Amateur radio wiki — National Amateur Radio Alliance

Getting started

Brand new to amateur radio? Start here.

What is amateur radio? A one-page introduction to the hobby and the service.
Why get licensed The practical reasons people take the exam.
What you can do with a license Activities open to you the day your call sign appears.
Your first radio How to spend your first $30 to $300 well.
Making your first contact Exactly what to say the first time you key up.
Common questions Short answers to what beginners ask most.
A short history of amateur radio From spark gaps and "ham" as an insult to a worldwide licensed service.
How ham radio compares to CB, FRS, GMRS and MURS What the unlicensed and lightly licensed radio services can and cannot do.

Licensing

Everything between deciding to get licensed and holding a call sign.

License classes Technician, General and Amateur Extra, and what each one buys.
Getting an FCC FRN The free FCC registration number you need before you test.
Privacy and the public license record What the FCC publishes about every licensee, what it keeps private, and how to keep your home address off the internet.
Studying for the exam Free question pools, apps and classes.
Exam day What to bring and what actually happens.
After you pass The FCC fee, your call sign, and the first legal transmission.
Vanity call signs Choosing your own call sign, and what the formats mean.
Renewals, moves and name changes Keeping the license valid for the next ten years.
Volunteer examiners How testing works, and how to become a VE.

Operating

On-air practice, bands, modes and the activities built on them.

Bands and band plans What each amateur band is good for, and where to operate in it.
Operating etiquette The unwritten rules — and the handful of written ones — that keep bands usable.
The WARC bands 30, 17 and 12 meters — contest-free HF spectrum for relaxed operating, DX and QRP.
HF operating Making contacts on the shortwave bands.
VHF and UHF operating Local work, simplex, and weak-signal beyond the repeaters.
Repeaters How they extend your range, and how to use one properly.
Nets Scheduled on-air meetings, and the easiest place to start talking.
Digital modes Sending data over the air, from FT8 to packet. 5 sub-pages
QRP — low power operating Five watts, and why it works better than the arithmetic suggests.
CW and Morse code No longer required, still the most efficient mode there is.
Images and television SSTV, fast-scan amateur television, and pictures from the ISS.
Satellites and the ISS Working orbiting repeaters with modest equipment.
Weak signal, scatter and moonbounce Meteor scatter, EME, tropo ducting and QRSS — VHF and up, beyond line of sight.
Contesting Competitive operating, and why it is worth trying once.
Grid squares and UTC Maidenhead locators and why every log is kept in Zulu time.
Logging and QSLs Keeping a log, confirming contacts, and the systems that count them.
DX and awards Chasing distance, and the certificates that record it.
Parks, summits and portable operating POTA, SOTA and taking the station outdoors. 3 sub-pages
Software Logging, digital modes, programming and propagation tools, by task and by platform. 5 sub-pages

The station

Radios, antennas, feedline, power and the shack around them.

Laying out the shack Reach, cables, power and labels — the boring things that decide whether you operate.
Radios and transceivers Choosing and understanding the box in the middle.
Software-defined radio $30 receivers, panadapters and full SDR transceivers.
Amplifiers What more power buys you, and why it is rarely the first thing to buy.
Antennas The part of the station that determines what you hear. 5 sub-pages
Feedline, SWR and tuners What happens between the radio and the antenna.
Coax, connectors and chokes Choosing cable, installing connectors, and stopping common-mode current.
Power, supplies and batteries Feeding the station at home and in the field.
Grounding, bonding and lightning Protecting people and equipment.
Towers, masts and rotators Getting an antenna up safely, legally and only once.
RFI and noise Finding what is wrecking your receiver, and what you might be wrecking.
Portable and mobile stations Operating from a vehicle, a park bench or a backpack.
Remote operation Operating a station you are not sitting at — legally and reliably.
Test equipment What to buy first, and what you can borrow from the club.
Kits and homebrewing Building your own gear — where to start, what to buy, and how not to burn yourself.

Emergency communications

Amateur radio when the normal systems are down.

Getting involved The first five steps for a new volunteer.
ARES, RACES and served agencies Who the organized groups are and how they differ.
Building a go-kit What to have packed before anything happens.
Traffic handling Passing formal written messages accurately.
Training and exercises Courses, drills and how to keep a group ready.

Technical topics

How and why the radio works.

RF exposure and safety Every station must have an exposure evaluation on file. Here is how to do one.
Propagation Why signals travel further at night, and how to predict it.
Electronics basics The handful of formulas you actually need.
Decibels and power Why 100 watts is only one S-unit better than 25, and other useful arithmetic.
Modulation and modes AM, FM, SSB, CW and what the differences cost.
Receiver performance What sensitivity, dynamic range and roofing filters mean when you read a review.
Antenna theory Gain, patterns, polarization and matching.
Space weather Solar flux, sunspots, the A and K indices, and what they mean for your next contact.

Rules and regulations

Part 97 in plain English.

Part 97 basics The rules that matter every time you transmit.
Station identification Who you are, how often, and the awkward cases.
Prohibited transmissions The short list of things you may never do.
Third-party traffic and emergencies Letting an unlicensed person speak, and what changes in a real emergency.
Interference and enforcement What to do about a jammer, and what the FCC actually does.

Clubs and community

Starting, running and growing a club.

Starting a club From three interested people to an incorporated organization.
Club station licenses How a club gets its own call sign, and who is responsible for it.
Bylaws and nonprofit status Incorporation, tax status, insurance and the paperwork that keeps a club out of trouble.
Meetings and programs What to actually do for an hour once a month.
Running a net A net control script that works.
Club repeaters Owning, coordinating and paying for the machine.
Teaching license classes Running a class that ends with people licensed and on the air.
Hosting exam sessions Bringing testing to your area.
Mentoring new operators Turning a fresh license into an active operator.
Youth and schools Getting radio in front of young people.

Activities and events

The things amateurs actually gather to do — on the air and in person.

Hamfests and conventions Buying used gear, meeting the people behind the callsigns.
Special event stations Commemorative operations, 1×1 callsigns and how to run one.
Field Day The biggest weekend in American amateur radio.
Radio direction finding Foxhunts, transmitter hunts and tracking down interference.

Contests and awards

Chasing something is how most operators learn to operate well.

Your first contest You can enter one this weekend, with the radio you already own.
Submitting a contest log Cabrillo, deadlines, and what the scoring robot does with your file.
DXCC and DX awards A hundred countries, and the programs built on top of that idea.
Worked All States and county hunting The awards that live inside the United States.
POTA and SOTA awards How the parks and summits programs count contacts, and what they issue.
CW and QRP awards What the code and low-power communities recognize.
NARA awards What the National Amateur Radio Alliance recognizes, and how to apply.

Amateur radio history

How the service was built, band by band and rule by rule.

A history of US licensing Why there used to be six license classes, and how we got to three.
How amateurs organized themselves Relay routes, a magazine, a league, and a worldwide union — the institutions the hobby built to defend itself.
Amateurs at war Two shutdowns, the operators the wars trained, and what came after.
A history of amateur emergency service How showing up in disasters went from spontaneous to organized, from 1913 floods to Hurricane Maria.
Amateurs and the spectrum A century of allocation fights, from 200 meters in 1912 to the microwave bands today.
From spark to software The technical arc of amateur radio, one generation of gear at a time.

People in amateur radio

The operators, inventors and organizers whose names you keep hearing.

Alfred Vail The machinist who made the telegraph practical, and helped shape Morse code.
The founders The organizers who turned scattered experimenters into a represented service.
Notable operators Astronauts, a king, a senator and a guitarist — all licensed amateurs.
Women in amateur radio Licensed since the earliest days, and still under-counted.

Organizations

Who represents amateur radio, and who runs the parts you use.

NARA The National Amateur Radio Alliance — what it is and what it does.
National societies What a national amateur radio society does, and who they are.
International bodies How a band gets allocated, and who argues for amateurs when it happens.
Specialty organizations The groups that run satellites, exams, awards and the on-air programs.

Reference

Lookup material: jargon, codes, reports and links.

Glossary Jargon translated.
Q-codes The three-letter codes that survived from telegraphy.
Phonetic alphabet The ITU alphabet, and why you should stick to it.
FCC Part 97 — the rules, section by section Direct links to the official text of 47 CFR Part 97 on eCFR.
Signal reports and abbreviations RST, S-meters and CW shorthand.
Useful links Where to go next, off this wiki.
Resources by state Statewide associations, event calendars and news sites, state by state.
Books, blogs, YouTube, podcasts and live shows Where to keep learning once the exam is behind you.