Chitika

Monday, January 23, 2012

To-Do List For Radio Hobbyists

By Martha Wither


Newbie radio or ham is largely a hobby activity. A lot of thel pursuit time is spent on making contact and having chats with folks in distant regions and from various cultures. Two way communications, identifying their location and station, section, region and place is the general custom. This is always followed by other casual communications. If the contact is created for a competition to make 2 way communication with as many stations or ham radio operators as practical this all of the information that is shared.



DX-ing and DX-peditions:

A newbie radio operator's main past-time is to touch base with as many stations as practical from as many parts of the Earth as possible. DX stands for Distant Stations. The DX-ing customarily is followed with the QSO. (a Q code, see later) meaning "a conversation".



DX-peditions are dissimilar in the way that they're expeditions organized/planned only with the aim of making contacts with some special or rare stations and regions. Some people travel long distance solely to touch base with some unrepresented area or place.



Radio Frequency scanners available now a days form the tool of major use in these attempts. The radio scanner scans for signals till a strong signal is found and the like.



QSL cards:

The Q code is a settled collection of three-letter message encodings, all starting with the letter "Q", at first developed for commercial radiotelegraph communication, and later adopted by other radio services, particularly amateur radio. In today's audio signal transmission age, the Q codes aren't essential. But still in use and are viewed as a kind of convention.



As a part of DX-ing and DX-peditions the QSL card or the evidence of contact card is shared. QSL is one such Q-code that suggests "I acknowledge receipt". The common practice was that those who established contact at a specific frequency exchange a QSL card in the mail to approve their contact and conversations. These QSL cards may be employed as a proof of their making contact and non-professional operators who make contact with a specific number of other non-professional radio operators in a stated time is awarded. Additionally, they're distinguished and honoured since they are deemed to be efficient beginner radio operators.



Remote area contacting:

Some nations have less newbie radio operators, and making contact with these is considered special. So , when a radio newbie from these regions makes contact, other ham operators head to make communication with this/these hams. Making contact with these less represented places has its awards and special considerations in the award programs.



Hamfests:

Social events for the ham families and friends. It is something similar to the family oriented social fests where there are sales, exchanges, conferences and fun. In a similar fashion, the fest is stuffed with selling and exchanging hams, meeting real life ham friends and fun events for a day or occasionally over few days.



Discussion groups and Nets:

Ham operators form a chat group based mostly on common interests other than ham or it can also be a ham related chat group and they can form nets or networks.



If a radio hobbyist gets involved with all of these different activities, he or she is certain to never be bored. Look into many of them, and see if you would like to become involved.







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