Amateur Radio question

[mdc5150]

Excuse my ignorance but what do you do with amateur radio? Who do you talk to and about what? I'm asking this purely out of curiosity and not at all sarcastic. Actually after looking at the radios and being a gadget bug the shiny radios are attractive.

I can see here in the desert during emergencies those radios having immense value and I'm very familiar with their use for search and rescue operations where there are civilian volunteers. But on a day to day basis I was just wondering what you do with them.

[Joe Momma]

Backup emergency communications is what I have it for, when I am out 4 wheelin' out in the forest most cell sites are out of range but I can always hit one or more 2 meter or 440 repeaters out there.

A lot of 4 wheelers that run the Rubicon trail use repeaters that cover the trail as there is only a few spots that get cell signal.

Also when the SHTF such as in a disaster, sometimes even landline and mobile service is down but Amateur radio (ham) is still good to go

As far as day to day operations I can give the ol' lady a yell when I am coming up the cellular deprived mountain on the way home also...
Or talk to other locals that use it too...

[vienessewaltzer]

Amateur radio is something I've been meaning to get into. It's a pretty cool subject and the applications are vast. Some of the things I've been looking into recently were IMSI catchers and IMSI catcher catchers for mobile device tapping essentially. Pretty cool concept. It can 100% consume your existence though. Very easy to do considering there's a lot to it depending on how deep you get, which is part of the reason why I haven't yet. Too many other projects going on:(.

[mdc5150]

Amateur radio is something I've been meaning to get into. It's a pretty cool subject and the applications are vast. Some of the things I've been looking into recently were IMSI catchers and IMSI catcher catchers for mobile device tapping essentially. Pretty cool concept. It can 100% consume your existence though. Very easy to do considering there's a lot to it depending on how deep you get, which is part of the reason why I haven't yet. Too many other projects going on:(.

I kind of like the idea of having another hobby. I love picking but lets face it you can only buy so many locks and do so much picking in a day. The only other consideration I have is I should really have a hobby I can include my son on and I know he would have no interest in that. I used to take him ("Treasure Hunting" as he would put it..) geocaching but this is a small town and most of the caches are out in the desert where cell service is non-existent and I am on call all the time. But looking at the price of the radios, it looks affordable.

[vienessewaltzer]

Definitely, my friend recently bought a receiver and was able to get software defined radio up for like 40 bucks I think (it was a USB device and then he downloaded GNU Radio for free) so he could listen to radio stations around our area. Some of the cooler stuff IMO with radio costs more money than what my friend did though lol. I want to have a portable antenna that I can broadcast with at all times for emergencies and private secured/encrypted communication with friends. Again, no damn time! Good luck if you get into it, let us know how it goes!

[Squelchtone]

If you want to slowly get into it, get a police scanner. you can listen to HAM radio people chatting and making friends and honing their technical skills, and you can also hear whats going on around town and no longer have to wonder whats going on when 6 police cars fly by your house on a friday night =)

Squelchtone
scanner guy