Introduction

This book will help electronics enthusiasts learn about two hobbies that escape the attention of most of today’s technophiles: shortwave listening and Amateur (or “ham”) Radio. If you have no experience with shortwave listening and want to explore that hobby without getting a ham radio license, this book offers tips and advice. But ultimately, I’d like to see you join the Amateur Radio fraternity. To that end, the book breaks down into eight chapters and four appendixes.

     • Chapter 1 explains what radio waves are and how they travel. You’ll learn how any sort of data can be “imprinted” on radio waves so that information, and not merely electromagnetic fields, can propagate over great distances.

     • In Chap. 2, you’ll learn the basics of shortwave listening (which I extend to allwave listening because modern radio receivers cover frequencies that range far above and below the traditional shortwave radio frequencies).

     • Chapter 3 defines and explains the communications methods that ham radio operators use. I discuss the assets of the Internet, but emphasize that ham radio will work even when the Internet, and all other utilities, fail.

     • Chapter 4 covers the assigned frequency ranges, called bands, that licensed hams use in the United States. Wave-propagation characteristics are discussed, comparing the various bands and offering advice as to those bands best suited for use at different times of the day, year, and sunspot cycle.

     • Chapter 5 goes into some detail concerning the selection and installation of equipment for fixed ham radio stations.

     • Chapter 6 offers information on how to set up mobile and portable ham radio stations, and relates my own experience operating these station types.

     • Chapter 7 describes popular ham radio antennas and transmission lines for various frequencies and station types.

     • Chapter 8 details how (and how not) to operate a ham radio station, once it’s up and running, using popular voice and digital modes.

     • The appendixes show the schematic symbols that electronics hobbyists, radio hams, and engineers use in circuit diagrams, Q signals for ham radio operators, and ten-code signals used by CB, law-enforcement, and emergency personnel.

The idea of communicating with other people over long distances without any artificial infrastructure to carry the signals has mesmerized me ever since I, five years old in the late 1950s, sat at the kitchen table in front of a tube-driven radio and said “Calling! Calling!” into the speaker. No one answered my calls into the ether then, of course, but they did after I got my first ham radio license in 1966. With a little study, a good deal of practice, and a few years of time, the dream morphed into reality! And people answer my signals now when I send CQ, the equivalent of “Calling! Calling!”, with a Morse code key or the digital interface of my microprocessor-controlled ham “rig” in my basement “ham shack.”

The fact that a few watts’ worth of energy waves can squirt from my deck-mounted or vehicle-mounted antenna into the atmosphere, that a minuscule bit of that energy can land in someone else’s antenna on the other side of the world, and that we can communicate this way and can keep in contact by means of that energy even if every Internet server on the planet went down—well, the whole business fascinates me to this day. If you know what I mean, if radio holds some magic for you too, then you’ll get the most out of this book. But even if you only want to listen to broadcasts on a part of the radio spectrum largely forgotten in the fury of latter-day digital madness, this book has something to offer you.

If you get serious about ham radio, the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), headquartered in Connecticut, offers a bunch of fine publications that go into far more detail on individual aspects of the art than space allows here. These publications can help you get licensed so you can transmit on the ham radio frequencies. Once you’re licensed, ARRL publications offer extensive information and guidance involving every imaginable ham radio speciality. The ARRL maintains a website at www.arrl.org.

I invite you to look at, and hopefully subscribe to, my YouTube channel. I have uploaded lots of videos involving ham radio and hobby electronics to that site, along with videos supplementing some of my textbooks, a few op-ed blurbs, and even a little mountain fuddy-duddy home-cooking advice (or mischief)!

You might also like my website at www.sciencewriter.net. You can e-mail me through the link at that site and let me know what you’d like to see in future editions of this book! If you belong to the ham radio fraternity, you might find me on 14, 18, 21, 24, or 28 MHz doing CW (Morse code) or PSK (phase-shift keying).

                                                                   73 (Best Regards),

                                                                   Stan Gibilisco, W1GV