What is amateur radio, actually?
Amateur radio — "ham radio" — is a licensed radio service that lets ordinary people build, experiment with and operate their own radio stations. Not a business, not a hobby band on a walkie-talkie you bought at a truck stop. A slice of the radio spectrum that governments set aside, worldwide, for people who want to learn how it works.
What people actually do with it varies enormously:
- Talk to neighbours on a repeater on the drive home.
- Bounce a signal off the ionosphere and have a conversation with Japan on a wire antenna in the back garden.
- Pass health-and-welfare traffic after a hurricane when nothing else works.
- Track weather, chase satellites, send digital data, build antennas out of scrap.
- Sit in a field for 24 hours in June competing to make the most contacts on generator power.
You do not have to want all of that. Most people come for one thing and stay for something else entirely.
Your phone does everything a radio does, better, until the moment it does not. Amateur radio is the thing that still works when the tower is down, the power is out, or you are somewhere with no coverage at all — and learning it is genuinely interesting in its own right.
Getting licensed
There are three licence classes in the United States. You take them in order, and the first one is much easier than people expect.
| Class | Exam | What it gets you |
|---|---|---|
| Technician | 35 questions | All VHF and UHF privileges — repeaters, local nets, emergency communications, satellites |
| General | 35 questions | Most HF privileges — worldwide contacts on a wire in the garden |
| Amateur Extra | 50 questions | Every amateur privilege there is |
There is no Morse code requirement. Not for any class, not since 2007. If that is what has been putting you off, it is gone.
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Study the Technician pool
The entire question pool is public. Not a sample — the actual questions, all of them, published years in advance. Your exam will be 35 of those exact questions.
Use HamStudy.org. It is free, it covers every licence class, and it is the tool we point every newcomer at. It uses spaced repetition — showing you the questions you keep getting wrong more often, and the ones you know less often — so your study time goes where it is actually needed.
Work through the flashcards until the site tells you that you are ready. Most people get there in two to four weeks of casual study; some do it in a weekend.
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Take practice exams until you are bored of passing
The pass mark is 26 out of 35 — about 74%. HamStudy generates practice exams drawn from the same pool and scored the same way as the real thing.
Keep going until you are consistently scoring in the high 80s on random practice sets. At that point the real exam is an anticlimax, which is exactly what you want.
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Get an FRN from the FCC
You need an FCC Registration Number before you test. It is free, takes a few minutes online, and saves a delay afterwards.
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Find a test session
Sessions are run by volunteer examiners — often other amateurs, in a library meeting room or a fire station. Many are now also available remotely over video. There is a small fee, typically around fifteen dollars, plus an FCC application fee.
We run sessions locally when enough people want one. Tell us you are interested and we will schedule it.
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Pass, and get your callsign
Your callsign usually appears in the FCC database within a few business days. The moment it does, you are legal to transmit. Come find us on 146.850 MHz.
And note — if you pass Technician, you may sit General at the same session free of charge. Bring a little extra study and you might walk out with both.
What should I buy first?
Talk to us before you spend money. That is not a sales pitch — we sell nothing. It is that the most common newcomer purchase is a radio that disappoints, when a small change would have made it a joy.
The short answer
A dual-band handheld — 2 metres and 70 centimetres — will get you onto the WR4EC repeater. Entry-level models cost less than a nice dinner out. That is a perfectly respectable place to begin, and plenty of people never need more.
The important part
The antenna matters more than the radio. A modest radio with a good antenna beats an expensive radio with the stock rubber duck, every time and by a wide margin. If you buy a handheld, budget a little for a better antenna at the same time. It is the highest-return money in the hobby.
- Programming. Some radios are miserable to program by hand. A programming cable and free software turns an evening of menu-diving into two minutes.
- Batteries. A spare battery or a car adapter is worth more than extra features.
- Where you will use it. A radio for the car, a radio for a go-bag, and a radio for a desk are three different purchases.
What you do not need yet
A tower. An amplifier. An HF rig. A soldering station. Any of it can come later if you want it, and none of it is required to be a fully legitimate, useful amateur operator with a licence and a handheld.
Your first contact
This is the part that makes people nervous. It should not.
Program your radio for the repeater (step-by-step guide here), listen for a few minutes to get the rhythm, then key up and say:
"KO4AAP, listening."
That is a complete, correct, entirely normal transmission. It means "I am here and would welcome a conversation." Somebody will usually come back to you within a minute or two.
When they do, you do not need special language. Your callsign, your first name, and where you are transmitting from is a complete introduction:
"Good evening, this is KO4AAP, Gabe, in North Augusta. This is my first contact."
Say that last part. Amateur radio operators are, as a rule, delighted by new operators and will go out of their way to make it easy for you.
Three rules that cover almost everything
- Identify with your callsign every ten minutes during a conversation and at the end of it.
- Listen before you transmit. You cannot hear the other half of a conversation if you are talking over it.
- Leave gaps. Pause between transmissions so others — including emergency traffic — can get in.
Everything else you will pick up by listening.
Words people will use at you
Amateur radio has a century of shorthand behind it. Here is enough to follow a conversation.
73
Best regards. Said at the end of a conversation. It is a number, not an abbreviation, and it is never "73s".
CQ
A general call to anyone listening. "CQ CQ, this is KO4AAP" means "I would like to talk to whoever is out there."
CTCSS / PL tone
A quiet low-frequency tone sent under your voice so a repeater knows to open up for you. Ours is 91.5 Hz.
Elmer
An experienced operator who mentors a newcomer. If you find one, keep them. If you become one, better still.
HF / VHF / UHF
Bands of the radio spectrum. HF bounces off the ionosphere and reaches across the world. VHF and UHF are mostly line-of-sight and local — which is what repeaters fix.
Net
A scheduled on-air meeting, run by a net control operator, where stations check in one at a time.
QSL
Acknowledgement — "I received that." A QSL card is a postcard confirming a contact.
QSO
A conversation between two stations.
QTH
Location. "My QTH is Edgefield" means "I am in Edgefield."
Repeater
A radio on a tower that hears you on one frequency and rebroadcasts you on another, extending your range enormously.
Rubber duck
The short flexible antenna that comes with a handheld. It works, barely. Replacing it is the best cheap upgrade you can make.
Simplex
Talking radio-to-radio directly, without a repeater in the middle.
Ragchew
A long, unhurried conversation. The opposite of contest operating.
What next?
- Listen first. Tune a scanner or a cheap receiver to 146.850 MHz and just listen for a week. It costs nothing and teaches you more than any book.
- Come to an event. Field Day in June is the best one — it runs all weekend, everything is set up in a field, and visitors are genuinely welcome. You can watch, ask questions, and usually get invited to make a contact under supervision.
- Get licensed. Start here.
- See what we get up to. Photos from Field Days, exercises and outings.
- Explore the wider hobby. The sites amateurs actually use.
- Ask us anything. Email the club. There is no question too basic — we have all asked them.