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Foundations of Amateur Radio

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?".

education how to

All Episodes

4:59

A brief introduction to the HamSCI community

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/05/10

Foundations of Amateur RadioSince becoming a licensed amateur in 2010, I have spent a good amount of time putting together my thoughts on a weekly basis about the hobby and the community surrounding amateur radio. As you might know, my interest is eclectic, some might say random, but by enlarge, I go where the unicorns appear. Over a year ago I mentioned in passing a community called HamSCI. The label on the box is "Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation", which gives you a sense of what this is

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6:37

Can we figure out how much the Sun really affects...

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/05/03

Foundations of Amateur RadioRecently I saw a social media post featuring a screenshot of some random website with pretty charts and indicators describing "current HF propagation". Aside from lacking a date, it helpfully included notations like "Solar Storm Imminent" and "Band Closed". It made me wonder, not for the first time, what the reliability of this type of notification is. Does it actually indicate what you might expect when you get on air to make noise, is it globally relevant, is the

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3:50

Being an amateur without either radio or antenna

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/04/26

Foundations of Amateur RadioA recent comment by a fellow amateur sparked a train of thought that made me wonder why there is a pervasive idea within our community that you need a radio transmitter and antenna to be a radio amateur, moreover that for some reason, if you don't have either, you're not a real amateur. I suppose it's related to the often repeated trope that the internet enabled modes like Allstar Link, Echolink and even IRLP, are not real radio, despite evidence to the

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3:21

Becoming Mode Agile

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/04/19

Foundations of Amateur RadioOver the years I've talked about different ways of using our license to transmit. I've discussed things like modes such as voice AM, FM, and SSB, and digital modes like FT8, WSPR, RTTY, FreeDV, Hellschreiber, Olivia and even Morse code. Recently it occurred to me that there is something odd about how we do this as a community. Now that I've realised this it's hard to unsee. Let me see if I can get you to the same place of wonder. Why is it that we as amateurs only use

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4:37

Playing Games On-Air

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/04/12

Foundations of Amateur RadioOne of the basic aspects of being human and growing up is the process of learning. From a young age we explore our environment, play with others, have fun, fall over and bruise our knees, get up and try again. The playing aspect of this is often discussed as a way to keep things interesting. We add a competition element as an added incentive, so much so that we formaulate it into global competitions and call it sport. As a species it might surprise you that we spend

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4:41

What is Amateur Radio really about?

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/04/05

Foundations of Amateur RadioWhen you join the community of radio amateurs, or when you briefly look over the shoulder of the nearest devotee, you're likely to discover that this is a hobby about a great many different ideas. Over the years I've discussed this aspect of our community repeatedly, talked about the rewards it brings you, about the camaraderie, about communication, learning, research, soldering, disaster recovery, public service, and all the other thousands of activities that this

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5:57

What is the difference between a Dummy Load and an...

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/03/29

Foundations of Amateur RadioRecently I started an experiment I plan to run for a year. Using a WSPR beacon and a dummy load I'm transmitting 200 mW, 24 hours a day across all bands supported by my hardware, in this case it covers 80m, 40m, 30m, 20m, 17m, 15m, 12m, and 10m. The aim of the experiment is to determine if, and to what extent my dummy load can be heard outside my shack. Why? Because I've not seen anyone do this and because a dummy load is widely believed to not radiate, despite evidence

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6:36

Echos from the past, 150 ms ago

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/03/22

Foundations of Amateur RadioRecently Glynn VK6PAW and I had the opportunity to play radio. This isn't something that happens often so we try to make the most of it. For our efforts we had plenty of frustrations, to the point where we were joking that I should rename this to "Frustrations of Amateur Radio". That was until we heard something weird on-air. All setup shenanigans forgotten, we marvelled at the experience. I was playing around on the 10m band, trying to hear people making noise and

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5:57

Bald Yak 11, the goo between hardware and software

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/03/15

Foundations of Amateur Radio Recently I received a question in relation to the Bald Yak project. If you're not familiar, "The Bald Yak project aims to create a modular, bidirectional and distributed signal processing and control system that leverages GNU Radio." I know that I've said that several times now and I suspect I'm going to say it several more times before we're done. I was asked about a specific radio and if this project could make it use a frequency that the supplied software didn't

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7:00

DX on a dummy load?

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/03/08

Foundations of Amateur RadioRecently I made a joke about operating your station with a dummy load in response to John VA3KOT operating their station with the craziest antenna they ever used. It got me thinking about the ubiquitous "dummy load" as an antenna. Since becoming licensed I've spoken with several amateurs who tell a similar story, one comes to mind immediately, Lance VK6LR, now SK, who told me that they managed an unexpected 2m contact with another station using a dummy load, across

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4:20

What's the story you'd like to tell yourself?

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/03/01

Foundations of Amateur RadioWhen you joined the global community of radio amateurs you did so with a perspective that represented, at the time, what you thought the hobby was and how it operated. Since then, years, months, even days ago, that perspective has shifted in both subtle and obvious ways. One of my local amateur radio clubs, Ham College, was specifically formed to provide amateur radio education and license exams. It's where I went to get my Foundation license in 2010 and it's where

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7:09

Bald Yak, universe 10, how does all fit together?

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/02/22

Foundations of Amateur Radio Recently I received a lovely email from Michele IU4TBF asking some pertinent questions about the Bald Yak project. If you're unfamiliar, the Bald Yak project aims to create a modular, bidirectional and distributed signal processing and control system that leverages GNU Radio. The short answer to how I'm doing getting GNU Radio to play nice with my computer is that I have bruises on my forehead from banging my head against the wall. When I get to success I'll document

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5:07

Bald Yak, droplet 9, fosphor and the impertinence of...

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/02/15

Foundations of Amateur RadioHave you ever come across a solution to a problem that you sort of knew you had, but didn't really appreciate until that moment? I had one of those recently. To set the scene, fair warning, we're not going to solve this today, we're still very much shaving yaks, but there's plenty to take away. So, the scene. I'm hosting my weekly net. It's going well. All the internet links are up and running again, thanks to the hard work behind the scenes of several unsung heroes,

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5:46

Bald Yak, arena 8, paying attention to the details

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/02/08

Foundations of Amateur RadioRecently I built a first attempt at a noise cancelling circuit, on my couch, in GNU Radio, without holding a soldering iron and running the risk of the room smelling like burnt chicken, because if you believe the Internet, sometimes holding a hot piece of metal by the hot end is not the best way. The idea behind the circuit, or more accurately, flowgraph, is that you take a signal from two sources, invert one, combine them, and they cancel each other out. If the signal

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3:48

Finding your path in this hobby

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/02/01

Foundations of Amateur RadioAs you might recall, recently I stumbled on an excellent list of 52 weekly challenges put together by Fabian, DJ5CW and friends. You can find it at hamchallenge.org. As I've previously mentioned, it contains activities right across the amateur spectrum, from designing a QSL card to making a contact on 80m or 160m, with everything in between. It's an excellent tool to set a weekly goal to achieve and I recommend that you have a go. It's not the only interesting tool

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5:56

Bald Yak, scene 7, building a circuit without burnt...

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/01/25

Foundations of Amateur RadioThe other day I was sitting on the couch lounging about when I came up with an idea and there and then I picked up a circuit board, soldered down a hundred or so components and built a noise cancelling gadget, all within about an hour .. right there, on my couch. Yeah, that didn't happen, least of all, my soldering skills are not up to scratch, never mind the couch. I did however build a noise cancelling circuit, on my couch, in about an hour, but no soldering iron

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5:02

WSPR beacon QSY to 15m

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/01/18

Foundations of Amateur RadioFor quite some time I have operated a WSPR or Weak Signal Propagation Reporter beacon on the 10m band. If you're not familiar with it, I've dialled the power right down to 10 dBm, or 10 milliwatts. You'd think that this would be a fool's errand, but it was heard 13,945 kilometres away. Of late the reports have been far and few between, despite the 10m band being quite active. Encouraged by a friend playing on 15m, I made the decision to change bands. At the moment this

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3:37

Ham Challenge

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/01/11

Foundations of Amateur RadioThe other day I noticed a flurry of QSL card designs come across my screen and it sparked me into action on actually creating such a card for myself. I've previously talked about what I think of the current offerings in terms of validating contacts, but having a QSL card design is step one of confirming a contact, well, technically step two, since you have to make the contact first. I'm intending to use SVG as the design platform, since it's a text file that describes

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6:13

Bald Yak, scene 6, chaos will reign

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2025/01/04

Foundations of Amateur Radio Life is messy. This is not a revelation. We attempt to organise this chaos by using all kinds of magic incantations, to-do lists, new year resolutions, plans, projects and anything else you might have in your arsenal. The same chaos reigns, in how we make progress. Some days are harder than others. I'm mentioning this because I've seen a couple of amateurs share all the things they didn't achieve last year. If we used that metric, I could point out that I didn't win the

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5:02

Bald Yak, scene 5, debugging

Foundations of Amateur Radio ·

2024/12/28

Foundations of Amateur Radio As you might know, a little while ago I started a new project. "The Bald Yak project aims to create a modular, bidirectional and distributed signal processing and control system that leverages GNU Radio." In embarking on this adventure I've been absorbing information as I go whilst explaining what I've learnt to anyone who will sit still long enough. Credit to Glynn VK6PAW and Charles NK8O for their patience. For most people, me included, the introduction to GNU

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