Amateur radio is a fun hobby which encompasses many different technologies, all centered around wireless communication. Since the early 1900s, ‘hams’ have been communicating with each other over the air using homemade equipment, and later using rigs manufactured either specifically for amateurs or converted from business, commercial and military uses. Hams enjoy many frequency ranges, or ‘bands’, set aside for their own licensed uses. We use voice, Morse Code (or ‘CW’), and various digital methods of communicating, including sending both still and moving pictures over the air. We talk with other folks in the local town, people in nearby towns, and around the world.

Even with new technologies such as the Internet and cellular phones, hams enjoy chatting with each other for many reasons. Would you pick up your phone and dial a random number, just to see who answers? Probably not – but hams do that many times a day, calling ‘CQ’ on the air to see who might be listening and will respond. And when disasters strike, many of the things you take for granted – telephones, Internet access, even electricity – can disappear for long periods of time. Hams can setup stations powered by batteries, and can continue to talk even when no other infrastructure exists; and many are trained in ‘traffic handling’, or passing of messages into and out of areas.

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