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QUESTION...WHAT IS HAM
RADIO?
WHAT IS HAM RADIO ALL
ABOUT?
PEOPLE!
Ham radio is
people! Ham radio is all about people!
All kinds of
people!
People just like you.....the folks next door, down
the block, around your town and around the world.
Ham radio
started long ago with nothing more than a SPARK of
electricity!
Long before radio as we know it today came about,
long before you and I were born, PEOPLE were experimenting with the
latest technology around the turn of the last century, with
something called ELECTRICITY and....HMMMMM, they wondered if there
was any way that it could be used to send messages THRU THE AIR
WITHOUT WIRES!
After lots of experimentation by lots of PEOPLE,
they discovered that yes, in fact, you could send and receive
messages with that spark thru the air over an unseen medium called
an electromagnetic wave!
Radio was born!
These people, after
much trial and error, soon learned how to build "Home
brewed" spark generators and crude receivers that could "hear" the
spark from
a few feet away. The next step was to increase the
distance the spark could be heard and after much more experimenting
with this new thing called electricity,
this was
accomplished.
Now they knew that just detecting the spark was not
enough to communicate messages, so an attempt was made to turn
the spark on and off in a kind of
code called Morse Code.. They
accomplished their goal after more trial and error!
They soon
were able to send and receive messages over greater and greater
distances by Morse Code using sparks and eventually learned how to
modify
them to send messages over the Atlantic!
Other
experimenters were just not satisfied with using Morse Code for the
messages. They wondered.....HMMMMM!.....could it be possible to use
the
human voice instead of Morse Code to get their messages
heard!
PEOPLE said, "IMPOSSIBLE!" THEY WERE MAD!
More
experimentation followed, again with lots of trial and error but,
you guessed it...they did it! After many more years, broadcast radio
came about...the same
that you can hear on the AM band on your
radio.
During all this time when all this experimenting was going
on in the early years,
OTHER PEOPLE GOT INTERESTED.
Enter the first "Ham
Radio operators"!
These "Ham Radio
operators", were so amazed and interested in this new PHENOMENON,
that they started tinkering around with it as a "hobby" with their
own designs, trials and errors and continued experimenting with new
ideas for this latest technology called radio.
Eventually, due to their
experimentation, they sometimes would cause strange sounds and
noises on their neighbor's radios and when anything out of the
ordinary was heard on them, someone would ask "What is causing
that?", and the response sometimes would be, "Oh, that's just that
HAM, down the street!" Some believe this is why we are called HAMS
today. Not because of the noise, but due to the phrase that
stuck....the word HAM. Others say that the word ham is a slang term
shortened from the word amateur with an "h" added on the front!
Although no one knows for sure why we are called hams, we are HAPPY
AND PROUD TO BE CALLED HAMS or AMATEUR RADIO OPERATORS!
All
of the hams back then did not have much information or knowledge
about how radio worked, but when a ham would learn a new technique
or tried something
that worked better, he would share his new
found knowledge with other hams and they too would verify that the
new idea would, in fact, be better, and they in turn would share
their knowledge with other hams who would take the knowledge and
improve on it and of course, share it again with their Ham Radio
Friends. That's part of the pure JOY OF BEING A HAM.......THE
SHARING OF KNOWLEDGE AND FRIENDSHIP WITH YOUR HAM RADIO FRIENDS
WORLDWIDE!!
Hams back then, and even hams in our day and time are
still experimenting with "radio" on a daily basis and are
experimenting with, and discovering new modes of
communication.
Many of your latest "toys" such as cell
phones, shortwave radio, antennas, satellite radio and tv broadcast
technology, computer, digital electronics, audio and video devices,
deep space communications and other devices came directly from the
results of experiments made by hams burning the midnight oil in
their basements, garages and their kitchen tables with questions
going around in their heads!
You can thank them..... the hams, for
major improvements to technology that you know
enjoy!
NOW DON'T GET ME
WRONG!
Not all hams have that same desire to experiment
in our day and age and it is not a requirement of Ham Radio. Lots of
us are in it just for the FUN, knowing we can communicate over
radio using lots of ways
including our voice to our friends around the world!
We even use the computer without the internet,
repeat, without the internet, to
communicate OVER THE AIR to
other hams worldwide!
Experimenting is a
matter of choice and FUN among some of us but you can bet your
boots....there are still a lot of us PEOPLE who are hams out their
in the world that are quietly "tinkering" with their own little
questions!
HAM RADIO......OUR NATION'S
BACKUP COMMUNICATION SYSTEM!
WTC....SHUTTLE
DIASTER....STORMS.....FLOODS....FIRE....
RESCUE AND
MORE!
Ham
Radio is there to provide primary
communications
when all else
fails!
During
most major disasters, local police, fire, rescue, public, and other
local radio and telephone systems usually are overloaded, down, or
do
not have the capabilities to provide the emergency
communications needed to save lives and
property. Cell phones become un-usable due to severe congestion
or damage, electricity and emergency generators for
local
authorities can be out of service for days or their systems are not
designed to communicate over wide areas or with different
departments, phone lines are destroyed and in short, most emergency
communications
can come to a halt!
Ham radio operators are
called in to re-establish vital communication
links using their
own equipment, knowledge, skills and training to provide these most
valuable services to the public and our government!
Hams can
put together a complete radio station out in the middle of no where
far from the nearest power pole. They are capable of
transmitting around the world with very modest
equipment!
Behind the scenes during STS -107! The Shuttle
down over Texas!
During
the shuttle disaster in Texas, only ham radio
operators were able
to get communications too and from
the remote debris search areas and they gave their time and skills
in this massive undertaking.
During most situations, hams are
always some of the, if not the first PEOPLE to respond in
emergencies!
Hams work closely with the National Weather Service
as trained"Spotters" for
severe storms from their vehicles
transmitting vital weather information
back to hams at the
Weather Service offices.
There's nothing in
weather technology like many pairs of trained eyes that can
determine and report all types of dangerous weather
situations!
When those of us who experiment and
"tinker" with new ideas for communication are not "tinkering", or
providing public service, we
usually can be found on the air
talking to our ham radio friends around
the world or around the
block about most any subject you can imagine and just plain having
fun using radio to talk to other PEOPLE just like you and
me!
HMMMMM!.....I just wonder?..... if there is a way to send
this article
THRU THE
AIR.....AROUND THE WORLD, USING RADIO WAVES and not over the
internet.....WITH PICTURES.......... and
SOUND?........YEP!.....
HAM'S ARE DOING IT ALL THE
TIME!
And they are PEOPLE,
just like you....... AND ME!
Interested? You can do it with us! What's
that...got a question....learn how....
JOIN
US.
HMMMMMMMM? I WONDER!........ WHAT IF?.........
Written and
copyrighted by N4UJW (A Ham)
TAKE A LOOK AT A HAM RADIO
WEBSITE............
HAMUNIVERSE.COM
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