November 1, 2016 • 45 mins
If you thought that Ham Radio enthusiasts were (mostly) men and boys who sit alone late at night in order to scan frequencies searching for a human connection then you're absolutely correct. But it's much more than that.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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Welcome to you Stuff you should know from house Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's
(00:40):
Jerry over there. So it's stuff you should know. Go ahead,
Josh Clark. This is Chuck in Oregon. Oh, well, seventy three,
Chuck seventy three. I don't know what that means. It's
probably your age if you're a hand radio operator. Seventy
(01:01):
three is a term that means my compliments to you.
M guards. Yeah, it is ham code. Well I wasn't joking.
By the way. We're talking about ham radio, sometimes called
um amateur radio, sometimes called shortwave radio, although it's not
(01:21):
always short wave radio right like technically on the on
the electromagnetic radio spectrum. Yeah, but um, I was I
did make a joke about seventy three, but that is
actually in some countries the average age is eighty and older.
Is that right? Yeah? Which countries I don't know. I
don't know about the US UM. The most recent stats
(01:44):
I found, though, they're about eight hundred thousand HAM radio
operators in the US of A. Is that right about? Yeah?
Not bad. No, that's more than I saw. I saw.
I think six seventy two was the number I saw,
and then double that in Japan. Yeah, they're into it.
Had no idea. UM in the millions, two to three
(02:05):
million around the world, and in the United States. As
of this month, there are more than seven hundred and
forty thousand amateur radio station licenses, with California having the most. Well,
California is big into ham radio. Everybody knows that, and
I feel like it's obvious. But this is mostly men,
(02:27):
about a fift rate of women or females, young ladies,
whatever their ham radio enthusiasts. It just seems sort of
like a it seems like a guy thing, not just
a guy thing, but a ned Flanders guy thing. Yeah.
I don't want to knock them because it's a neat thing.
It is a neat thing. I was sitting there, I
(02:48):
was I was researching this a little more and more.
I was like, Okay, there is one corner of the
world where you can go to escape like humanity as
it stands, like on the internet totally, and it's it's
that's that's an oversimplification. Like with Ham radio, they are
very much known, very well known for being very polite,
(03:09):
very professional, very um you know, uh eagle scoutish. I guess, yeah.
They're rules and you have to get a license, right exactly,
And because you do have to hold a license to
operate a Ham radio. Um, they do think that that's
kind of where this tradition of professionalism came out of
a lot of jerks. At the very least, it does.
(03:29):
There are jerks on on Ham radio, some really bad jerks,
but they're they're very much the exception to the rule,
whereas like on an internet chat room, the polite people
are the exception of the rule. In Ham radio world,
it's just the opposite. So it's very refreshing that there's this,
you know out there, there's a place that's still like
(03:51):
kept polite and nice and like, hey, how are you?
I just wanted to see how are you? Oh you're
in Korea. Huh it's pretty far away. Yeah, didn't. Is
having a conversation like that just for it's just to
do it. That's basically the point of Ham radio or
one of them. There's a purity to it that really
spoke to me there. Yeah, the same here. Um. I
(04:14):
watched the little Vimeo documentary called Ham Radio Ancestors of
the Internet. Yeah, great, little it's true. But and this
got across to me. Ham radio, the the ethos or
the persona of Ham Radio. There's a segment where they're
talking about how one of the big foundations of ham
(04:36):
radio is public service in times of I didn't either,
but in times of like natural disaster where radio where
other communications are knocked out, shortwave radios draw very little
power so you can run them off battery, um, and
they they can communicate outside of the disaster zone when
cell phones and the Internet is gone, and they do
do that. They do. It's like part it's one of
(04:58):
the pillars of Ham Radio. Well, during this segment, the
um director of the Vimeo documentary, he was playing the
battle hymn of the Republic nice, and I was like,
this is ham radio. I love it. Uh, they are
called hams, so when we say that, we're not being derogatory,
although some call them radio amateurs is one word. Oh
(05:22):
really well, the word ham um comes from back in
the day when there were ships and coastal stations and
government stations and amateur operators increasingly all over the world
vying for the same signals. Um. Sometimes these amateur radio
operators would have powerful signals and they could jam um
(05:44):
like government operations, and so they in a derogatory pejorative way,
would call them hams, and that name stuck, although the
meaning of it, the being pejorative, has fallen away, and
they embrace it now like queer. Sure, it's the same thing,
same principle. It was meant to be a put down,
(06:05):
and that they adopted it with a sense of pride,
and it's like we're gonna take this from you, right,
like take the power from you. Yeah, it's a great
way to handle things. I think, you know, I saw
another origin story. Yeah, yeah, and I think with the
one you're talking about. When they said that they were hams,
they were saying they were ham fisted, like they didn't
have the delicacy needed to UM to tune into a
(06:28):
frequency correctly or no, they're very delicate hands. Actually it's
part of the requirement by the FCC. UM I saw.
Another origin story was that um in three Harvard men
founded a radio club and they called it the Base
(06:52):
on their last names the Hymen Almy Murray Radio Station
or HAM for short. It's also a law firm, probably
it is. Now Oh interesting? Is that? How verified is that?
Or is that just something we're gonna throw out and
say that could be interesting? This this one comes from
r F Cafe, which is a legit site. Uh, yeah,
(07:16):
I like yours more, Well, it's not mine. Oh you
didn't just make it out now, So I found this
great little piece that kind of helped explain to me
a little bit about how radio works and how amateur
radio works. So if I may, can we played Battle
Him of the Republic? We totally should? Is it writes free?
(07:38):
Oh it's gotta be sure. Um all right, So if
you look at an AM radio dial, well you'll have
to find an AM radio dial, right, go go find
your dad's old malibub. Yeah, actually you don't have you know,
you don't have to look at the physical dial. If
you have a radio in your car, this digital you
can just go to the bottom of it. It's about
(07:58):
five thirty five. All the way to the top, it's
about six five. Let's killer hurts? Is it killer hurts
and Mega hurts killer hurts? Is it really for a
M for AM radio? Um? And that is one band?
When you hear about a radio band, that entire spectrum
is one band. Yeah, and the band is just an
arbitrary trunk, right, Yeah, it's a it's a group of
(08:20):
frequencies right from one to the other, right, and the
distance between those two from what you say for a
M radio five five to six five, So that would
be the band width between those two, correct, So you've
got that as a band. The FCC dolls out on
the spectrum available bands for the government, for the military,
(08:45):
for all these different people to use as their own,
and they have allocated twenty six bands for amateurs. That's
from one point eight mega hurts in this case, which
is just above that radio broadcasts frequencies to two seventy
five giga hurts. That's a pretty significant swath of the spectrum,
it is, and and so much so that you're using
(09:07):
essentially different types of technology to transmit or receive on them. Yeah,
well this is gonna be a good one. I was
kinda worried. Oh man, don't worry. I feel like it's
heating up. This is us. So the way this person
put it is, if you think of the radio spectrum
like a measuring tape um. Between a half an inch
and about one point seven inches, is that a M
(09:28):
radio band. If you go all the way up to
like inches to eight inches, that's the FM radio band.
And between a half inch and thirty inches is this
very special place where the ionosphere It reflects off the
ionosphere depending on what type of day, uh, and what
time of day it is, right, And I can step
(09:51):
in and explain that if you're online. So, the ionosphere
is one part of the Earth's atmosphere. It's towards the
top right, and cosmic rays and solar rays and all
sorts of rays are constantly smacking into the ionosphere and
they're knocking electrons off the atoms up there, ionizing them.
These electrons don't just float away into our space, actually
(10:11):
form this kind of blanket layer and it's a really
great medium. This this blanket layer of electrons in the
ionosphere UM for bouncing radio signals of a specific type
of frequency back to Earth. Right. So, one of the
benefits of a short wave radio is that you're using
(10:33):
radio waves in a frequency that they bounce off the
ionosphere really well, and so you can shoot it up
into the ionosphere and reflect it back down. And because
of this angle, you can you can transmit this radio
over really long distances, hundreds of miles, thousands of miles,
because you're bouncing it off of the ionosphere. During the day,
(10:56):
the sun solar rays add this extra kind of dense
layer on the bottom of the ionosphere, so they tend
to get absorbed more than at night when the sun's
raised aren't hitting that part of the ionosphere, so they
bounce better, which is why you get better reception, or
your signals travel longer at night than during the day.
(11:17):
UM for shortwave radio, which really plays into hams right
does the idea of these always have is two o'clock
in the morning exactly, a dude in his attic talking
to someone in Taiwan. Yeah, you know, which is great.
We're talking to pinhead in Burma right before he opens
that box and becomes Pinhead and hell Raiser or talking
to Ronnie millsap. That's where this guy got me because
(11:40):
he's a celebrity hymn. Celebrity hymn. Unfortunately he waited until
like the last sentence of the entire article, but he
finally got me. Then, well we'll we'll get to that later.
There are other celebrity hams out there that'll be there.
Our last sense to uh So, like we said earlier,
between if you're thinking of it as a measuring tape,
between a half inches and thirty inches is where you
(12:02):
get this great reflection off the ionosphere, which you described
so well. Um, I like your measuring tape, well it's
not mine. Above that thirty inches, they stop bouncing and
it becomes what we call line of sight. So that's
like FM and TV and stuff. Yeah, Like you know,
when you drive out of town, you lose your reception
because you have gone out of the line of sight
(12:24):
over from that broadcast antenna, and there's trees and buildings
and mountains in your way, all sorts of junk. But
if you're shooting stuff off the ionosphere, nothing sea in heck, mountains.
Uh So, between three inches and thirty inches that's called
the high frequency spectrum, and then from thirty inches to
about three inches and again these aren't inches measuring tape analogy. Uh.
(12:46):
That is called the VHF spectrum, and we're gonna get
into that later. But the VHS spectrum is really neat.
You can operate hand radio via that and use things
uh called repeaters where you basically share part of a
broadcast tower in a city. And you say, well, if
I can get my signal to you, you can repeat
it back out further because you have way more wattage
(13:11):
than I do. And I was looking to see, like
what the um tip for tat equation is with wattage
for distance, Not that I could find, no, but the
rule of thumb is that the more watts you have,
the more power you have, the further you can send
your signal. But yeah, I mean, like, if you're buying
a transceiver, which we'll get into later, it might have
(13:34):
anywhere between five watts and like a hundred watts, maybe
a little more if you're um, if you're running like
a radio station like Georgia State here has very famously
as a hundred thousand watt transmitter, So you want to
shoot your signal to them and then they change the
frequency a little bit and shoot it out on a
slightly different frequency greatly um empowered. Yeah, you're like piggybacking
(13:59):
off these antenna's basically like like Michelle Obama is talking
to you directly, kind of empowered, you know what I mean.
And that's just for the repeater UM that is not
that's if you're going to VHS VHS the VHF route,
UM you don't have like they're all kinds of different
frequencies below that that. In fact, I think probably, well,
(14:21):
I'm not gonna say that because I don't know. I
was going to say that people mostly don't use the
repeater method with VHF, but that I don't know the stats.
I think it's specifically FM that they use the repeater
for VHF FM. I think that's what you use the
repeater for. No, it is, but I'm saying that as
far as HAM radio operators, I get the feeling that
the majority of people don't use that method. Yeah, yeah,
(14:43):
but I might be wrong. No, I think you're right,
you think, yeah, I don't. I don't know if you can,
because everything I saw was anytime they were talking about repeater.
They called it FM VHF. Yeah, but you can still
operate ham radio that way, right, yeah, but in that
specific band, right, correct. I guess yeah, I actually, I mean,
(15:03):
I'm sure they're a handful of hands out there that
listen to the show that are groaning in pain right now.
I know. I do want to apologize, because anytime we
do a show where there are rabid enthusiasts, we're bound
to get some stuff not quite right. But hopefully there
are some of the nice enthusiasts that we've had over
the years, These guys, yeah, that say like, thanks for
helping to spread the word. You got this and this wrong,
(15:24):
Not like those chess players. Man, man, they were they
were so mean. I think it's interesting what kinds of
people are attracted to different. Of course, it's made up
of the spectrum of people, but they seem to be
grouped a lot of times, at least from the feedback
that we get birds of a feather flock together. I
(15:45):
guess that's the same, isn't it. Should we take a break, yes,
all right, we'll come back and we'll talk about just
what in the heck piece hands are doing? All right?
(16:14):
What are these hams doing one thing you can do
if you have just a receiver or radio scanner, and
or even if you have a transceiver where you can
actually broadcast out. A lot of times are just listening.
They're just going up and down the frequencies seeing if
they can hear any interesting conversation. They're going down the
(16:34):
frequency like boring, you sound ugly, Uh, I don't like
your voice. Something comic book guy right from the Simpsons.
And then finally they're like South Korea. I've been looking
for someone to talk to you from there. And actually
there's a thing called the QSL cards where you get
in touch with somebody and um, from what I can gather,
(16:58):
they mail you a postcard saying this person got in
touch with me, and you collect these postcards QUSL cards, UM,
just to be like, look, I've spoken to people in
a hundred different countries. I'm remember of the Century Club.
It's like a little merit badge. I think pretty cool.
So you can listen in UM. The difference between let's
(17:18):
say radio DJ who just talks at the world or
you know, or talks to their city is you're are
generally having a two way conversation with someone or a
little round table or a little network where people meet
at a certain frequency at a certain time of the
week to uh talk shop, I guess, or wrap or
(17:39):
talk about whatever you want. Basically like hanging out in
a general store, but on the airwaves, locker room talk, right,
because all guys do that, so um, they can use
all kinds of frequencies. Um. Like we said, they're above
the A and broadcast band. Uh and apparently a good
(18:00):
a good band. A good frequency range is from about
one point six mega hurts to about twenty seven mega hurts.
That's during the day. Fifteen seven is good for these
long distance communic ase. So if you're trying to reach
your friend in Taiwan, maybe log on. We'll not long on.
(18:20):
So weird to try and use the internet terminology because
these guys are the ancestor of the internet. Boy, what
if you need a license to get on the Internet.
Wouldn't be great? Oh yeah, you had to pass it,
like a decency test or something. It would be I
mean it definitely do away with that whole net neutrality thing.
But yeah, a decency test or maybe just to be
(18:41):
I don't know, on social media or something. Yeah, Facebook
is like, yeah, that'd be great, let's limit our users. No. No,
But at the same time, it's like, well, who decides
what's decent and who creates that test and who administers it?
And do you do it at the of a barrel
of an M one or something? No? I do it
no guns involved. But I mean I think of the questions. Yeah,
I'm pretty even handed. Give me a good give me
(19:03):
a good decency question on your test. Um if uh,
just just be nice and don't be a question be
hilarious if every single one of the questions start out
with let's see, uh, just just be nice. Yeah, don't
(19:24):
be a jerk, don't bait people. Yeah, well, let's just
good rules to follow. Just be nice, just be nice,
don't be a jerk. Right, Yes, it's true. And again,
if you're looking for generally a place where most people
are nice and nut jerks, you would be happy to
get into ham Radio. If you're not already right, Another
thing you might be doing is you might be if
(19:44):
you are really into it and your old school, you
might be chatting in morse code. Yeah, and they used
to to to become a licensed operator. Um, you have
to you have to take a test, and there used
to be a Morse code test, and apparently that sort
of people out pretty quick. I would spectacularly fail a
Morse code tests, not if you studied, even if I studied,
(20:06):
you do fine dots and dashes. My brain doesn't think
like that. They're thinking like, um, like, yeah exactly, Although
a pizza does look like a lot like a dot,
and if you stretch a big mac out it could
be a desk. Maybe I could take on this Morse code.
I think you could. Well, it doesn't matter anyway now
because they did away with that segment because they're like,
(20:26):
Morse code is stupid and we all have voices, so
we're just gonna go with voice instead. Yeah. I don't
know if exactly that's how they put it, but that
was pretty much the thinging behind it. But I also
get the impression that the purists still dabble in morse code.
They also write in perfect cursive. I can't do that
anymore at all, hard Like I could never do a
(20:48):
cue a capital queue. Couldn't do it. It's kind of
like a week to remember. Yeah, it's one of these
I don't know. It's kind of sad to me to
be losing some of these things. Other people say it's
roll with the changes, like you can't fight progress. But
is it progress when you lose something? I don't know
(21:09):
if it was an albatross. I guess it's progress, But
I don't know if cursive writing is exactly holding us
back as as a culture. I print weirdly now because
I write so seldom to my handwriting is sometimes I
can't even like read what I wrote. I can never
read what You're right. It's terrible. Not even a doctor anymore.
(21:29):
That's why we just type to one another or tattoo
one another with what we want to say. Or so
they've gotten rid of morse code purists are still into it. Um.
I guess we should talk a little bit about Well,
I'll tell you one cool thing you can do is
talk to people in outer space. Yeah, this article dated
(21:50):
itself by talking in the present tense about space shuttle missions.
No more space shuttle missions. But astronauts are generally ham
licensed ye, not ham fested. No, no, no. You gotta
have tiny, delicate hands to be an astronaut. For sure,
you just made lobster hands. But astronauts are generally ham
(22:16):
radio people, and they will I think one of the
little neat things they'll do is get up there and
talk to people on Earth. Yeah, and you can talk
to them because I think they're using a VHF FM
handheld radio typically, although we may be dating ourselves too
because from what this this article made mention of using
um uh packets, which is an Internet term, which makes
(22:41):
me think that this this um technology has advanced by
leaps and bounds as far as like using satellites and
stuff like that. So I'm not sure if this is
the case anymore, but ten years ago, when you were
communicating with an astronaut, they had to be directly overhead,
but you could talk to him over Ham radio, which
(23:01):
is pretty awesome. Yeah, And a lot of times when
the when the astronauts having a conversation, they're talking from
like one school to the next as they pass over,
like elementary schools, and yeah, yeah, because I mean, everybody
likes talking to an astronaut, but elementary school could really
love that kind of stuff totally, at least they did
back in our day. Surely they still do, right, I hope.
(23:24):
So I would like to think space will always and
throw all the young I hope. Do you get a
little older and you're like, what's out there? I like
it still I do too. I'm kidding, what's out there?
That's a good question, Chuck. All right, so I guess
we should talk a little bit more about licensing. Um.
First of all, I don't understand this whole license thing, Like,
(23:47):
can you be a rogue ham? Yes, there was a
guy who was sued by the government for fine, so
you can do it and set yourself up and they
you're just not doing it legally. Yeah. So do you
remember the person who rode in with their pirate radio station.
They were basically, from what I gathered, they were operating
a shortwave transceiver, but they were like talking and broadcasting. Well,
(24:11):
there's a couple of problems with that. Obviously, they didn't
have a license, which makes it a pirate radio station.
But number two, one of the hallmarks of shortwave communications
is a two way conversation. You're not supposed to broadcast.
So there's this dude who was transmitting on UM one
of fourteen point to seven five mega hurts frequency and
(24:33):
I think it was a Michigan or something, and he
basically was running like a RANTI radio station, and UM,
anytime somebody was like, hey, get off the get off
the line, leave this open for somebody else. He would
go berserk and he yes, man, everyone hated this guy,
like curse people out and stuff. And then he did
(24:53):
not fit in the community. He didn't, but he was like,
I belong here just as much as you do. I'm
licensed and I can be here too. So he countersued
the government for like fifty million dollars and it got
thrown out or whatever. I'm not sure it became of him.
The last article I saw was from like two thousand
and ten. But um, he's a good example of you know,
(25:15):
there's there's places where you know, you you would not
want your kids to sit around listening to what they're
talking about on the ham spectrum. He's a hamtroll. Yeah,
he was a hamtroll for sure, And there are plenty
of others out there. But for the most part, again
it's mostly the opposite of that. Apparently, CB is known
(25:35):
to be the opposite where like anything goes, they use
like crude and vulgar language, and um, so everybody's like,
that's CB, hams different. But these guys were CBS from
what I can gather. All right, well, let's take a
little break and we'll talk a little bit more about him.
(26:15):
I'm hungry for ham. I know delicious hamlet talk of
ham like I wish I had ham fist like a
honey spiral ham. I've never been in the into the
sweet ones. I like smoked. I like smoked ham too,
but like a honey baked ham. You don't discriminate. Man.
Have you had honey baked turkey? That's pretty good too.
(26:35):
I think it's better than their ham. Oh yeah, Oh
you mean from the actual honey baked ham corporation? But yeah,
I like a good smoked ham. No, sweetness doesn't need
to be sweet. It stands on its own. The problem
is most hams are really really processed, like just by definition. Yeah,
(26:57):
like you, it's tough to find ham that's not super processed.
And you know me, I'm trying to eat better, so
I want healthy ham. I don't want to give up ham.
I don't blame me, man, I love him. We said
ham a lot so far. All right, So if you
want to get licensed, um, which you should, well you
(27:18):
have to. Well that's what I'm saying. I liked not
run afoul of the law. Um. There is no aid restriction. UM,
even though the average age in some countries is eighty.
I also get the feeling that there are plenty of
twelve year olds out there that have kind of like
you know, you get a chemistry set. You read an
(27:38):
article or hear this podcast, and you say, I think
I might like to try my hand at Ham. Maybe
there was a g whiz in there, Golly, g whiz, mom, Dad,
Can I have a Ham radio? Well, if you're if
you're thinking that right now, there's actually something called Kids Day.
It's like an International Ham Radio Day to like kind
(27:59):
of get kids who might be interested in Ham radio
into it. Basically, dying lower, the lower the barriers to entry.
I don't think he's dying. Man. Those numbers that you
gave are significantly higher than the ones I saw. Are
the ones that are in this article. Seems like it
is growing well, and maybe there will be some sort
of a luddite backlash. I think that's part of it.
(28:21):
I think some people are saying, like, yes, I have
to go work on the internet for work, but I
I'm so tired of like jerks. I want to go
somewhere where there's not jerks, you know, I want to
feel like I'm giving something back to my community. Yeah,
when a natural disaster strikes, I want them to be
able to turn to me so I can say, yes,
(28:42):
this guy is dying at this address. Too bad you
can't get through to get him out of there. We
just thought you should know he's gonna die. I like
the notion of the just the general public do good
or like um my dad, when I was a kid,
we had a jeep and back I mean, jeeps are
all over the place now for people that have never
(29:03):
been like off of pavement. But back in the seventies,
jeep if you saw a jeep on the road and
not well know, you waved. They all waved at each other,
but there was about a ninety five percent chance that
that person was an off rotor as well. And about
half of the jeep said those little winches on the
front of him. And I remember it didn't snow that
(29:24):
much in Georgia, but uh, every time it snowed, my
dad would get on the horn with his jeep buddies
and they would get out and pull people out of
ditches and like tow cars, you know, onto the road
and stuff like that, just for no other reason than
to like, you know, it's probably fun for them to
come in and save the day, you know, yeah, and
to help to get that sense of satisfaction. Same. I mean,
(29:46):
this is a it's the same thing except a little
less rugged. Yeah, they were. It was also the CB crowd,
which kind of ties it all together. They're the they're
the rough ones though that the jeep dudes all had
to CBS and we talk to each other and right,
all right, so there's no age restriction. Every country is
going to have their own licensing deal, but here in
(30:07):
the US you have to pass the test. Now. I
think it's what multiple choice questions. I'm curious what they are.
I I looked and I didn't really see any. Um,
just be nice, just be nice. How much do you
love America? A lot? Super a lot more than my
head can take sometimes? And then Toby Keith levels right, Um,
(30:32):
But there's three different types of licenses in there, graduated
in difficulty the tests are, but each one gives you
more access to more bands on the spectrum. I think
the highest class is the extra class. And um, you
don't need to know more for any of these now,
(30:54):
but I'll bet, I'll bet if you're a level three
HAM license holder, you probably no more code pretty well too.
I'm sure it's not across the board, but I'll bet
it's pretty high percentage because I imagine you might have
a little egg on your face if you're an extra
class uh license holder and everybody's just speaking to one
another making yeah, and you're like, could you say that
(31:18):
please out loud? I feel a little left out, Like, no, son,
didn't it beeps? Or is it clicks? Is it both? Okay? Both?
I think it depends on the receiver. There is something
called the American Radio Relay League the a r r L,
(31:38):
and they've got a great website if you go UM.
They're all manner of articles about your entree into Ham
operating and UM statistics and tips and pointers. It's their
their way into it UM. In Atlanta, we have a
club I can't remember the name of it UM, but
it was formed in nineteen eleven and apparently is the
(32:01):
oldest continuously running club in Georgia. Wow, that actually predates
Ham Radio according to this. Oh no, it predates the
American Radio Relay League. Yeah, they were that's really impressive.
It's pretty neat. Go Atlanta. I kind of want to
go to a meeting now and just say hi, I'm chucking. No,
I'll be like, uh, should we talk about the equipment
(32:26):
a bit? I guess yeah. I was like, basically I
had to do a crash course in radio theory. I
didn't know a lot of this, you know, like I
know the wavelength is the distance between two crests. I
knew that frequency is how many waves pass like any
given point in one second. Um, But I didn't understand
(32:47):
how radio waves are like propagated, or how antennas receive them.
And apparently you are running an electromagnetic field through your
antenna and the end yeah, pretty much. And your antenna
UM basically is to put it in a layman's terms,
(33:08):
shooting out radio waves that are being created by an
oscillator in your in your transceiver, your transmitter, or these
radio waves which once you shoot it out, if you
were in outer space shooting off a radio wave, and
it was guaranteed to never run into a planet or
a star or anything like that, it would just keep
going forever. Right, That's what a radio wave wants to do.
(33:30):
It just wants to keep going. It's not going to
get messed up or diminished, degrade or anything like that.
It's when it runs into stuff that it starts to
or when it when it's hit by m cosmic rays
that it starts to diminish, degrade or something like that. Right,
So UM, the if it hits UH antenna and the
(33:52):
antenna is cut to the right length, and the length
that you're looking for is half the length half the
sense of the wavelength. So if you have a very
low frequency wave that's um, you know, a hundred feet
between waves, you would want a fifty ft antenna to
(34:14):
to pick it up UM ideally. And that's basically the
rule of thumb, as you want half the distance of
the wavelength you're receiving to UM pick up a wavelength
or a radio wave UM most efficiently. UM. But anyway,
when a radio wave encounters this electric field, this electromagnetic
(34:36):
field that you have running up and down your antenna,
it basically excites the electrons in a way that it
shoots down into your receiver and magically is transformed into
a voice. It's really, really really difficult to understand all this,
Like people go and get like masters and PhDs in
this kind of thing. It's really tough. Guys, give me
(34:59):
a break. Wow, do you already since the higher. Yeah,
even from amateurs, I think are probably like that was terrible.
I can sense that was terrible. No, I think I
feel confident in it. Uh. You probably have a transceiver. Um.
Like I said, you could have just a receiver if
you just want to listen, but you might want to
(35:20):
talk to UH if you go to buy a new transceiver.
I mean they run the gamut in price. Um. I
saw like these fancy ones with all kinds of uh
really gadgets and spon divots on it that was like
a thousand dollars and up I saw a pretty good
one for a thousand dollars too. But you don't have
to go that route. UM, if you want to go
a little more old school, was something that's a little
(35:41):
easier to master, UM quicker, then you could get an
old used one. Yeah. Analog ones are the ones with
the tuners that you have to like physically, you know,
adjust your dial, which they're not quite as precise as
these digital ones, which um you know you can us
the frequency uh to like a hundreds of a past
(36:05):
the decimal. Yeah, they're really really precise, but there are
a lot more complicated and they're more expensive. You don't
need that to start for sure. Well, and that's one
of the things they point out this article too, right,
Like if you think about millions of people, um, and
only a certain amount of bandwidth, apparently, I think that's
where you can be on the same frequency and just
(36:26):
dial it back by a couple of little points and
create a new I don't know if that count as
a new frequency or just part a subset of the
same frequency. I don't know where that begins, where the
cutoff is. Yeah, but that's to keep from overlapping and
you know, jamming someone else's frequency, yeah, which can be
a problem, especially if people in the same town are
(36:48):
using the same frequency for a different conversation, which is
why most of the time when you're in the same town,
you probably know the other HAM operators. And so if
you're having like a net network where you're like sitting
around hanging out talking to other people in the same area, um,
you were going to have a receiver receiving and transmitting
(37:11):
frequency pair that everybody's using that you're you know, is
different from something someone else in town or in that
same area is going to be using as well. Yeah,
And if you need to move it, you just text
each other and say to just get on the internet,
and then you go, oh, wait a minute, what are
we doing? Uh? Antennas are obviously a big, big part
of this. And I get the feeling that um Hams
(37:35):
really enjoy um hacking objects as antenna's. Uh kind of
like when you may even remember this, but when when
I was a kid, did you have like antenna TVs
when your kid? You remember that or was it always
cable for you? Um? I never had an antenna, but
like neighbors did. Yeah, I know, yeah, I remember when
(38:01):
you when I was a kid, Like you know, you
would put the tinfoil sometimes attached to the antenna. Oh real,
like rabbit ears on a TV. Yeah, I thought you
meant the ones on the roof. Oh well those two,
I guess, but I mean rabbit ears. Sure. Yeah, we
had this so like if you're not getting the picture,
you would you would put like foil aluminum foil at
the end and it stuck to have to stand and
be the one to stand there and hold it. Yeah.
And sometimes you yourself could act as an antenna if
(38:23):
you had metal in your hand or in your teeth. Yeah,
And I get the feeling him enthusiasts really get into
that because some of the different things that they will
use uh include windows, screens on the floor of upper
floor of a hotel, UH, an extension ladder, an aluminum ladder,
rain gutters, and down spouts, slinkys. Slinky made sense to me. Yeah,
(38:48):
but that's a heck of a antenna. Put a slinky
on a pole. Basically anything that that's metal that you
can get a current going through and transmit and receive on. Yeah,
they're talking abou wires like you cast with a fishing
pole between dormitories. This is old school stuff. It's very cool.
Do you know what burglar tape is? No, I saw that.
(39:10):
I'd never heard of that. Apparently the Internet hasn't either,
because I cannot find any other reference to burglar tape
aside from this article. Yeah, I don't know everything the Internet.
It's probably like burglars caught on tape or some burglar
died after being taped to a tree when he was caught. Yeah. Yeah,
(39:32):
ham radio to me, that kind of falls in that
bucket of things that I was talking about, like old
I can't remember which podcast it was, but old technologies
that you can still use, Like I think it's a
cool skill to have. Like, if it all goes south
and everything the internet crumbles and people turn on one
(39:53):
another ham radio, the Hams are gonna be ahead of
the game. You know, they're gonna be able to communicate
with one another. Yeah, kind of a neat skill to have. Yeah,
they'll be like, yeah, the purge looks like it has
come to pass. The city's on fire. You can go
to a ham fest if you want to meet people,
and you can buy cheap used equipment, sure, and get
(40:18):
tips and tricks from the people you're buying from. Like, yeah,
if you if you're at all into this, find a
ham fest. Oh yeah, and if it turns out to
be the food, then enjoy that as well. Lucked out.
It's called a happy accident. Uh. And then they say
the best thing to do, like you said, is to
talk to a HIM enthusiast. And apparently the teachers are
(40:41):
called Elmer's and uh, I imagine they delight in teaching
any young kid that comes their way about ham radio.
I think there's very very few that are like, out
of my face, kid, I don't want to pass on
my knowledge. I bet they really enjoy that. Yeah, I'll
there's there's genuinely zero of them who are like, forget you.
(41:05):
I don't have time for this. I don't like talking
all right, celebrity hams, are we there? Yeah? Number one
Ronnie Mills out Apparently Joe Walsh of the Eagles and
the James Gang is a Ham. Gary Shandling was I
did not know pass And that's the neat thing you
can talk with Joe Walsh maybe right, Like the community
(41:27):
is they encouraged that he's not like I'm Joe Walsh.
I'm I'm looking for Ronnie millsap only right, I just
want privacy on my Ham radio. For Scilla Pressley what
probably spreading a scientology via Ham right now? She was
a scientologist, oh yeah, or a King Hussain of Jordan's.
There were a lot of surprised to see a lot
(41:48):
of dignitaries and like presidents and uh like leaders of
the free world. It's crazy. I am enthusiasts. Barry Goldwater
was chet Atkins, and Brando apparently was Oh man, could
you imagine that conversation. You would be able to pick
him out immediately, like I think that's Marlon Brando talking
(42:10):
lies descending on my face. The darkness like, Uh, that's
not Joe Walsh right. Uh, and apparently when you die
it's very sad. It's called an s K, a silent key.
And uh that means you're no longer operating, not in
this realm, at least not using these antenna I like
(42:31):
that thought. Nice a positive note. Uh, you got anything else?
Nothing else? I'm gonna go out and get a Ham radio.
I knew you've got. You bought a slinky, you got
exploding head syndrome. Now you're gonna become a Ham operator.
If you want to know more about Ham radio, you
can start by typing those words into our search part.
But again, just start asking around. Find somebody who is
(42:54):
a hammer a radio operator. Yeah, find an Elmer and
they will teach you everything you need to know. And
since I said Olmer, it's time for listener mail. Hey guys,
A huge fan of the show, Great entertainment, interesting stuff
that as a normal lazy person I would never look
up myself. I really wanted to thank you for keeping
(43:14):
me company while training for my first ever marathon. I
believe it's a New York marathon. Yes, training is brutal,
long hours running alone with nothing to do, but obsess
on how much it sucks and why on earth am
I doing this? I don't even like to drive twenty
six miles. I can't imagine running that. You know, a
bit of background. I'm thirty nine years old, first time
(43:37):
ever running a marathon. Uh, and it's going to be
the New York City Marathon in early November. Well, that's
a heck of a one to start on. Yeah, listen
to your show makes me makes training so much better.
I've tried everything from music, audiobooks, regular radio, other podcasts.
Nothing keeps my mind distracted from the pain better than
your show. Everything's disgusting. It makes me cute. I truly
(43:57):
love it. I'm not sure if you guys have on it,
but Babe, a marathon episode would be great. Why do
we put ourselves through such hell? And the high that
one gets from running and completing a race runners higher,
that'd be interesting. I would do a marathon one. I
would not not a marathon. I would do a marathon episode.
It would be really short. We just do that to
(44:18):
be funny, or we make it exactly twenty six minutes long. Anyway,
Thanks again, guys, and congrats for an excellent show that
is uh. Marco, Marco, good luck, Yeah, buddy, good luck
In November. Um, this will be coming out sort of
around that time. Yeah, so you can listen to it
as you crossed the finish line. Yeah, that'd you go, Marco?
Come on, man, you can do it. Hang on there,
(44:40):
get up, Get up, Marco, come on. Oh you should
probably seek medical attention for that. Just just stay there, man,
stay down. I love it. Thanks Marco. Best of luck
to you for reals though, UH and all of you
who are running in the New York City Marathon or
any marathon, or doing anything that you use us to
(45:01):
motivate you with, you can do it. Just keep it up.
If you want to get in touch with us, you
can hang out with me on Twitter at josh um
Clark and uh s y s K podcast. You can
hang out with Chuck at Charles W. Chuck Bryant on
Facebook and UH stuff you Should Know on Facebook. You
can send us an email to stuff Podcast at how
stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at
(45:22):
our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
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(00:20):
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Welcome to you Stuff you should know from house Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's
(00:40):
Jerry over there. So it's stuff you should know. Go ahead,
Josh Clark. This is Chuck in Oregon. Oh, well, seventy three,
Chuck seventy three. I don't know what that means. It's
probably your age if you're a hand radio operator. Seventy
(01:01):
three is a term that means my compliments to you.
M guards. Yeah, it is ham code. Well I wasn't joking.
By the way. We're talking about ham radio, sometimes called
um amateur radio, sometimes called shortwave radio, although it's not
(01:21):
always short wave radio right like technically on the on
the electromagnetic radio spectrum. Yeah, but um, I was I
did make a joke about seventy three, but that is
actually in some countries the average age is eighty and older.
Is that right? Yeah? Which countries I don't know. I
don't know about the US UM. The most recent stats
(01:44):
I found, though, they're about eight hundred thousand HAM radio
operators in the US of A. Is that right about? Yeah?
Not bad. No, that's more than I saw. I saw.
I think six seventy two was the number I saw,
and then double that in Japan. Yeah, they're into it.
Had no idea. UM in the millions, two to three
(02:05):
million around the world, and in the United States. As
of this month, there are more than seven hundred and
forty thousand amateur radio station licenses, with California having the most. Well,
California is big into ham radio. Everybody knows that, and
I feel like it's obvious. But this is mostly men,
(02:27):
about a fift rate of women or females, young ladies,
whatever their ham radio enthusiasts. It just seems sort of
like a it seems like a guy thing, not just
a guy thing, but a ned Flanders guy thing. Yeah.
I don't want to knock them because it's a neat thing.
It is a neat thing. I was sitting there, I
(02:48):
was I was researching this a little more and more.
I was like, Okay, there is one corner of the
world where you can go to escape like humanity as
it stands, like on the internet totally, and it's it's
that's that's an oversimplification. Like with Ham radio, they are
very much known, very well known for being very polite,
(03:09):
very professional, very um you know, uh eagle scoutish. I guess, yeah.
They're rules and you have to get a license, right exactly,
And because you do have to hold a license to
operate a Ham radio. Um, they do think that that's
kind of where this tradition of professionalism came out of
a lot of jerks. At the very least, it does.
(03:29):
There are jerks on on Ham radio, some really bad jerks,
but they're they're very much the exception to the rule,
whereas like on an internet chat room, the polite people
are the exception of the rule. In Ham radio world,
it's just the opposite. So it's very refreshing that there's this,
you know out there, there's a place that's still like
(03:51):
kept polite and nice and like, hey, how are you?
I just wanted to see how are you? Oh you're
in Korea. Huh it's pretty far away. Yeah, didn't. Is
having a conversation like that just for it's just to
do it. That's basically the point of Ham radio or
one of them. There's a purity to it that really
spoke to me there. Yeah, the same here. Um. I
(04:14):
watched the little Vimeo documentary called Ham Radio Ancestors of
the Internet. Yeah, great, little it's true. But and this
got across to me. Ham radio, the the ethos or
the persona of Ham Radio. There's a segment where they're
talking about how one of the big foundations of ham
(04:36):
radio is public service in times of I didn't either,
but in times of like natural disaster where radio where
other communications are knocked out, shortwave radios draw very little
power so you can run them off battery, um, and
they they can communicate outside of the disaster zone when
cell phones and the Internet is gone, and they do
do that. They do. It's like part it's one of
(04:58):
the pillars of Ham Radio. Well, during this segment, the
um director of the Vimeo documentary, he was playing the
battle hymn of the Republic nice, and I was like,
this is ham radio. I love it. Uh, they are
called hams, so when we say that, we're not being derogatory,
although some call them radio amateurs is one word. Oh
(05:22):
really well, the word ham um comes from back in
the day when there were ships and coastal stations and
government stations and amateur operators increasingly all over the world
vying for the same signals. Um. Sometimes these amateur radio
operators would have powerful signals and they could jam um
(05:44):
like government operations, and so they in a derogatory pejorative way,
would call them hams, and that name stuck, although the
meaning of it, the being pejorative, has fallen away, and
they embrace it now like queer. Sure, it's the same thing,
same principle. It was meant to be a put down,
(06:05):
and that they adopted it with a sense of pride,
and it's like we're gonna take this from you, right,
like take the power from you. Yeah, it's a great
way to handle things. I think, you know, I saw
another origin story. Yeah, yeah, and I think with the
one you're talking about. When they said that they were hams,
they were saying they were ham fisted, like they didn't
have the delicacy needed to UM to tune into a
(06:28):
frequency correctly or no, they're very delicate hands. Actually it's
part of the requirement by the FCC. UM I saw.
Another origin story was that um in three Harvard men
founded a radio club and they called it the Base
(06:52):
on their last names the Hymen Almy Murray Radio Station
or HAM for short. It's also a law firm, probably
it is. Now Oh interesting? Is that? How verified is that?
Or is that just something we're gonna throw out and
say that could be interesting? This this one comes from
r F Cafe, which is a legit site. Uh, yeah,
(07:16):
I like yours more, Well, it's not mine. Oh you
didn't just make it out now, So I found this
great little piece that kind of helped explain to me
a little bit about how radio works and how amateur
radio works. So if I may, can we played Battle
Him of the Republic? We totally should? Is it writes free?
(07:38):
Oh it's gotta be sure. Um all right, So if
you look at an AM radio dial, well you'll have
to find an AM radio dial, right, go go find
your dad's old malibub. Yeah, actually you don't have you know,
you don't have to look at the physical dial. If
you have a radio in your car, this digital you
can just go to the bottom of it. It's about
(07:58):
five thirty five. All the way to the top, it's
about six five. Let's killer hurts? Is it killer hurts
and Mega hurts killer hurts? Is it really for a
M for AM radio? Um? And that is one band?
When you hear about a radio band, that entire spectrum
is one band. Yeah, and the band is just an
arbitrary trunk, right, Yeah, it's a it's a group of
(08:20):
frequencies right from one to the other, right, and the
distance between those two from what you say for a
M radio five five to six five, So that would
be the band width between those two, correct, So you've
got that as a band. The FCC dolls out on
the spectrum available bands for the government, for the military,
(08:45):
for all these different people to use as their own,
and they have allocated twenty six bands for amateurs. That's
from one point eight mega hurts in this case, which
is just above that radio broadcasts frequencies to two seventy
five giga hurts. That's a pretty significant swath of the spectrum,
it is, and and so much so that you're using
(09:07):
essentially different types of technology to transmit or receive on them. Yeah,
well this is gonna be a good one. I was
kinda worried. Oh man, don't worry. I feel like it's
heating up. This is us. So the way this person
put it is, if you think of the radio spectrum
like a measuring tape um. Between a half an inch
and about one point seven inches, is that a M
(09:28):
radio band. If you go all the way up to
like inches to eight inches, that's the FM radio band.
And between a half inch and thirty inches is this
very special place where the ionosphere It reflects off the
ionosphere depending on what type of day, uh, and what
time of day it is, right, And I can step
(09:51):
in and explain that if you're online. So, the ionosphere
is one part of the Earth's atmosphere. It's towards the
top right, and cosmic rays and solar rays and all
sorts of rays are constantly smacking into the ionosphere and
they're knocking electrons off the atoms up there, ionizing them.
These electrons don't just float away into our space, actually
(10:11):
form this kind of blanket layer and it's a really
great medium. This this blanket layer of electrons in the
ionosphere UM for bouncing radio signals of a specific type
of frequency back to Earth. Right. So, one of the
benefits of a short wave radio is that you're using
(10:33):
radio waves in a frequency that they bounce off the
ionosphere really well, and so you can shoot it up
into the ionosphere and reflect it back down. And because
of this angle, you can you can transmit this radio
over really long distances, hundreds of miles, thousands of miles,
because you're bouncing it off of the ionosphere. During the day,
(10:56):
the sun solar rays add this extra kind of dense
layer on the bottom of the ionosphere, so they tend
to get absorbed more than at night when the sun's
raised aren't hitting that part of the ionosphere, so they
bounce better, which is why you get better reception, or
your signals travel longer at night than during the day.
(11:17):
UM for shortwave radio, which really plays into hams right
does the idea of these always have is two o'clock
in the morning exactly, a dude in his attic talking
to someone in Taiwan. Yeah, you know, which is great.
We're talking to pinhead in Burma right before he opens
that box and becomes Pinhead and hell Raiser or talking
to Ronnie millsap. That's where this guy got me because
(11:40):
he's a celebrity hymn. Celebrity hymn. Unfortunately he waited until
like the last sentence of the entire article, but he
finally got me. Then, well we'll we'll get to that later.
There are other celebrity hams out there that'll be there.
Our last sense to uh So, like we said earlier,
between if you're thinking of it as a measuring tape,
between a half inches and thirty inches is where you
(12:02):
get this great reflection off the ionosphere, which you described
so well. Um, I like your measuring tape, well it's
not mine. Above that thirty inches, they stop bouncing and
it becomes what we call line of sight. So that's
like FM and TV and stuff. Yeah, Like you know,
when you drive out of town, you lose your reception
because you have gone out of the line of sight
(12:24):
over from that broadcast antenna, and there's trees and buildings
and mountains in your way, all sorts of junk. But
if you're shooting stuff off the ionosphere, nothing sea in heck, mountains.
Uh So, between three inches and thirty inches that's called
the high frequency spectrum, and then from thirty inches to
about three inches and again these aren't inches measuring tape analogy. Uh.
(12:46):
That is called the VHF spectrum, and we're gonna get
into that later. But the VHS spectrum is really neat.
You can operate hand radio via that and use things
uh called repeaters where you basically share part of a
broadcast tower in a city. And you say, well, if
I can get my signal to you, you can repeat
it back out further because you have way more wattage
(13:11):
than I do. And I was looking to see, like
what the um tip for tat equation is with wattage
for distance, Not that I could find, no, but the
rule of thumb is that the more watts you have,
the more power you have, the further you can send
your signal. But yeah, I mean, like, if you're buying
a transceiver, which we'll get into later, it might have
(13:34):
anywhere between five watts and like a hundred watts, maybe
a little more if you're um, if you're running like
a radio station like Georgia State here has very famously
as a hundred thousand watt transmitter, So you want to
shoot your signal to them and then they change the
frequency a little bit and shoot it out on a
slightly different frequency greatly um empowered. Yeah, you're like piggybacking
(13:59):
off these antenna's basically like like Michelle Obama is talking
to you directly, kind of empowered, you know what I mean.
And that's just for the repeater UM that is not
that's if you're going to VHS VHS the VHF route,
UM you don't have like they're all kinds of different
frequencies below that that. In fact, I think probably, well,
(14:21):
I'm not gonna say that because I don't know. I
was going to say that people mostly don't use the
repeater method with VHF, but that I don't know the stats.
I think it's specifically FM that they use the repeater
for VHF FM. I think that's what you use the
repeater for. No, it is, but I'm saying that as
far as HAM radio operators, I get the feeling that
the majority of people don't use that method. Yeah, yeah,
(14:43):
but I might be wrong. No, I think you're right,
you think, yeah, I don't. I don't know if you can,
because everything I saw was anytime they were talking about repeater.
They called it FM VHF. Yeah, but you can still
operate ham radio that way, right, yeah, but in that
specific band, right, correct. I guess yeah, I actually, I mean,
(15:03):
I'm sure they're a handful of hands out there that
listen to the show that are groaning in pain right now.
I know. I do want to apologize, because anytime we
do a show where there are rabid enthusiasts, we're bound
to get some stuff not quite right. But hopefully there
are some of the nice enthusiasts that we've had over
the years, These guys, yeah, that say like, thanks for
helping to spread the word. You got this and this wrong,
(15:24):
Not like those chess players. Man, man, they were they
were so mean. I think it's interesting what kinds of
people are attracted to different. Of course, it's made up
of the spectrum of people, but they seem to be
grouped a lot of times, at least from the feedback
that we get birds of a feather flock together. I
(15:45):
guess that's the same, isn't it. Should we take a break, yes,
all right, we'll come back and we'll talk about just
what in the heck piece hands are doing? All right?
(16:14):
What are these hams doing one thing you can do
if you have just a receiver or radio scanner, and
or even if you have a transceiver where you can
actually broadcast out. A lot of times are just listening.
They're just going up and down the frequencies seeing if
they can hear any interesting conversation. They're going down the
(16:34):
frequency like boring, you sound ugly, Uh, I don't like
your voice. Something comic book guy right from the Simpsons.
And then finally they're like South Korea. I've been looking
for someone to talk to you from there. And actually
there's a thing called the QSL cards where you get
in touch with somebody and um, from what I can gather,
(16:58):
they mail you a postcard saying this person got in
touch with me, and you collect these postcards QUSL cards, UM,
just to be like, look, I've spoken to people in
a hundred different countries. I'm remember of the Century Club.
It's like a little merit badge. I think pretty cool.
So you can listen in UM. The difference between let's
(17:18):
say radio DJ who just talks at the world or
you know, or talks to their city is you're are
generally having a two way conversation with someone or a
little round table or a little network where people meet
at a certain frequency at a certain time of the
week to uh talk shop, I guess, or wrap or
(17:39):
talk about whatever you want. Basically like hanging out in
a general store, but on the airwaves, locker room talk, right,
because all guys do that, so um, they can use
all kinds of frequencies. Um. Like we said, they're above
the A and broadcast band. Uh and apparently a good
(18:00):
a good band. A good frequency range is from about
one point six mega hurts to about twenty seven mega hurts.
That's during the day. Fifteen seven is good for these
long distance communic ase. So if you're trying to reach
your friend in Taiwan, maybe log on. We'll not long on.
(18:20):
So weird to try and use the internet terminology because
these guys are the ancestor of the internet. Boy, what
if you need a license to get on the Internet.
Wouldn't be great? Oh yeah, you had to pass it,
like a decency test or something. It would be I
mean it definitely do away with that whole net neutrality thing.
But yeah, a decency test or maybe just to be
(18:41):
I don't know, on social media or something. Yeah, Facebook
is like, yeah, that'd be great, let's limit our users. No. No,
But at the same time, it's like, well, who decides
what's decent and who creates that test and who administers it?
And do you do it at the of a barrel
of an M one or something? No? I do it
no guns involved. But I mean I think of the questions. Yeah,
I'm pretty even handed. Give me a good give me
(19:03):
a good decency question on your test. Um if uh,
just just be nice and don't be a question be
hilarious if every single one of the questions start out
with let's see, uh, just just be nice. Yeah, don't
(19:24):
be a jerk, don't bait people. Yeah, well, let's just
good rules to follow. Just be nice, just be nice,
don't be a jerk. Right, Yes, it's true. And again,
if you're looking for generally a place where most people
are nice and nut jerks, you would be happy to
get into ham Radio. If you're not already right, Another
thing you might be doing is you might be if
(19:44):
you are really into it and your old school, you
might be chatting in morse code. Yeah, and they used
to to to become a licensed operator. Um, you have
to you have to take a test, and there used
to be a Morse code test, and apparently that sort
of people out pretty quick. I would spectacularly fail a
Morse code tests, not if you studied, even if I studied,
(20:06):
you do fine dots and dashes. My brain doesn't think
like that. They're thinking like, um, like, yeah exactly, Although
a pizza does look like a lot like a dot,
and if you stretch a big mac out it could
be a desk. Maybe I could take on this Morse code.
I think you could. Well, it doesn't matter anyway now
because they did away with that segment because they're like,
(20:26):
Morse code is stupid and we all have voices, so
we're just gonna go with voice instead. Yeah. I don't
know if exactly that's how they put it, but that
was pretty much the thinging behind it. But I also
get the impression that the purists still dabble in morse code.
They also write in perfect cursive. I can't do that
anymore at all, hard Like I could never do a
(20:48):
cue a capital queue. Couldn't do it. It's kind of
like a week to remember. Yeah, it's one of these
I don't know. It's kind of sad to me to
be losing some of these things. Other people say it's
roll with the changes, like you can't fight progress. But
is it progress when you lose something? I don't know
(21:09):
if it was an albatross. I guess it's progress, But
I don't know if cursive writing is exactly holding us
back as as a culture. I print weirdly now because
I write so seldom to my handwriting is sometimes I
can't even like read what I wrote. I can never
read what You're right. It's terrible. Not even a doctor anymore.
(21:29):
That's why we just type to one another or tattoo
one another with what we want to say. Or so
they've gotten rid of morse code purists are still into it. Um.
I guess we should talk a little bit about Well,
I'll tell you one cool thing you can do is
talk to people in outer space. Yeah, this article dated
(21:50):
itself by talking in the present tense about space shuttle missions.
No more space shuttle missions. But astronauts are generally ham
licensed ye, not ham fested. No, no, no. You gotta
have tiny, delicate hands to be an astronaut. For sure,
you just made lobster hands. But astronauts are generally ham
(22:16):
radio people, and they will I think one of the
little neat things they'll do is get up there and
talk to people on Earth. Yeah, and you can talk
to them because I think they're using a VHF FM
handheld radio typically, although we may be dating ourselves too
because from what this this article made mention of using
um uh packets, which is an Internet term, which makes
(22:41):
me think that this this um technology has advanced by
leaps and bounds as far as like using satellites and
stuff like that. So I'm not sure if this is
the case anymore, but ten years ago, when you were
communicating with an astronaut, they had to be directly overhead,
but you could talk to him over Ham radio, which
(23:01):
is pretty awesome. Yeah, And a lot of times when
the when the astronauts having a conversation, they're talking from
like one school to the next as they pass over,
like elementary schools, and yeah, yeah, because I mean, everybody
likes talking to an astronaut, but elementary school could really
love that kind of stuff totally, at least they did
back in our day. Surely they still do, right, I hope.
(23:24):
So I would like to think space will always and
throw all the young I hope. Do you get a
little older and you're like, what's out there? I like
it still I do too. I'm kidding, what's out there?
That's a good question, Chuck. All right, so I guess
we should talk a little bit more about licensing. Um.
First of all, I don't understand this whole license thing, Like,
(23:47):
can you be a rogue ham? Yes, there was a
guy who was sued by the government for fine, so
you can do it and set yourself up and they
you're just not doing it legally. Yeah. So do you
remember the person who rode in with their pirate radio station.
They were basically, from what I gathered, they were operating
a shortwave transceiver, but they were like talking and broadcasting. Well,
(24:11):
there's a couple of problems with that. Obviously, they didn't
have a license, which makes it a pirate radio station.
But number two, one of the hallmarks of shortwave communications
is a two way conversation. You're not supposed to broadcast.
So there's this dude who was transmitting on UM one
of fourteen point to seven five mega hurts frequency and
(24:33):
I think it was a Michigan or something, and he
basically was running like a RANTI radio station, and UM,
anytime somebody was like, hey, get off the get off
the line, leave this open for somebody else. He would
go berserk and he yes, man, everyone hated this guy,
like curse people out and stuff. And then he did
(24:53):
not fit in the community. He didn't, but he was like,
I belong here just as much as you do. I'm
licensed and I can be here too. So he countersued
the government for like fifty million dollars and it got
thrown out or whatever. I'm not sure it became of him.
The last article I saw was from like two thousand
and ten. But um, he's a good example of you know,
(25:15):
there's there's places where you know, you you would not
want your kids to sit around listening to what they're
talking about on the ham spectrum. He's a hamtroll. Yeah,
he was a hamtroll for sure, And there are plenty
of others out there. But for the most part, again
it's mostly the opposite of that. Apparently, CB is known
(25:35):
to be the opposite where like anything goes, they use
like crude and vulgar language, and um, so everybody's like,
that's CB, hams different. But these guys were CBS from
what I can gather. All right, well, let's take a
little break and we'll talk a little bit more about him.
(26:15):
I'm hungry for ham. I know delicious hamlet talk of
ham like I wish I had ham fist like a
honey spiral ham. I've never been in the into the
sweet ones. I like smoked. I like smoked ham too,
but like a honey baked ham. You don't discriminate. Man.
Have you had honey baked turkey? That's pretty good too.
(26:35):
I think it's better than their ham. Oh yeah, Oh
you mean from the actual honey baked ham corporation? But yeah,
I like a good smoked ham. No, sweetness doesn't need
to be sweet. It stands on its own. The problem
is most hams are really really processed, like just by definition. Yeah,
(26:57):
like you, it's tough to find ham that's not super processed.
And you know me, I'm trying to eat better, so
I want healthy ham. I don't want to give up ham.
I don't blame me, man, I love him. We said
ham a lot so far. All right, So if you
want to get licensed, um, which you should, well you
(27:18):
have to. Well that's what I'm saying. I liked not
run afoul of the law. Um. There is no aid restriction. UM,
even though the average age in some countries is eighty.
I also get the feeling that there are plenty of
twelve year olds out there that have kind of like
you know, you get a chemistry set. You read an
(27:38):
article or hear this podcast, and you say, I think
I might like to try my hand at Ham. Maybe
there was a g whiz in there, Golly, g whiz, mom, Dad,
Can I have a Ham radio? Well, if you're if
you're thinking that right now, there's actually something called Kids Day.
It's like an International Ham Radio Day to like kind
(27:59):
of get kids who might be interested in Ham radio
into it. Basically, dying lower, the lower the barriers to entry.
I don't think he's dying. Man. Those numbers that you
gave are significantly higher than the ones I saw. Are
the ones that are in this article. Seems like it
is growing well, and maybe there will be some sort
of a luddite backlash. I think that's part of it.
(28:21):
I think some people are saying, like, yes, I have
to go work on the internet for work, but I
I'm so tired of like jerks. I want to go
somewhere where there's not jerks, you know, I want to
feel like I'm giving something back to my community. Yeah,
when a natural disaster strikes, I want them to be
able to turn to me so I can say, yes,
(28:42):
this guy is dying at this address. Too bad you
can't get through to get him out of there. We
just thought you should know he's gonna die. I like
the notion of the just the general public do good
or like um my dad, when I was a kid,
we had a jeep and back I mean, jeeps are
all over the place now for people that have never
(29:03):
been like off of pavement. But back in the seventies,
jeep if you saw a jeep on the road and
not well know, you waved. They all waved at each other,
but there was about a ninety five percent chance that
that person was an off rotor as well. And about
half of the jeep said those little winches on the
front of him. And I remember it didn't snow that
(29:24):
much in Georgia, but uh, every time it snowed, my
dad would get on the horn with his jeep buddies
and they would get out and pull people out of
ditches and like tow cars, you know, onto the road
and stuff like that, just for no other reason than
to like, you know, it's probably fun for them to
come in and save the day, you know, yeah, and
to help to get that sense of satisfaction. Same. I mean,
(29:46):
this is a it's the same thing except a little
less rugged. Yeah, they were. It was also the CB crowd,
which kind of ties it all together. They're the they're
the rough ones though that the jeep dudes all had
to CBS and we talk to each other and right,
all right, so there's no age restriction. Every country is
going to have their own licensing deal, but here in
(30:07):
the US you have to pass the test. Now. I
think it's what multiple choice questions. I'm curious what they are.
I I looked and I didn't really see any. Um,
just be nice, just be nice. How much do you
love America? A lot? Super a lot more than my
head can take sometimes? And then Toby Keith levels right, Um,
(30:32):
But there's three different types of licenses in there, graduated
in difficulty the tests are, but each one gives you
more access to more bands on the spectrum. I think
the highest class is the extra class. And um, you
don't need to know more for any of these now,
(30:54):
but I'll bet, I'll bet if you're a level three
HAM license holder, you probably no more code pretty well too.
I'm sure it's not across the board, but I'll bet
it's pretty high percentage because I imagine you might have
a little egg on your face if you're an extra
class uh license holder and everybody's just speaking to one
another making yeah, and you're like, could you say that
(31:18):
please out loud? I feel a little left out, Like, no, son,
didn't it beeps? Or is it clicks? Is it both? Okay? Both?
I think it depends on the receiver. There is something
called the American Radio Relay League the a r r L,
(31:38):
and they've got a great website if you go UM.
They're all manner of articles about your entree into Ham
operating and UM statistics and tips and pointers. It's their
their way into it UM. In Atlanta, we have a
club I can't remember the name of it UM, but
it was formed in nineteen eleven and apparently is the
(32:01):
oldest continuously running club in Georgia. Wow, that actually predates
Ham Radio according to this. Oh no, it predates the
American Radio Relay League. Yeah, they were that's really impressive.
It's pretty neat. Go Atlanta. I kind of want to
go to a meeting now and just say hi, I'm chucking. No,
I'll be like, uh, should we talk about the equipment
(32:26):
a bit? I guess yeah. I was like, basically I
had to do a crash course in radio theory. I
didn't know a lot of this, you know, like I
know the wavelength is the distance between two crests. I
knew that frequency is how many waves pass like any
given point in one second. Um, But I didn't understand
(32:47):
how radio waves are like propagated, or how antennas receive them.
And apparently you are running an electromagnetic field through your
antenna and the end yeah, pretty much. And your antenna
UM basically is to put it in a layman's terms,
(33:08):
shooting out radio waves that are being created by an
oscillator in your in your transceiver, your transmitter, or these
radio waves which once you shoot it out, if you
were in outer space shooting off a radio wave, and
it was guaranteed to never run into a planet or
a star or anything like that, it would just keep
going forever. Right, That's what a radio wave wants to do.
(33:30):
It just wants to keep going. It's not going to
get messed up or diminished, degrade or anything like that.
It's when it runs into stuff that it starts to
or when it when it's hit by m cosmic rays
that it starts to diminish, degrade or something like that. Right,
So UM, the if it hits UH antenna and the
(33:52):
antenna is cut to the right length, and the length
that you're looking for is half the length half the
sense of the wavelength. So if you have a very
low frequency wave that's um, you know, a hundred feet
between waves, you would want a fifty ft antenna to
(34:14):
to pick it up UM ideally. And that's basically the
rule of thumb, as you want half the distance of
the wavelength you're receiving to UM pick up a wavelength
or a radio wave UM most efficiently. UM. But anyway,
when a radio wave encounters this electric field, this electromagnetic
(34:36):
field that you have running up and down your antenna,
it basically excites the electrons in a way that it
shoots down into your receiver and magically is transformed into
a voice. It's really, really really difficult to understand all this,
Like people go and get like masters and PhDs in
this kind of thing. It's really tough. Guys, give me
(34:59):
a break. Wow, do you already since the higher. Yeah,
even from amateurs, I think are probably like that was terrible.
I can sense that was terrible. No, I think I
feel confident in it. Uh. You probably have a transceiver. Um.
Like I said, you could have just a receiver if
you just want to listen, but you might want to
(35:20):
talk to UH if you go to buy a new transceiver.
I mean they run the gamut in price. Um. I
saw like these fancy ones with all kinds of uh
really gadgets and spon divots on it that was like
a thousand dollars and up I saw a pretty good
one for a thousand dollars too. But you don't have
to go that route. UM, if you want to go
a little more old school, was something that's a little
(35:41):
easier to master, UM quicker, then you could get an
old used one. Yeah. Analog ones are the ones with
the tuners that you have to like physically, you know,
adjust your dial, which they're not quite as precise as
these digital ones, which um you know you can us
the frequency uh to like a hundreds of a past
(36:05):
the decimal. Yeah, they're really really precise, but there are
a lot more complicated and they're more expensive. You don't
need that to start for sure. Well, and that's one
of the things they point out this article too, right,
Like if you think about millions of people, um, and
only a certain amount of bandwidth, apparently, I think that's
where you can be on the same frequency and just
(36:26):
dial it back by a couple of little points and
create a new I don't know if that count as
a new frequency or just part a subset of the
same frequency. I don't know where that begins, where the
cutoff is. Yeah, but that's to keep from overlapping and
you know, jamming someone else's frequency, yeah, which can be
a problem, especially if people in the same town are
(36:48):
using the same frequency for a different conversation, which is
why most of the time when you're in the same town,
you probably know the other HAM operators. And so if
you're having like a net network where you're like sitting
around hanging out talking to other people in the same area, um,
you were going to have a receiver receiving and transmitting
(37:11):
frequency pair that everybody's using that you're you know, is
different from something someone else in town or in that
same area is going to be using as well. Yeah,
And if you need to move it, you just text
each other and say to just get on the internet,
and then you go, oh, wait a minute, what are
we doing? Uh? Antennas are obviously a big, big part
of this. And I get the feeling that um Hams
(37:35):
really enjoy um hacking objects as antenna's. Uh kind of
like when you may even remember this, but when when
I was a kid, did you have like antenna TVs
when your kid? You remember that or was it always
cable for you? Um? I never had an antenna, but
like neighbors did. Yeah, I know, yeah, I remember when
(38:01):
you when I was a kid, Like you know, you
would put the tinfoil sometimes attached to the antenna. Oh real,
like rabbit ears on a TV. Yeah, I thought you
meant the ones on the roof. Oh well those two,
I guess, but I mean rabbit ears. Sure. Yeah, we
had this so like if you're not getting the picture,
you would you would put like foil aluminum foil at
the end and it stuck to have to stand and
be the one to stand there and hold it. Yeah.
And sometimes you yourself could act as an antenna if
(38:23):
you had metal in your hand or in your teeth. Yeah,
And I get the feeling him enthusiasts really get into
that because some of the different things that they will
use uh include windows, screens on the floor of upper
floor of a hotel, UH, an extension ladder, an aluminum ladder,
rain gutters, and down spouts, slinkys. Slinky made sense to me. Yeah,
(38:48):
but that's a heck of a antenna. Put a slinky
on a pole. Basically anything that that's metal that you
can get a current going through and transmit and receive on. Yeah,
they're talking abou wires like you cast with a fishing
pole between dormitories. This is old school stuff. It's very cool.
Do you know what burglar tape is? No, I saw that.
(39:10):
I'd never heard of that. Apparently the Internet hasn't either,
because I cannot find any other reference to burglar tape
aside from this article. Yeah, I don't know everything the Internet.
It's probably like burglars caught on tape or some burglar
died after being taped to a tree when he was caught. Yeah. Yeah,
(39:32):
ham radio to me, that kind of falls in that
bucket of things that I was talking about, like old
I can't remember which podcast it was, but old technologies
that you can still use, Like I think it's a
cool skill to have. Like, if it all goes south
and everything the internet crumbles and people turn on one
(39:53):
another ham radio, the Hams are gonna be ahead of
the game. You know, they're gonna be able to communicate
with one another. Yeah, kind of a neat skill to have. Yeah,
they'll be like, yeah, the purge looks like it has
come to pass. The city's on fire. You can go
to a ham fest if you want to meet people,
and you can buy cheap used equipment, sure, and get
(40:18):
tips and tricks from the people you're buying from. Like, yeah,
if you if you're at all into this, find a
ham fest. Oh yeah, and if it turns out to
be the food, then enjoy that as well. Lucked out.
It's called a happy accident. Uh. And then they say
the best thing to do, like you said, is to
talk to a HIM enthusiast. And apparently the teachers are
(40:41):
called Elmer's and uh, I imagine they delight in teaching
any young kid that comes their way about ham radio.
I think there's very very few that are like, out
of my face, kid, I don't want to pass on
my knowledge. I bet they really enjoy that. Yeah, I'll
there's there's genuinely zero of them who are like, forget you.
(41:05):
I don't have time for this. I don't like talking
all right, celebrity hams, are we there? Yeah? Number one
Ronnie Mills out Apparently Joe Walsh of the Eagles and
the James Gang is a Ham. Gary Shandling was I
did not know pass And that's the neat thing you
can talk with Joe Walsh maybe right, Like the community
(41:27):
is they encouraged that he's not like I'm Joe Walsh.
I'm I'm looking for Ronnie millsap only right, I just
want privacy on my Ham radio. For Scilla Pressley what
probably spreading a scientology via Ham right now? She was
a scientologist, oh yeah, or a King Hussain of Jordan's.
There were a lot of surprised to see a lot
(41:48):
of dignitaries and like presidents and uh like leaders of
the free world. It's crazy. I am enthusiasts. Barry Goldwater
was chet Atkins, and Brando apparently was Oh man, could
you imagine that conversation. You would be able to pick
him out immediately, like I think that's Marlon Brando talking
(42:10):
lies descending on my face. The darkness like, Uh, that's
not Joe Walsh right. Uh, and apparently when you die
it's very sad. It's called an s K, a silent key.
And uh that means you're no longer operating, not in
this realm, at least not using these antenna I like
(42:31):
that thought. Nice a positive note. Uh, you got anything else?
Nothing else? I'm gonna go out and get a Ham radio.
I knew you've got. You bought a slinky, you got
exploding head syndrome. Now you're gonna become a Ham operator.
If you want to know more about Ham radio, you
can start by typing those words into our search part.
But again, just start asking around. Find somebody who is
(42:54):
a hammer a radio operator. Yeah, find an Elmer and
they will teach you everything you need to know. And
since I said Olmer, it's time for listener mail. Hey guys,
A huge fan of the show, Great entertainment, interesting stuff
that as a normal lazy person I would never look
up myself. I really wanted to thank you for keeping
(43:14):
me company while training for my first ever marathon. I
believe it's a New York marathon. Yes, training is brutal,
long hours running alone with nothing to do, but obsess
on how much it sucks and why on earth am
I doing this? I don't even like to drive twenty
six miles. I can't imagine running that. You know, a
bit of background. I'm thirty nine years old, first time
(43:37):
ever running a marathon. Uh, and it's going to be
the New York City Marathon in early November. Well, that's
a heck of a one to start on. Yeah, listen
to your show makes me makes training so much better.
I've tried everything from music, audiobooks, regular radio, other podcasts.
Nothing keeps my mind distracted from the pain better than
your show. Everything's disgusting. It makes me cute. I truly
(43:57):
love it. I'm not sure if you guys have on it,
but Babe, a marathon episode would be great. Why do
we put ourselves through such hell? And the high that
one gets from running and completing a race runners higher,
that'd be interesting. I would do a marathon one. I
would not not a marathon. I would do a marathon episode.
It would be really short. We just do that to
(44:18):
be funny, or we make it exactly twenty six minutes long. Anyway,
Thanks again, guys, and congrats for an excellent show that
is uh. Marco, Marco, good luck, Yeah, buddy, good luck
In November. Um, this will be coming out sort of
around that time. Yeah, so you can listen to it
as you crossed the finish line. Yeah, that'd you go, Marco?
Come on, man, you can do it. Hang on there,
(44:40):
get up, Get up, Marco, come on. Oh you should
probably seek medical attention for that. Just just stay there, man,
stay down. I love it. Thanks Marco. Best of luck
to you for reals though, UH and all of you
who are running in the New York City Marathon or
any marathon, or doing anything that you use us to
(45:01):
motivate you with, you can do it. Just keep it up.
If you want to get in touch with us, you
can hang out with me on Twitter at josh um
Clark and uh s y s K podcast. You can
hang out with Chuck at Charles W. Chuck Bryant on
Facebook and UH stuff you Should Know on Facebook. You
can send us an email to stuff Podcast at how
stuff Works dot com and has always joined us at
(45:22):
our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
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