the next step was to join a local ham radio club. i found one near me, drove to the monthly meeting, and got to meet a bunch of other local amateur radio operators. they were super welcoming and some even donated some of their old gear to use as my home setup. there’s a strong culture of mentorship in ham radio, so a few radio club members helped me with various technical and procedural questions.
amateur radio is interesting because there are many different facets of the hobby you can explore. for example, if you’re an engineer, you can get lean into your technical nature and start building your own radios from scratch / going deep on electrical engineering concepts. if you’re into emergency service, you can volunteer as a ham radio operator at most major sporting / musical events (if cell towers go down, ham radio operators are still able to communicate, so many big events operators standing by). if you like games, you can get into contesting, which is where you participate in competitions that last the whole weekend where you try to contact the most number of people you can (usually).
i ended up talking with hundreds of people from over 50 countries. some memorable highlights were - a guy riding a bike in switzerland (who hooked a small antenna on the back to be able to run his radio setup), a researcher at the southernmost station in all of antarctica (vostok station), etc.
there are some similarities between ham radio and my current job, funnily enough. when i was describing this weird radio hobby to a friend, he asked me, “so you taught yourself engineering, then spent your weekends doing competitive networking?” to which i laughed and realized his point. i really enjoyed the contesting side of the hobby.
tips for getting started:
- there are three tests: technician, general, extra (in that order). start by studying for the examination for the technician license (just order the arrl study guide for the test) and schedule an exam appointment when you read the book and feel ready. now you have your first ham radio license
- join a local ham radio club. people are very friendly and are happy to answer any questions you have. you might want to ask them how to think about what gear you should buy, for example. with the technician license you can basically only use a souped-up walkie-talkie which can transmit in a straight line and is limited by the curvature of the earth (~three miles) unless bounced around towers called repeaters. you can start volunteering in emergency service with this license
- study for the next license, general class (study with the arrl’s study guide) and pass the examination, then upgrade your equipment. with this new license, you are able to transmit on frequencies previously unavailable to you as a technician class amateur radio operator. and these newly unlocked frequencies can be reflected back by the ionosphere, so they’re not limited by the curvature of the earth and you can now talk to people all around the world
- then it’s probably a good time to decide what you want to explore: contesting / emergency service / electrical engineering as mentioned earlier, also getting your extra class license, dx’ing (traveling to remote locations to transmit), modern radio subcategories (packet radio / mesh networking / winlink), nets (local group check-ins over the air), mentorship of less-experienced radio club members, etc