About Amateur Radio
Introduction.
Amateur radio has a proud history dating back over 100 years to the early pioneers. Today there are over 101,000 licenced radio amateurs in the UK and over three million worldwide.
It is a hobby that continually develops as technology progresses and new aspects of the hobby come to light. It is accessible to old and young, welcomes all cultures, genders, and languages, and has no national boundaries.
Amateur radio has several different frequency bands allocated which can be used using a range of modes, including speech, morse code and several digital modes. Each band can be used on AM, FM, Single Side Band and data. The bands range from 160m wavelength to microwaves, so you can see that there is a huge range of activities available. There are even satellites with amateur radio transponders now, which operators use to bounce signals back to Earth. For the more experienced moon bounce is also possible….
A big part of the fascination of the hobby is the experimentation and development of equipment. Amateurs love to try new things, make new contacts and push the limits of what the technology can do.
Getting Licensed
To transmit on the amateur bands, you need to show you have the technical competence to operate the equipment safely. This involves passing an examination and there are three levels in amateur radio in the UK: Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced. Each level increases the level of knowledge and also adds the privileges associated with that level.
The Foundation course that we run is designed for people with no radio background and will develop the skills and knowledge required to pass the examination and get on the air. Our course can be tailored to accommodate special needs and learning difficulties and includes practical radio use.
We want to teach our students how to be good radio operators, not just the facts to pass the examination.
The examination can be taken as a paper exam at our club or an online exam, again at our club or if you prefer remotely at your home.
We do not charge for our Foundation courses, but simply for a weekly payment to cover the rental of the room and one payment for all the printed materials for the course. The course tutors give their time freely to promote the hobby.
For those students who have passed the Foundation and want to progress to the Intermediate and eventually the Advanced our colleague Steve Hartley (G0FUW) runs excellent courses in Bath and online through distance learning. We recommend our students enrol with him.