Foundations Of Amateur Radio

Foundations of Amateur Radio Get on air and make some noise is a phrase I use often to encourage amateurs to be active on-air and use the bands that are available to us. One thing that's often glossed over is how to actually make that noise. It can be scary to make that first contact. If you've got your radio installed, your antenna erected, your operating position set-up just right and you're ready to actually key your microphone, how do you do that and how do you get the attention of those around you? First things first. You need to establish if your radio is actually working as expected. If you're using a UHF or VHF radio, often the simplest way is to find a local repeater, key-up your radio and give your callsign. The result should be at least a carrier, a beep or a callsign in Morse-code. Some repeaters even have a voice ident, so you can hear that your action of keying the push-to-talk had an effect. If that isn't working, then there are lots of things you can troubleshoot, but that's for another d