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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette, and
Speaker 1: I am the tech editor here at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. And sitting across from me in a completely
Speaker 1: different location than he was last time. We're in studio
Speaker 1: C one or X four or something. His senior writer,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. Hey, there, that's right, the studio A the
Speaker 1: old the old bird, the old lady. She's a she's
Speaker 1: going undergoing a bit of a of a of a renovation,
Speaker 1: complete tear down and reconstruction phase, and it is going
Speaker 1: to be bigger and badder than ever once, uh, the
Speaker 1: six week period is up. We are recording this on
Speaker 1: week one of that six week period. Of course, this
Speaker 1: will this will publish much later so or maybe not
Speaker 1: much later, but later and uh and we'll be well
Speaker 1: on our way to returning to our studio space. But
Speaker 1: in the meantime, we are in an empty office. And
Speaker 1: I heard there would be turbo lasers on the new one.
Speaker 1: I hope I on lasers, because those end up completely
Speaker 1: disabling a ship without actually causing it damage. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: we do what we can fit in the budget at
Speaker 1: any rate. So we are currently in a tiny, unused
Speaker 1: office that is getting increasingly warm as we go. So
Speaker 1: why don't we just jump right into this week's topic,
Speaker 1: which happens to be a highly requested topic. In fact,
Speaker 1: let me run through this really quickly. We have received
Speaker 1: requests from listeners such as Robert Art, Karen, Josh, David, Joe, Patrick, Steve,
Speaker 1: and our good friend Humble Floyd the Trucker. Uh, this
Speaker 1: is uh, this topic is ham radio or amateur radio.
Speaker 1: This this is what we got a lot of us
Speaker 1: for this after we did CB radio quite a while ago.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, we have a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of different topics on our list that we go through,
Speaker 1: and this was just one that's been there for a
Speaker 1: while and and Chris said, you know what, we really
Speaker 1: need to tackle this, and I agreed, alright, So, uh
Speaker 1: it seems like it's all in fun, you know, and
Speaker 1: mostly well you know what I was getting to that.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Um, no, it seems like it's all in
Speaker 1: good fun. I mean, as a portion of the radio
Speaker 1: spectrum dedicated to people getting on there and meeting people
Speaker 1: from all over the world as a spectrum that allows
Speaker 1: you to talk and the signals carry for a long distance.
Speaker 1: But it's but as Jonathan pointed out, it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: all for fun. Here in the United States. Part of
Speaker 1: the reason that the Federal Communications Commission grants these licenses
Speaker 1: is so that people can use these frequencies to broadcast
Speaker 1: emergency messages. Is in the event of something going horribly
Speaker 1: horribly wrong, right, you know, normal communication methods may be interrupted,
Speaker 1: but often you can find someone with a radio transceiver
Speaker 1: who is able to continue to communicate with the outside
Speaker 1: world or possibly with people just across town to trying
Speaker 1: to coordinate efforts in case of need for like an
Speaker 1: emergency rescue or rerouting traffic, that kind of thing. And uh,
Speaker 1: there are several ways that that amateur radio differs from
Speaker 1: citizens band radio or CB radio, and one was one
Speaker 1: that Chris mentioned just now, which were licenses. You must
Speaker 1: have a license in order to operate within the amateur
Speaker 1: radio frequencies. And there are many of the frequencies. They're
Speaker 1: they're in bands, and they are throughout the radio frequency spectrum. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it's different from country to country. Not every country
Speaker 1: uses the exact same bands too, you know, they don't
Speaker 1: group everything together in the same bands that we do
Speaker 1: in the United States, which is a good thing in
Speaker 1: a way because it keeps people from talking over one another. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the interference is cut down a little bit. And however,
Speaker 1: that does mean that on certain frequencies, you theoretically should
Speaker 1: be unable to contact people in the In countries that
Speaker 1: are working on a different frequency, they shouldn't be on
Speaker 1: that one. Uh And the whole radio spectrum is is
Speaker 1: pretty wide. You know, it's not a tiny little thing.
Speaker 1: It's um, I actually downloaded a little Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know the thing here about the radio spectrum. And yeah,
Speaker 1: he's saying, wow, because it's pretty huge. Um. In fact,
Speaker 1: at I can't even read it because it's shrunk everything down.
Speaker 1: But yeah, from about Jonathan's going to hold this his
Speaker 1: computer up to the microphone so that you all can
Speaker 1: hear whatever. Everyone take a look. Everyone, don't don't crowd.
Speaker 1: Uh No, But from about nine killer hurts. Uh to,
Speaker 1: let's see how what does it go up to all
Speaker 1: the way to scroll down into their right three hundred
Speaker 1: giga hurts. Nine kill hurts the three hundred gig hurts.
Speaker 1: That's the full spectrum there, and large sections, large chunks
Speaker 1: of that spectrum are dedicated to specific um UH services
Speaker 1: or UM like emergency services have certain sections allocate to
Speaker 1: them and no one else is allowed to broadcast in
Speaker 1: those television, AM radio, FM, radio, these kind of things
Speaker 1: have dedicated spectrums, right, and then outside of that, you
Speaker 1: have a few spectrums that are set aside specifically for
Speaker 1: amateur radio. And UH. We mentioned the licenses. It's interesting
Speaker 1: you can only access certain certain bands depending on what
Speaker 1: your license is. You can't, you know, just because you
Speaker 1: get a license to work in amateur radio, at least
Speaker 1: in the United States, if you get a license to
Speaker 1: work amateur radio, that does not automatically mean that you
Speaker 1: can access the entire radio frequency set aside for amateur radio.
Speaker 1: Up there are three sets of our three different levels
Speaker 1: of licenses in the United States. There's the Technician Class license,
Speaker 1: which is the the base license, and the way you
Speaker 1: get that is you have to answer a thirty five
Speaker 1: question multiple choice examination. You have to pass this examination,
Speaker 1: and the examination focuses on things like the operating practices, regulations,
Speaker 1: electronics theory, like what you know like our our podcast
Speaker 1: that we covered basic electronics theory. Yeah, you have to
Speaker 1: have a good grounding in that in order to be
Speaker 1: an amateur radio. Didn't mean it that way, you know.
Speaker 1: All right, Well it's so warm in here, I almost
Speaker 1: let loose with an actual curse word. Um, that's Josh's job. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they don't beat him. Have you noticed I get
Speaker 1: beat for saying taken the out of but he doesn't anyway,
Speaker 1: Sorry for the beep, Hey Liz, how you doing so so? Anyway? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that you have to. The exam covers the regulations, operating
Speaker 1: operating practices, electronics theory, that kind of stuff. Also information
Speaker 1: on VHF and UHF signals, which are talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: ultra high frequency and very high frequency radio signals. Now,
Speaker 1: those high frequency radio signals also happened to be the
Speaker 1: ones that don't travel that far comparatively speaking, you can
Speaker 1: use those to communicate with someone who's in the same
Speaker 1: town that you are in. But here's the thing about
Speaker 1: radio frequencies. It's kind of interesting. Uh, when you talk
Speaker 1: about you have to you have to keep in mind
Speaker 1: there are two different measurements that are going when you're
Speaker 1: talking about radio frequencies, the measurement in uh in hurts,
Speaker 1: which is the number of waves per second, right, and
Speaker 1: then the length of the wave, which is inversely proportional.
Speaker 1: You know, the shorter the wave, the more you're going
Speaker 1: to get going through in a second because they're all
Speaker 1: traveling at the same speed. You know, I always have
Speaker 1: a problem with wavelength and amplitudes. Alright, So alright, radio
Speaker 1: travels we're talking about we're talking about the speed of
Speaker 1: light year essentially, right, Electromagnetic radiation we're talking about we're
Speaker 1: talking everything is moving at the same speed. If you
Speaker 1: have a really long wavelength, you're going to get fewer
Speaker 1: repetitions within a second than if you have a very
Speaker 1: short wavelength because they're both traveling at the same speed.
Speaker 1: All right, So these high frequency radio waves are happen
Speaker 1: to be very very short and um and so they
Speaker 1: don't travel that far. And the reason they don't travel
Speaker 1: that far is because the long waves have the benefit
Speaker 1: of being reflected by the ionosphere and the sphere is
Speaker 1: way the heck up there, but it tends to that's
Speaker 1: that's a technical term. That's stuff from the science lab.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm not going that far into detail. But
Speaker 1: the ionosphere can reflect long radio waves and UH and
Speaker 1: depending on the time of day, UH, it can reflect
Speaker 1: certain wavelengths better than others. It does change throughout the
Speaker 1: day and the night UM and also other radio other
Speaker 1: electromagnetic UM interference can can affect it as well, things
Speaker 1: like the Aurora borealis. That's actually electromagnetic UH phenomenon there,
Speaker 1: it's not just pretty lights, So that can also reflect
Speaker 1: radio waves. Well, if you're using really long radio waves
Speaker 1: that and they bounce off the onmosphere, you can actually
Speaker 1: transmit messages all the way across the world. So you
Speaker 1: and I could use a Ham radio operating on these
Speaker 1: very long radio frequencies to talk to people in Australia. However,
Speaker 1: we would have to have a higher class license than
Speaker 1: just the basic because the technician class license does not
Speaker 1: give you access to those radio waves. So the next
Speaker 1: level up would be the general class license. Now that
Speaker 1: gives you a larger UH range of frequencies that you
Speaker 1: can use, including the really big ones, so you can
Speaker 1: start talking to people who are on the other side
Speaker 1: of the world and UH and you have to pass
Speaker 1: another thirty five question examination and it gets a little
Speaker 1: more specific. It's a little more advanced, so you have
Speaker 1: to have a better understanding of electronic theory as opposed
Speaker 1: to a grounding UM, as well as operating procedures and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. And then the third and
Speaker 1: final level in the United States is the Amateur Extra
Speaker 1: Class license UM. And the reason you would want this
Speaker 1: is because at certain and certain bands or radio traffic
Speaker 1: is pretty heavy because that's where everyone's operating. So you
Speaker 1: if you wanted to get the Amateur Extra Class license,
Speaker 1: you would have access to the most elite bands of
Speaker 1: frequencies where you could, uh, there's not as much traffic.
Speaker 1: You can you're more likely to be able to get
Speaker 1: your messages through, and you can even use it for
Speaker 1: experiments like things like Earth to Moon to Earth transmissions
Speaker 1: where you're actually bouncing you know, you're aiming your radio
Speaker 1: signals up at the moon to bounce off and come
Speaker 1: back down. That's pretty cool. It is pretty cool. And UM,
Speaker 1: that is different than the other two. Instead of having
Speaker 1: to answer a thirty five multiple choice question, you have
Speaker 1: to answer a fifty U fifty multiple choice question examination
Speaker 1: and past that. Uh. And there's something that's interesting recently
Speaker 1: about all three of the examinations that has changed just
Speaker 1: over the last few years. Yes, yes, there's one thing
Speaker 1: you no longer need to know in order to become
Speaker 1: an amateur radio specialist or a user relates specialist is
Speaker 1: the wrong term entirely, but an amateur radio operator. You
Speaker 1: know what that is, right, Hit me with it, baby,
Speaker 1: Morse code. Yes, you no longer need to know Morse
Speaker 1: code in order to become an amateur radio operator, a
Speaker 1: licensed amateur radio operator. And I used to be that
Speaker 1: that was one of the requirements you had to learn
Speaker 1: Morse code. Morse code was one of the the most
Speaker 1: probably the most popular way of transmitting information via ham
Speaker 1: radio for many years, and the reason for that is
Speaker 1: that at certain signals, the quality of the radio transmission
Speaker 1: is fairly low. So it's hard to transmit information like
Speaker 1: voice info at least on the older radios, the lower
Speaker 1: powered radios, and under certain like I said, certain radio frequencies.
Speaker 1: So if you were to try and transmit voice over
Speaker 1: those signals, it would just kind of come in staticky
Speaker 1: and and unintelligible. But you use something like a series
Speaker 1: of of dots and dashes beefs, those would go and
Speaker 1: transmit much more effectively. And so that was, you know,
Speaker 1: and it was also kind of a carryover from the
Speaker 1: telegraph days, so you went from telegraph to radio and
Speaker 1: it just made sense because the the fidelity wasn't there
Speaker 1: for voice yet, and it kind of stuck for a
Speaker 1: long time. It's still one of the more popular methods
Speaker 1: of transmitting data over ham radio, but it's not the
Speaker 1: top one anymore. Voices taken over right now. Ham radio. Uh.
Speaker 1: You may wonder where the term came from. It actually
Speaker 1: comes from telegraph, because there was a book by G. M. Dodge,
Speaker 1: Uh that's just realized how funny that is, um called
Speaker 1: The Telegraph Instructor, And in it, uh, the author identifies
Speaker 1: a ham as uh, someone who's a really bad telegraph operator. Um.
Speaker 1: And in the days when everybody was sharing a frequency,
Speaker 1: some people would come in more um intensely than others,
Speaker 1: and they would be able to talk over everyone else
Speaker 1: because they had a stronger signal. Well, Um, those people
Speaker 1: were identified as hands because they were basically stepping all
Speaker 1: over everyone else's conversations. And the people those people, um
Speaker 1: were you know, the type of people who were taking
Speaker 1: that as a badge of honor and not not that
Speaker 1: they were taking their behavior as a badge of honor.
Speaker 1: But they thought uh uh, they sort of basically lashed
Speaker 1: onto the term and said, yeah, you know, we're amateurs.
Speaker 1: Were you know, d I why radio operators were gonna
Speaker 1: you know, this is what we're calling ourselves. And it
Speaker 1: basically doesn't have that meaning now, but it did at
Speaker 1: one time. Yeah, it sounds like it was actually pretty
Speaker 1: pretty uh similar to the theatrical use of the word
Speaker 1: ham you know, that would be someone who steps all
Speaker 1: over everybody else in an attempt to get all the attention.
Speaker 1: I could think of someone on this podcast who fits
Speaker 1: that description. Boy, are my ears burning for some reason. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know I mentioned earlier about the the really
Speaker 1: long radio waves being bouncing off the honosphere. I meant
Speaker 1: to mention this too. I'm sorry that I didn't, but
Speaker 1: that the shorter waves, uh, they are either absorbed or
Speaker 1: they actually passed through the ionosphere and go out into spapace.
Speaker 1: So that's the thing is these radio waves aren't It's
Speaker 1: not that they you know, peter out. It's that's not
Speaker 1: the case. It's not that that's why they're not getting
Speaker 1: to the other side of the world. It's because instead
Speaker 1: of bouncing around the atmosphere and back down to the Earth.
Speaker 1: To the Earth, they actually passed through the atmosphere and
Speaker 1: keep on going. So people who are in that that
Speaker 1: first class of amateur radio operators are technically sending signals
Speaker 1: out into the ether towards aliens who will eventually come
Speaker 1: and either ask us where all the cool Ham operators
Speaker 1: are or they will eat us. I'm thinking the ladder
Speaker 1: me too. So um speaking of never mind, Uh wow,
Speaker 1: I don't know where you were going now I'm not
Speaker 1: sure either, all right. Um. So one of the really
Speaker 1: cool things about this is the fact that it is
Speaker 1: very a very d i y sort of hobby. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can, you know, take your license test, get your license,
Speaker 1: go ahead and buy a radio, or you can build
Speaker 1: one yourself. Yeah. This is another way that this is
Speaker 1: different from CB radios that you know, with CB radios,
Speaker 1: you you can't build your own siss has been radio. Uh,
Speaker 1: you have to purchase a licensed one. Um, although we
Speaker 1: did get that one email about how you can you
Speaker 1: can kind of get around that, but in general you're
Speaker 1: supposed to to buy a licensed radio for CB radio
Speaker 1: as opposed to Now that's different for amateur radios. The
Speaker 1: amateur radio operators can create take up the hobby of
Speaker 1: building their own radios and then using them to transmit
Speaker 1: and receive information, and which I guess explains why you
Speaker 1: need the electronics theory in the test. Yes, and they
Speaker 1: can be much more powerful than CB radios could. I
Speaker 1: think CBR radios were limited to some crazy thing like
Speaker 1: five watts. But amateur radio so that's pretty big difference
Speaker 1: there and now. And amateur radios come in all shapes
Speaker 1: and sizes. You can find some that are a little
Speaker 1: handheld devices that you might tune to a repeater so
Speaker 1: that you send your signal to the repeater and the
Speaker 1: repeater receives signals through one frequency and transmits them through
Speaker 1: another and then essentially, well you know, it kind of
Speaker 1: boosts your signal UM or you could, uh, you could
Speaker 1: have an amateur radio that's huge. I remember reading one
Speaker 1: thing saying that it could take up half an attic
Speaker 1: where you've got this enormous amateur radio station UM in
Speaker 1: order to to transmit received signals and UM and every
Speaker 1: single amateur radio operator gets a call sign, and unlike
Speaker 1: CB radio where you can pick your handle, these are
Speaker 1: call signs that are assigned to you and It all
Speaker 1: depends on where you live, what country you're in. You
Speaker 1: know how each country has its own method of assigning
Speaker 1: these call signs. In the United States, the call sign
Speaker 1: has a prefix in a suffix. The prefix is all
Speaker 1: based upon where you live. UM that the it's usually
Speaker 1: a letter and then a number or a couple of
Speaker 1: letters in the number UM And some states get multiple
Speaker 1: call signs. I assume that means that that those are
Speaker 1: just have more amateur radio operators in them. It would
Speaker 1: make sense. So can you guess which two states have
Speaker 1: the have multiple call sign prefixes? Which too? There are
Speaker 1: two states in the Union that have multiple call sign prefixes.
Speaker 1: I find a guess. I would think California in Texas.
Speaker 1: You are so wrongly Alaska and Hawaii. Oh well, you
Speaker 1: know when you say that, it makes sense now you think, yeah,
Speaker 1: that area. But these are the two that are the
Speaker 1: most isolated from the rest of the nation. So there
Speaker 1: you go. And yeah, So Alaska's call sign prefixes are
Speaker 1: A L. Actually there's quite a few that's A L
Speaker 1: zero through seven, k L zero through seven, in L
Speaker 1: zero through seven, w L zero through seven, And Hawaii's
Speaker 1: are A H six through seven, k H six through seven,
Speaker 1: n H six or seven and w H six through seven. Yep, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting. And so yeah, the the that
Speaker 1: if you if you hear the beginning of a call sign,
Speaker 1: you know where they are operating out of. And here's
Speaker 1: another interesting thing is that most countries allow amateur radio
Speaker 1: operators to operate within their borders even if they're not
Speaker 1: from that country. So let's say that you get your
Speaker 1: license in one country and you travel to another now,
Speaker 1: and so in some countries they'll let you go ahead
Speaker 1: and operate, you know, as if you held a license there.
Speaker 1: Others may require you to actually pass an examination, a
Speaker 1: local examination before you're allowed to use your your radio skills.
Speaker 1: But what do you do about your call sign? Because
Speaker 1: your call sign identifies where you are, right, we just
Speaker 1: talked about that. Well you said where we're from. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not just where you're from, it's where you it's
Speaker 1: where you're transmitting from. So what what you have to
Speaker 1: do is you have a U addendum to your call sign.
Speaker 1: You keep your regular call sign and then you add
Speaker 1: a little slash and then you give the prefix for
Speaker 1: the area that you are currently in, and that indicates
Speaker 1: that you are you know, you're from this one region,
Speaker 1: but you're actually broadcasting from another region for the time
Speaker 1: being while you are in transit. That's that's good to
Speaker 1: know because. UM. Another thing that I thought was pretty
Speaker 1: cool about HAM radio as I was doing my research,
Speaker 1: and I had always wondered seeing the license plates of
Speaker 1: cars that had their HAM radio UH call sign listed
Speaker 1: on the license plate like they do in some places, UM,
Speaker 1: which was you know these were not Just because there
Speaker 1: are some radios that take up half of an attic
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that all HAM radios are like that. No,
Speaker 1: some are very portable, yes, and and and there are
Speaker 1: some people who use them in cars. So I would
Speaker 1: assume that if you're doing if you're traveling with your radio,
Speaker 1: you're going to have to make that you know, you
Speaker 1: would have to change that whenever you would move into
Speaker 1: a new region. Now most most of the UM, most
Speaker 1: of the regions are pretty big. Actually, I can think
Speaker 1: of two reasons why Alaska and Hawaii would have those multiples. One,
Speaker 1: Hawaii is made up of series of islands, so probably
Speaker 1: each island has its own. But Alaska is enormous, so
Speaker 1: that would also make sense, so that it may not
Speaker 1: even be the remote uh, nature of these two states,
Speaker 1: but also just the fact that one is not a
Speaker 1: single land mass and the other one is a freaking
Speaker 1: huge land mass. But at any rate, the I didn't
Speaker 1: understand that that that extension you have on there, well,
Speaker 1: it's the one for the inside of a bear. I've
Speaker 1: been eaten. I think I'm still in Alaska, might be
Speaker 1: in Canada by now, who knows. Um. But yeah, the way,
Speaker 1: the way, the way you would say it is you
Speaker 1: would give your normal all sign, and then you would
Speaker 1: say portable, which it indicates that you are on the move,
Speaker 1: and then you would give the prefix for whatever region
Speaker 1: you were in. And like I said, most, uh, most
Speaker 1: of these call signs cover a fairly large area. So
Speaker 1: it's not like if you went from one state to
Speaker 1: another you would necessarily have to change. You might have
Speaker 1: to go two or three states before you are in
Speaker 1: a new call sign area. And this is the kind
Speaker 1: of stuff you need to know before you take your exam.
Speaker 1: Um and there are it's funny, they're actually a lot
Speaker 1: of ham radio operators are are really really passionate about
Speaker 1: this hobby. That's not a funny part. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's that makes sense. But yeah, they're very passionate about it,
Speaker 1: and they're very eager to share their knowledge. And so
Speaker 1: if you run to a an amateur radio operator or
Speaker 1: ham radio operator and uh, and they are willing to
Speaker 1: impart that knowledge to you. UH. The common term for
Speaker 1: them is do you happen to know this? I don't
Speaker 1: know this one Elmer's I saw that and had wonder,
Speaker 1: I have no idea someone's going to write in and
Speaker 1: explain to us why they are called that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's interesting though. Yeah, I was like, huh, I bet
Speaker 1: there's a reason for that. I'm sure there's a story
Speaker 1: behind it, but I couldn't find it. While I was
Speaker 1: looking for I was looking at like all the technical
Speaker 1: specs and then so by the time I reached that point,
Speaker 1: I was like, look, too late. I gotta go around
Speaker 1: the horn now. UM. Yeah, if you're if you're wondering,
Speaker 1: there are several organizations. I mean there there is the
Speaker 1: International Amateur Radio Union, which is a very large organization,
Speaker 1: and then here in the United States, the American Relay
Speaker 1: Radio League can also clue you in. Um, if you're
Speaker 1: looking for more information about about doing this, and it
Speaker 1: is it is fairly affordable hobby. As far as electronics go. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, even uh having buy the equipment, it can
Speaker 1: started under two hundred dollars in the United States, So
Speaker 1: that's that's not terribly expensive, Um for a you know,
Speaker 1: uh sort of out of the way you know, not
Speaker 1: on not on this store shelves at Walmart sort of
Speaker 1: of equipment. So that's, um, that's pretty cool. It's not
Speaker 1: that terrible barrier to entry. Yeah, it's definitely. It's it's
Speaker 1: kind of got an old school appeal to it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think unfortunately, I would say the the rise of
Speaker 1: the Worldwide Web has taken a lot of the appeal
Speaker 1: of of ham radio out for anyone other than radio enthusiasts,
Speaker 1: because the web has made it very easy to make
Speaker 1: contact with people on the other side of the world. Now,
Speaker 1: before you know, amateur radio was one of the few
Speaker 1: ways you could actually have a conversation with someone who
Speaker 1: was countries away without spending any extra money on the
Speaker 1: actual transmission. You didn't have any long distance phone charges
Speaker 1: or anything like that. You didn't have to send mail
Speaker 1: and wait forever for it to come back. You could
Speaker 1: have a real time conversation with someone and uh, and
Speaker 1: and it didn't cost you any more than what you
Speaker 1: had spent on your examination and the equipment you were using.
Speaker 1: That was it. But um, the web has made things
Speaker 1: so much easier that that people who are still interested
Speaker 1: in radio, of course they haven't lost any passion for
Speaker 1: the for the hobby, but it's I think it's probably
Speaker 1: harder to get people into it. Well. On the other hand, though,
Speaker 1: if it's something that uh, and you know that it's
Speaker 1: this way with it just about any hobby that I've encountered,
Speaker 1: you know, there are always people who really enjoy the
Speaker 1: exclusivity of it. And I'm sure for those people who
Speaker 1: like the the idea that they're doing something that few
Speaker 1: other people are doing, you know, just enough to have
Speaker 1: a conversation with, that's probably going to be an appeal
Speaker 1: to some people that dedicated to you know, keep the
Speaker 1: activity alive and keep interest up in it. And it's
Speaker 1: definitely a skill set, I mean it's not you know,
Speaker 1: building a radio requires a lot of skill, and operating
Speaker 1: Morse code and understanding Morse code requires skill. And and
Speaker 1: you know, they have competitions, other Ham radio competitions that
Speaker 1: are pretty interesting where within a certain given amount of
Speaker 1: time you have to collect um as many call signs
Speaker 1: as you possibly can, verified that you have collected these
Speaker 1: call signs. And usually it's an international thing where you're
Speaker 1: trying to collect call signs from across the world. That's
Speaker 1: the d X competition. Yeah. Yeah, and so you you
Speaker 1: have to try and collect as many as you can
Speaker 1: and and you know they have to be verifiable. You know,
Speaker 1: essentially you're going to have to appear in someone else's
Speaker 1: book too to show that yes, you did. Actually, you
Speaker 1: can't just write call signs down at random. Um. And
Speaker 1: we should also mention I'm surprised we've done this long
Speaker 1: without mentioning it. We've talked about Morse code and we've
Speaker 1: talked about voice. Those are not the only two methods
Speaker 1: of communication you can you can send through amateur radio.
Speaker 1: There's more. Yeah, like television. You can actually use some
Speaker 1: of the spectrum to send amateur TV two people. Now,
Speaker 1: granted that these don't tend to travel that far, so
Speaker 1: you're tending you tend to display it to people who
Speaker 1: are in the area. But it's like creating your own
Speaker 1: public access ye. And there's a packet radio teletype right,
Speaker 1: so packet packet information would be like the Internet. This
Speaker 1: was this We can thank con for this. Um about
Speaker 1: the con uh he uh it's very cold in radio
Speaker 1: um he uh. Con and surf. Yes, the the fathers
Speaker 1: of the Internet or people who worked on our pannet
Speaker 1: and then continued to work as arpanet uh sort of
Speaker 1: made way for the Internet. Um. One of the one
Speaker 1: of the networks that got pulled into the Internet was
Speaker 1: the radio network. And once you were able to send
Speaker 1: packets data packets through radio frequencies, that became an actual
Speaker 1: part of the Internet. So when you think Internet, I
Speaker 1: mean we almost I tend to think of the Internet
Speaker 1: as computers and smartphones now things like that, devices that
Speaker 1: send data like that in that method. But really there's
Speaker 1: a radio element to it as well. And and amateur
Speaker 1: radio operators can use packets and send send data through
Speaker 1: the radio. And the radio teletype that you mentioned used
Speaker 1: to have to have really specific equipment to use that.
Speaker 1: You know, you have to have a big teletype machine,
Speaker 1: like the like the ones you used to see in
Speaker 1: the newsroom. Yeah, like the one that's featured in the
Speaker 1: Boomtown Rats song. I don't like Mondays yes anyway, so
Speaker 1: uh think yeah, it took it. It's the very first line.
Speaker 1: It's kept so clean and it types to a waiting world. Uh.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you used to have to have these big machines.
Speaker 1: Now you can use software on the computer and uh.
Speaker 1: And have you have your computer hooked up to a
Speaker 1: transceiver and the computer acts as the teletype machine and
Speaker 1: you can receive and send messages using radio teletype. And
Speaker 1: then there's the PSK delivery as well. So we we
Speaker 1: had to mention that because otherwise someone would write in
Speaker 1: and say, hey, you know, you talked about voice and
Speaker 1: you talked about Morse code, but there's more to it
Speaker 1: than that, and there is and uh and people are
Speaker 1: using light Yes, I saw that. Yes, LED communications essentially
Speaker 1: to to deliver the same information. And you know, as
Speaker 1: long as you have line of sight, uh, the LED
Speaker 1: is able to transmit the signal that way rather than
Speaker 1: the traditional ways. Yeah. That's I'm like, how do you
Speaker 1: call that radio? Still? Yeah, that's that's photonic man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I really wanted to get into that more, but
Speaker 1: we're running out. We're running out of time. We're running
Speaker 1: out of time. And you know what I read. I
Speaker 1: read that same article, but I need to read it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to. I want to get it explained to
Speaker 1: someone else. Yeah, because that was one of those where
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is really super cool and I just
Speaker 1: barely understand it. Well. I hope that that was a
Speaker 1: good little discussion on HAM radio. There's so much more
Speaker 1: that we can talk about. Like we said, every single
Speaker 1: nation has its own frequencies and its own licensing procedure.
Speaker 1: But if you're interested, there are lots of websites out
Speaker 1: there that can direct you to uh TO resources to
Speaker 1: become an amateur radio operator, and you're sure to find
Speaker 1: an elmer who's willing to talk to you about it,
Speaker 1: she's excited about it to mentor you in that. So
Speaker 1: moving on, I wanted to talk very quickly about a
Speaker 1: little listener mail. This listening mail comes from Kevin from Peoria.
Speaker 1: How are things in Peoria? Peoria? Today? It's a folk song? Okay,
Speaker 1: he says, Hello. I just had a quick comment. Chris
Speaker 1: had mentioned in your last podcast about microwaves how much
Speaker 1: he hates microwaving bread, and I completely understand. Here's a
Speaker 1: tip that my fiance taught me. First, thoroughly wet down
Speaker 1: a paper towel and then unravel it. Next, wrap your
Speaker 1: bread works particularly well with breadsticks in the wet paper towel,
Speaker 1: microwave for a fifteen to twenty seconds, and then carefully
Speaker 1: remove and discard the very hot paper towel. Then enjoy
Speaker 1: the soft, warm bread stuff. It stays soft and warm
Speaker 1: for much longer than usual this way. I didn't believe
Speaker 1: her until she did it for me one day and
Speaker 1: it worked. Believe me, it has revolutionized my dining experience
Speaker 1: with leftover bread sticks. Thanks for the great podcast. I
Speaker 1: especially like the puns. You are welcome, Kevin, and thank
Speaker 1: your fiance for us for helping us roll in the
Speaker 1: dough whacket issh racketed do. I can't believe you. Just
Speaker 1: all right, guys, we're gonna wrap this up. If you
Speaker 1: want to learn more about ham Radio, visit our website,
Speaker 1: it's how Stuff Works dot com. We've got blogs. Remember
Speaker 1: you can check those out. You'll see those links on
Speaker 1: the right hand side. Or you can always just go
Speaker 1: to blogs dot how stuff Works dot com if you
Speaker 1: want the direct route. And remember we no longer do
Speaker 1: tex Stuff Live. Tech Stuff Live is on hiatus while
Speaker 1: we are working on the studio space. We hope to
Speaker 1: have something special by the time we get it back.
Speaker 1: Up and running. We're we're thinking up ideas right now.
Speaker 1: If you have any specific ideas you think would be great,
Speaker 1: email us tech Stuff at how supports dot com and
Speaker 1: we will talk to you again really soon for moralness
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works
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Speaker 1: It's ready, are you