amateur radio i mean is that what truckers use to spot bears on their six not quite most truckers actually use citizens band or cb radio an unlicensed set of channels set aside for use by the general public amateur radio also known as ham radio is a non-commercial but licensed radio service which uses allocated frequencies that aren't being used by things like am and fm to allow radio enthusiasts to provide emergency communications improve their technical skills and enhance international goodwill by having discussions across country borders about national snack foods or whatever the case may be now
you may be wondering then why is amateur radio still relevant when i can just go on my computer and talk or play games with my friend across the border like that well believe it or not even in 2016 there are over 700 000 licensed ham radio operators in the united states over 1.2 million in japan and an estimated combined 3 million worldwide and part of the reason they're still a vibrant amateur radio community is due to its simplicity compared to things like the internet ham radio relies on no pre-established communication grids and a simple radio
can be made out of spare electronic parts in a pinch not to mention that ham radio can be quite reliable compared to some more modern forms of communication in times of crisis for example during the 9 11 attack on the world trade center cell phone service was overloaded and utterly crippled so amateur radio operators helped victims contact their families and provided communications for emergency personnel participating in search and rescue operations and while emergency communications is normally cited as a primary reason for amateur radio it's not by any means the only aspect of the hobby there
are radio sport contests where operators try to contact as many people as possible during a certain period of time some operators enjoy making a game out of making contacts which they'll use to get different awards such as you know worked all u.s states or worked all continents and if you operate on the high frequency spectrum in combination with a computer you can actually send digital signals including data packets amateur radio has even found uses well above the earth as astronauts aboard the international space station are ham radio operators and occasionally use it to make contact
or send pictures other operators have moon bounce or eme and meteor scatter setups where they bounce signals off the moon and meteors to make contacts around the world repurposing space rocks as satellites cool right i mean not to everyone but to some people for sure but whether you're sending signals into outer space or just talking to someone down the street the point is there's a great deal of flexibility and fun in the ham radio hobby and it can be i mean like anything it can get expensive but it can be done quite affordably many operators
are running diy setups consisting of arduinos raspberry pi's and other microcontrollers these can be utilized to build gps trackers which are placed in their cars or even high altitude balloons to transmit their location through amateur radio you can even rig up a ham to extend the range of a drone if you find that your wi-fi connection just isn't powerful enough so if any of this sounds intriguing and you're already sitting there coming up with ways you would use an amateur radio license getting a license is actually relatively easy depending on which country you live in
so being in charge of your own little radio station sounds appealing check it out just make sure that you do have your license first as you don't want a dark suited g-man at your door because you are making you know pirate radio broadcasts about how much your isp is ripping you off speaking of isps don't you hate it when your isp is snooping on what you're doing on the internet well tunnelbear vpn lets you encrypt your connection and while you're at it tunnel your connection in one of 20 different countries allowing you to keep the
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