This is where you'll go to mange your FCC licenses. Don't like the one they assigned to you? Apply for a "vanity call". They're free! But think twice before you discard your old one. Hams get to know each other by our calls.
The American Relay Radio League, is the professional* association for licensed hams. Located in Newington, Connecticut, Membership is $49 per year and well worth it. The cool kids just call it "The League".
The number in your call sign indicates your home location, or at least it used to. These days you can move to another call area and keep your old call sign, which can be confusing if you're trying to work a KH6 station in Hawaii, but he turns out to be in Virginia. No wonder he was so loud on 80 meters. Poophead.
CW stands for "Continuous Wave", and is what hams call morse code, as in "I worked F4FGB on CW with 10 milliwatts into a bent spoon".
The phonetic alphabet is used to facilitate voice communication, especially in poor or weak signal conditions. Each letter is represented by a specific word as in "Alpha, Bravo, Charlie..." Not always used by contesters who prefer their own lingo, as in "Nancy Four Queen Mary's Fanny", or "Prince William Sex China Japan."
Not everyone agrees on the precise definition of DX, but it generally means contacting other stations really really far away. Like in other countries. Or Alaska, which isn't really another country but used to be. In any case, it's fun. One caveat, however, If you hear a guy in your call area calling "CQ DX" and you respond, he might politely give you a signal report before cutting you off, or he might just ignore you, which would be rude.
The ARRL maintains a list of recognized DX entities, each with its unique identifying number, or "entity code". A common goal among hams is the DXCC, or DX Century Club, an award that recognizes hams who have completed contacts to a minimum of 100 different DX entities. The coveted DXCC Honor Roll recognizes hams who have confirmed contacts to nearly all current DX entities.
Rockbound refers to an operator of a crystal-controlled transmitter/receiver. Contrast this with VFO
You may have noticed that the fair sex is rather under-represented in this quirky, technical hobby of ours. Maybe that's because we're all a bit quirky and nerdy. In any case, a lady is often referred to as a "YL", for "young lady", regardless of her age. If she's single, that is. Once she's married, she becomes an Ex-YL, or just XYL. Note that in my short time in the hobby, I've never heard this used phonetically. ("So my Xray Yankee Lima asked me why I never buy her any jewelry, so I said 'because you don't need any.") Wrong answer.
SSB is short for Sideband, which is short for Single Sideband, which itself is short for Single Sideband Suppressed Carrier. It's Basically one half of an AM signal, and much more efficient in terms of bandwidth. Not nearly as efficient as CW, however. Since SSB is half of AM, there are two sidebands, usually referred to as "Lower Side Band" (LSB), or "The Velvet Underground" and "Upper Side Band" (USB), or " Frank Zappa and the Mothers" (or sometimes just "The Band"). These sidebands generally follow the main band, The Grateful Dead, except on Tuesday PM nets, which follow the AM nets, but take up the same bandwidth as all four of the other bands combined.
Sadly, even hams don't live forever, and a Silent Key is a ham who has passed away. His key is now silent.
If you say "Morse Code", you're probably not a ham. Hams call it "CW", or just "code", as in "I'm a no-code general". CW stands for "continuous wave", which is what you get when you key a morse code transmitter, a constant, modulated RF tone. In 2007, The FCC removed the requirement for learning CW, so many new hams don't speak CW. It makes it much easier to obtain your license, but I am fascinated by CW, and it is one of the most efficient RF communication modes available.
Q Codes are like shorthand. Back in the CW days, talk wasn't cheap, it was impossible. So Q codes were developed as a type of short hand for common messages, like "QRL?" which means"Is this frequency in use"? Or also as a directive "QRL", "This frequency is in use." When using voice modes, it's generally better just to speak plain english. New hams won't be impressed with your command of the jargon, just confused.
Either love 'em, or hate 'em, but nearly every weekend you'll hear contesters on the air whose goal is to make as many contacts and score more points than the other guys. Personally, I love 'em, and they're a great way to collect wall paper (awards).
Don't like contests? Ignore this link. But if you like competition and making rapid-fire contacts exchanging a minimum of information, you may enjoy contesting. Even if you're not competing, contests offer the opportunity to make contacts in remote locations due to the sheer number of hams on the air. They run all year round mostly on the week-ends.
If you're a contester, you should submit your scores to 3830 Scores. This helps aggregate data and allows you to compare your results year-to-year, or to other contesters. Once upon a time this was an HF net on 75 meters where people shared their scores. Now it's a web site. Crazy world.
Besides voice and cw modes, there is also the world of digital communications on the HF bands. You'll need a computer running software that is capable of encoding and decoding these signals. See the link on audio clips.
It can take a while to be able to identify digital signals when you hear them, and to differentiate between the different modes. The software for most digital modes requires you to know exactly what mode a signal is using and choose the correct codec. This site allows you to familiarize yourself the various digital modes and what they sound like.
Talk to other hams using satellite-based repeaters! This area
of the hobby requires minimal equipment and only a technician's
license since nearly all frequencies are on the 2m annd above bands.
AMSAT ::
Amateur Radio in Space
WB4SON ::
Bob's blog documenting his experience with satellites.
AB1OC ::
Fred's blog documenting an iterative portable satellite station.
LoTW ::
How to log satellite QSOS for Logbook of the World, by John Barber, N5JB or grab the PDF version.
Also known as Amateeur Radio Direction Finding, or ARDF, (or just
RDF), and great training for locating the source of radio
frequency transmissions. Here are some links to sites with
information about RDF.
HomingIn ::
ARRL ::
KA7OEI ::
VE2EMM ::
KN2C ::
Handi-Finder ::
DopplerDF ::
APRS ::
byonics TDOA angenna
Reference Book by Joseph D. Moell, K0OV, and Thomas N. Curlee, WB6UZZ.
The Ham Radio Outlet, also known as The Candy Store. RF Toys galore. Several locations throughout the country, apparently worth the trip of you can visit one of the retail locations. I've only ever purchased from their online store, but they're a solid, reputable vendor. I recieved a rig once that had a bad fan bearing. When I called them, they said "We'll ship out a replacement right away. Just return the old one as soon as you can" (at their expense, of course.)
*It's a hobby