Yes, I cheezily played off of the "Tao of Jeet Kune Do" of Bruce Lee fame, but that aside... and oh, by the way I did indeed say "HAM-Kune-Do" the way of the HAM. No, I am not referring to the way of Miss-Piggy or some other swine, I am speaking of Amateur Radio (aka HAM Radio) the practice of radio communications engineering.
This weekend, I participated in Pacificon 2008 in San Ramon, Ca.
I spoke briefly with some of the organizers and volunteers at this weekends convention and was very surprised to here that this years participation was up about 20%, yes... even in a "down-economy" (aka: recession). Add to that I recently spoke with a testing team, whom stated that they are seeing upwards of 200 - 500 new Technician licensees per month (Technician is the first level of FCC licensing on Amateur Radio) and with 4 testing sessions per month, there are approximately 800 - 2000 new HAM's every month!
So what are all these HAM's doing?
1) High Frequency (HF) / Ultra High Frequency (UHF) / Very High Frequency (VHF) Radio Transmissions
2) Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS)
3) Amateur Radio Packet Data
4) Fast Scan Television
5) Satellite Radio Communications
6) Low Power Radio Transmissions
7) Morse Code Transmissions
8) Emergency and Community Communications
There is something for just about any geek around, what could be better than a good ol' practice of engineering methodologies and hackin' around with radio wave propagation?
So some quick things about HAM radio as a hobby that I found interesting:
1) If there is an emergency (civil or otherwise) HAM radios are usually the primary form of communications during the emergency. For instance in the recent earthquakes in China, the HAM operators there had communications up and running again in a day (when all cellular communications were totally wiped out). So, in an emergency, chances are good that HAMs will be around to "save your bacon" (forgive me for that one, I had to say it... :-) ). Living in California, I think it is a good idea to have a mechanism for communications as part of your emergency plan.
2) Look around the next time your at a parade or running, cycling or other civic event, it is likely that you will find HAM's around helping out and reporting into the event organizers, telling them the current status in their "zone".
3) You can use a HAM radio to communicate with the ISS or Space Shuttle.
4) You can combine radio communications with the Internet or satellites to extend the reach of the radio and explore new forms of communications.
If your interested in HAM radio, there are many places to get you started, for example:
- www.arrl.org
- www.qrz.com/i/howtoham.html
Ken
(KI6SCQ)
