『Foundations of Amateur Radio』のカバーアート

Foundations of Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio

著者： Onno (VK6FLAB)
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今ならプレミアムプランが3カ月 月額99円

2026年5月12日まで。4か月目以降は月額1,500円で自動更新します。

概要

 Starting in the wonderful hobby of Amateur or HAM Radio can be daunting and challenging but can be very rewarding. Every week I look at a different aspect of the hobby, how you might fit in and get the very best from the 1000 hobbies that Amateur Radio represents. Note that this podcast started in 2011 as "What use is an F-call?".℗ & © 2015 - 2026 Onno Benschop 物理学 科学
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  • Dealing with Complexity

    Dealing with Complexity
    2026/05/02
    Foundations of Amateur Radio Several years ago, I forget exactly when, I was gifted a device called a "Wio Terminal". It's a micro-controller in a box with a screen, buttons, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a boat load of sensors, ports and more. It's intended for experimentation and truth be told, exactly the right gift for a geek like me. It even has rubber feet to stop it from sliding off the desk, well, slow it down at least! The thing is, it remained sealed in its box until this week, when I finally gathered enough unrelated information, something I often refer to as "puzzle pieces", to understand what this device might do and how I might use it. Given that I'm talking about amateur radio, and not software development, I'll only mention that I got my initial "hello world" working and observe that I have some radio projects in mind for it. What this experience revealed to me was that complexity is hard, not to mention frustrating, and not limited to my adventures with computers. Let me elaborate. In amateur radio the answer to a great many questions is a phrase I've used before: "It depends", a valid, but ultimately immensely irksome response. Over the years I've attempted to dig into what exactly "it" depends on, with varying levels of success. While Earth rotates on its axis, that answer is unlikely to change, but I think I can make it potentially less aggravating, and here's how. When you come across a question where the answer is: "It depends", stop worrying about exactly "what" "it" depends on, instead, keep the question in mind whilst you go about your life. Looking back at my Wio Terminal experience, that's exactly what I did. While there's the frustration of not being able to report to my friend that I'd done anything useful with it, by having it float around my desk, albeit still in the box, I regularly noticed it, and when going about my day I'd continue to gather puzzle pieces that eventually hit a critical mass. In other words, whilst gathering apparently unrelated, facts, skills, articles, example code, cables, computing resources, how-to documents, forum posts and the like, including having discussions with others, eventually I had enough to realise that I had the answer to my question that wasn't "It depends", instead, I had a clear, well, clearer, understanding of what kinds of things I needed to achieve to make progress. Now I'll be the first to acknowledge that this journey isn't always a gentle stroll in the woods, "bear with a sore tooth" has been levelled more than once, but the point remains, figuring out how things work isn't a linear process and once you are aware of that, life becomes, well, at least in my mind, more interesting. Again, what does this have to do with amateur radio? Well, let's look at some innocuous questions that an amateur might ask: "What radio should I buy?", or "What antenna should I get?", or "Given the current propagation, can I make a contact with my friend on the other side of the planet?" The answer to each of these questions is: "It depends." If you have been in this community for a time, you'll understand some of the things "it" depends on, but the longer you are here, the more aware you become of other things "it" depends on, in other words, your understanding of the problem reveals that there are more considerations at play that might not be immediately obvious. At some point you'll get to the next unhelpful response in amateur radio: "Try it and report back." Equally annoying, since, at least on the face of it, you'll invariably be left with the feeling that nobody cares, least of all the person you asked. While I'll acknowledge that this is sometimes the case, on the whole, the response really reveals that there are too many unknown variables to form any coherent overview. That said, as the person answering, providing a range might be helpful to at least get a sense of what space to play in. What I mean by that is, sometimes figuring out what needs to happen involves multiple considerations which each impact on the solution in subtle and different ways. When you're learning about a problem, you might not know what those considerations are, but as time goes by, while you're presumably collecting puzzle pieces, your awareness increases. During the week, I saw a post by Christophe ON6ZQ announcing a tool called "HF Propagation Lab" (https://on6zq.be/prop), described as "A browser-only teaching instrument for amateur radio operators. It explains what live space-weather numbers suggest, how each band may react, and which ionospheric mechanism is probably doing the work. It is a teaching model, not a substitute for beacons, skimmers, WSPR, or listening on the air." What this tool does is give you a feel of the propagation landscape you're playing in, what variables impact in what way, in your ability to make contacts. In other words, it's a way to learn about the unknown variables associated with propagation. So, when have you been the ...
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    6 分
  • What does amateur radio bring to your life?

    What does amateur radio bring to your life?
    2026/04/25
    Foundations of Amateur Radio The other day I went for a walk around the block for the first time in a while. It's something I did for a time and then for several reasons, mostly to do with health, didn't. For me it's the mental equivalent of having a shower with the added benefit of not having to dry my hair, in other words, it's a place I go to with the intent of generating shower thoughts. During my walk, away from the forces pulling me in all manner of directions, none of which have anything to do with amateur radio, away from my keyboard, away from my screen, away from technology challenges, although I'll admit that my phone was in my pocket, I took about twenty minutes to walk and daydream, to follow my thoughts and to see where they'd end up. I got to this point because sitting at my desk I was getting nowhere trying to put together my thoughts in any sequence at least resembling coherence. While it's happened before, it's not something that occurs often. The day before I'd started writing, almost as-if possessed, about what amateur radio means to me, but during my walk I started wondering about the people who leave this hobby and the community embracing it. I've often said that F-troop is a weekly net for new and returning amateurs, both people who have a license that's still hot off the printer, and others who have one typed up on an IBM Selectric, signed with a quill, ink faded with age, paper yellowed by sunlight, potentially with coffee mug rings on it, stashed somewhere in a drawer. I wondered about those returning amateurs and asked myself about the nature of leaving a hobby. It occurred to me that people leave for many different reasons, and it would be foolhardy to consider that all of those reasons are controllable by our community. While bullying and arguments exist, each responsible for their share of people leaving, it seems to me that some amateurs leave because there's too much other stuff going on in their lives, things that actively or passively prevent amateurs from participating. This is difficult for me to relate to because for me, amateur radio is an intrinsic part of my life, in that it often quietly shapes how I view the world and learn from it. I see it when I notice a television antenna pointing in the wrong direction, when I install a new Wi-Fi router somewhere, when a signal is lost to a manned mission around the Moon, when I open the garage door and when I read that researchers at the National Institute for Standards and Technology, better known as NIST, have developed a new method for creating chips that process photons similarly to how traditional chips process electrons which can generate a rainbow of colours, though they didn't use the letter "u" to describe them. While those examples might be somewhat obvious, amateur radio is also there when I see someone share a tiny electronic paper screen on social media and I consider how I might use that when I go portable. It's there when I'm walking in a park and when I'm looking at a beach, it's there when I see metal artworks or painters poles at the local hardware store and when I watch a movie with radios anywhere on screen. It's there when the topic of physics arises and when some electromagnetic phenomenon occurs. Like radio waves and air, it's pretty much part of my daily existence. I will add that this same depth of connection exists between me and computers. Watching "Flight of the Conchords" I cannot help but notice that Murray's computer keeps changing and that I miss the Commodore Vic 20 sitting behind him surrounded by ever changing New Zealand tourism posters. In other words, I cannot imagine ever not having radio or computers in my life. I'm mentioning all this because my experience isn't universal. While I'm sure that I'm not alone in this deep affinity, the community as a whole invariably ranges between people who could take or leave the hobby at a moment's notice and those who couldn't live without it and beyond our community there are people who are, depending on your perspective, blissfully or woefully, unaware of our existence. All this to say, your experience of this hobby is not the same as that for everyone else, neither is your experience of life. This is revealed more clearly in what we think the hobby means, whether or not FT8 is a blessing or a curse, contesting is ridiculous or amazing, why 40m is better than 20m or vice-versa and if the hobby died when the ITU stopped requiring Morse code, or saw a rebirth. It should be obvious by now, but I think it's important to be explicit. Amateur radio is your hobby. It's what it means for you. Not for your mate, not for me, not for the people in your club, the local email list or social media. Just you. So, use this as an opportunity to think about this, in my not so humble opinion, absolutely amazing hobby and what place it has in your life. I'm Onno VK6FLAB
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    6 分
  • You don't need an excuse to make noise!

    You don't need an excuse to make noise!
    2026/04/18
    Foundations of Amateur Radio

    The other day I came across a post on mastodon.radio by Keith W6KME announcing the resumption of the Micro Field Day, spelled using the 12th letter of the Greek alphabet, Mu.

    This was news to me, since I didn't know they'd stopped, let alone existed at all. Being the curious type, I stopped to investigate and discovered an initiative that could, and in my not so humble opinion, should, be replicated all over the planet.

    Essentially an informal monthly gathering of amateurs with their portable set-up, ranging from hand-held radios through lightweight backpack gear suitable for SOTA or POTA, or Summits or Parks on the Air, to car portable stations where your vehicle acts as the carry mule and perhaps the base of your antenna.

    In other words, it's for anyone who brings along their radio to play or if you're not yet ready to do that, come and participate as you feel inclined.

    So, what of the resumption, you ask. It turns out that the activity became so popular locally that some parks required paid bookings and insurance, which is somewhat challenging if you're not actually an organisation.

    The closest I've ever come to a Micro Field Day is when we celebrated a milestone anniversary for the weekly F-troop net that has now been running for over 15 years.

    The Bored Net Group website has plenty of information about what they get up to during a Micro Field Day, Random Metal Objects On The Air, shared club activities, picnic lunches, and activations at local lakes, landmarks and other places of interest. I'd also like to make a point here about documenting your activities so the rest of the community can learn from your experience and the Micro Field Day isn't the only, or even the first activity that the group organised.

    Special mention to Zak N6PK who started hosting the BORED net four times a day during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in March 2020. You'll find the full story when you check out their site at theborednet.net for that and oodles more inspiration.

    While I'm perfectly happy sitting at home behind a computer reading research on the resource comparison between half a dozen algorithms for calculating a Fast Fourier Transform, that's not the only thing that amateur radio represents.

    When I started running F-troop there was no place for new and returning amateurs to gather and ask questions and share their experiences. Today the log shows at least one new callsign for each week we've been on-air, representing nearly a thousand amateurs who activated their transmitter and shared their experience.

    There is no organisation behind F-troop, it's a couple of amateurs who regularly turn up and participate to act as a welcoming voice into the diverse community that represents amateur radio.

    In other words, it started because I felt like it and it continues because people keep coming back.

    The Micro Field Day is exactly the same in that it was started to scratch an itch. I'm making this explicit because some amateurs appear to be under the impression that they'll need a local club or organisation to organise activities for them. I'm here to tell you that you can start such an activity with your friends. Ultimately, where do you think clubs come from?

    So .. what are you waiting for?

    Get on-air and make some noise!

    I'm Onno VK6FLAB
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    4 分
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