants every amateur frequency privilege; it requires passing a 50-question exam drawn from a published pool.

How long is a US amateur radio licence valid?

Ten years is the FCC licence term, renewable without re-examination; the exam question pools, by contrast, are published in advance and refreshed on a four-year cycle.

Which two countries do not issue amateur radio licences to their citizens?

Yemen and North Korea are the two states that issue no amateur licences to their own citizens, although foreign operators have occasionally been permitted short DXpeditions from each.

In North America, what are experienced hams who mentor newcomers called?

Elmers, the mentors who guide newcomers, take their name from a 1971 QST column by Rodney Newkirk, W9BRD, who wrote of the helpful 'Elmer' every ham remembers.

Which is the oldest national amateur radio society, formed in 1910?

Wireless Institute of Australia, founded in Sydney in 1910, predates the Radio Society of Great Britain (1913) and the American Radio Relay League (1914) and is recognised as the world's oldest national amateur society.

What is a self-chosen call sign called?

Vanity call signs, chosen by the licensee from available combinations, have been issued by the FCC since 1996; the agency dropped its vanity fee in 2015 and introduced a $35 application fee in 2022.

In a UK call sign, what do the prefixes GM and MM indicate?

Scotland is indicated by GM (G-series calls) and MM (M-series); GW/MW is Wales, GI/MI is Northern Ireland and GD/MD is the Isle of Man.

In a standard US call sign, what does the numeral indicate?

The district where first licensed — one of ten numbered US call areas — is what the numeral shows, although since 1978 hams who move have been allowed to keep their original call sign.

Canadian call signs beginning CY indicate operation from what?

Geographic islands off Nova Scotia get the CY prefix: CY0 is Sable Island and CY9 is St. Paul Island, both counted as separate DXCC entities and requiring special permission to visit.

Which Canadian prefixes are used for Ontario?

VA3 and VE3 are Ontario's prefixes; VE1 and VA1 cover Nova Scotia, VE7 and VA7 British Columbia, VY1 the Yukon and VO1 the island of Newfoundland.

QRZ.com is an example of what?

An online callbook such as QRZ.com lets anyone look up the holder of a call sign, replacing the printed Radio Amateur Callbook that was published for most of the 20th century.

Since Ofcom's 2024 changes, what is the power limit for the UK's lowest licence class?

25 W is the limit for the lowest UK licence under Ofcom's February 2024 reforms, up from 10 W; the middle tier rose to 100 W and the full licence to 1 kW.

What is the peak power limit for the highest US licence class?

1.5 kW peak envelope power is the US ceiling for the top licence class under FCC rules, though lower caps apply on some bands; Canada allows 2.25 kW, Italy 500 W and Oman 150 W.

Which bands are best suited for worldwide communication?

HF — the 3 to 30 MHz bands — refracts off the ionosphere to reach around the globe, while VHF and UHF serve mostly local and regional contacts and microwaves carry amateur television and data links.

Which amateur band is nicknamed the 'magic band' for its sudden long-distance openings?

6 m, the 50 MHz band, is nicknamed the 'magic band' because sporadic-E and other openings can suddenly carry signals over thousands of kilometres on a band that behaves like VHF most of the time.

US amateurs can register with which system to operate on military frequencies?

MARS, the Military Auxiliary Radio System, enrols licensed amateurs to provide contingency communications and morale messages for the US armed services on assigned military frequencies.

Which practice is generally not permitted in amateur radio?

Encryption, or any coding meant to obscure a message's meaning, is barred because amateur traffic must stay open to all; narrow exceptions cover control commands to satellites and model craft.

What does SSTV stand for?

Slow-scan television sends a still image over seconds to a couple of minutes as an audio-bandwidth signal, so it fits in a normal voice channel; radiofax and fast-scan ATV are the other image modes.

Which IARU region number covers the Americas?

2 is the region number for the Americas; Region 1 covers Europe, Africa, the Middle East and northern Asia, and Region 3 the rest of Asia and the Pacific.

Unlike other spectrum users, hams may usually do what with their transmitters?

Build or modify them without certification is the amateur privilege: unlike commercial users, hams need no type-approval for home-built or altered transmitters, provided the gear meets rules on spurious emissions and bandwidth.

What kind of equipment keeps hams on the air when commercial services fail in disasters?

Battery- or generator-powered gear — often a simple transceiver and wire antenna — needs no grid, phone network or internet, which is why hams can pass traffic for agencies such as the Red Cross when those systems fail.

Which personal radio services need no licence, unlike amateur radio?

CB, FRS and PMR446 are licence-free personal radio services with fixed channels, low power and type-approved radios; an amateur licence instead buys wide spectrum, many modes and far higher power.

What does the sign-off '73', inherited from telegraphers, mean?

Best regards is the meaning of '73', one of the 19th-century telegraphers' numeric codes kept alive by hams, who sign off with it; '88' means love and kisses.

In Australia, SSB may use 400 W but FM is limited to how much?

Output limits can depend on the mode as well as the licence class.

Which protocol's abbreviation, ALE, keeps HF networks linked automatically?

Automatic link establishment lets stations sound the shortwave bands, pick a usable channel and set up a link by themselves; the technique came from military radio standards such as MIL-STD-188-141.