Well, a brief primer on amateur radio in general may be in order…

In about 1905….blah blah blah 1960 blah blah 1985 blah blah blah blah 2004. OK, now that we have that out of the way.

These days, ham radio is used for a lot of different things. There are many different facets in amateur radio, and many different modes of communications. One such mode is phone (voice communications) and another is CW (for continuous wave) or Morse Code. Others still include digital modes which encompass many various modulation techniques. A mode is a general term for a way to transmit information.

These modes are used on different frequency ’bands’ from 1.8 MHz (called medium frequency or meduim wave because of it’s wavelength of over 100 meters) through 30MHz (2-30MHz is called high frequency, HF, or shortwave, with wavelengths from 10 to 80 meters long) and upwards through Very High Frequency (VHF, 50MHz-400MHz, 6 meters through one meter) and Ultra High Frequency (UHF, 400MHz – 4GHz or so) and even higher.

The HF bands allow for worldwide communications by reflection of signals off of the ionosphere, which acts as a large radio mirror. The Ionosphere has many different layers, and is ionized (charged) by interaction with the stream of energy and particles from the sun. Thus, as the sun has an 11 year cycle of waxing and waning sunspots, we have an 11 year propogation cycle. In the years where there are may sunspots, the higher frequencies are the best for long-distance communications, while during the years of fewer sunspots, the lower bands are better. Accordingly, the lower bands are good at night while the higher frequency bands are better during the day. Anything above 100MHz or so is exempt from this rule. Once you get up this high in frequency, except in special cases, the communications are mainly line of sight, or local. See spaceweather.com for more details about how the earth interacts with the sun.

Morse code is called cw because of the modulation technique, that is, turning on and off a continuous carrier on a certain frequency. Since the inception of radio, CW has been a vital tool in communications. It was really the first type of digital wireless, in and of itself a binary format that uses a series of tones in time to create information (whereas today most digital modes are modulations of various tones in frequency [audio shift keying] or phase [phase shift keying]). If there were such a thing, CW might be called time shift keying. It is the only digital mode that I know of that can be interpreted in real time without a computer.

Anyway, Morse code is still used for communications today. Morse code is very useful in times when voice communications are not possible. It is very resistant to noise and fading because of the same reason a digital cellular phone is – that is, the only information that needs to make the trip is a one or a zero. In morse code these are the dots and dashes, or ’dits’ and ’dahs.’ In recent years, especially with the widespread availability of PCs and sound cards, the digial modes have become much more widespread and fill the gap that only cw used to fill. Now, with a sound card and DSP, a computer can interpret tiny phase variations in signals that the human ear couldn’t hear (phase shift keying). CW is still useful, but more nostalgic than anything.

Last night I was trying to hear and work a station in Qatar. On phone, I couldn’t even make him out, only the hundreds of other stations calling him. When he changed over to CW, however, I could copy every letter. Had he been on one of the digital modes, we could have had an easy chat.

Contesting- Contesting is a sport that was birthed out of a need. In the old days of radio (through the 1980s actually, and still today during communications emergencies), messages, generally called traffic, were passed between ham operators across the country. In the early days, when we hadn’t figured out everything I stated above, messages had to be relayed every 40 or 50 miles by different hams. Quickly, a network of radio operators came into being in order to relay these messages from one part of the country to another. It was just as easy as the telegraph, only free to the user. These relay networks were also vital during times of emergencies, especially when the telegraph or telephone lines went dead. Out of this network, an organization called the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) was born to help coordinate for the cause as well as to be an interface for the thousands of amateur radio operators across the country to the government.

Somewhere along the way, the ARRL began organizing contests to help its members practice moving information quickly and efficiently. The contests were based on the message handling system, and involved making a contact with another ham and exchanging certain information. Usually this was very close to the same info that was required for a radiogram, meaning the callsign of both stations, a brief message of some sort such as each operators name, location, and gear. This became the ’exchange.’ Points were awarded according to the distance of the contact. Longer distances were of course harder to come by and netted more points, because they required more skill to make the exchange.

Today, contests haven’t changed much. The need is still there during emergencies to pass messages quickly and efficiently, but few contest for this reason. It has turned much more into a sport and a way to keep those hams out there that thrive on competition happy in the hobby.

During the contesting season, which lasts throughout the winter months and into spring, there is some sort of contest almost every weekend. Some last a few hours, and some last two days and nights. The basic premise is the same – make as many contacts with as many stations as possible, with stations farther away netting more points, and generally contacts made using morse code netting more points as well. But few contests allow more than one mode, there are contests today for each of the modes separately. Some are domestic, meaning that only contacts in North America count, while others are international and only contacts outside of North America matter.

Callsigns are important because one may be making as many as 200+ contacts per hour at times, and over 2000 contacts in a weekend contest. The time it takes to say that extra letter 5,000 times adds up quickly. If a call is a tounge twister, or is easily reversed, or has other problems (like a trailing dit on the end), then a contact may be busted, meaning that it is not scored. If either of the stations that is in the contests copies the other’s wrong, the contact is thrown out. So it is important not only to get the other guy’s info correct, but to make sure that he gets yours right as well.

That was long, and probably as long as the post that generated it, but I hope that clears up any ambiguities one may have about amateur radio. As I said above, there are many different facets, and I have just covered a couple here. The real drive in amateur radio is engineering new technologies, and it always has been. Unfortunately, hams have been more and more dumbed down to keep people interested in the hobby and make it easy to get a license. Before WWII, getting a ham ticket was almost as hard as getting an engineering degree!