What Use Is An F-call?

What use is an F-call? Amateur Radio is a hobby that's been around for over a century. In that time we've seen evolution in electronics, in communications, in science and in society. Our hobby has also evolved with those changes. Every time a new Ham comes along they bring with them their perspective on the world. The rich tapestry that Amateur Radio represents is particularly dense with historic, sometimes even ancient references that need context to understand. In the early days of Amateur Radio, communication was achieved using Morse Code, in itself a fascinating approach to codifying language and for the record, not the only or the first. Today CW is still in use, but other forms of communication have augmented the hobby and the wider communications field as well. Today, when you listen to Amateurs talking, you'll hear them say 73, or QSO, or QTH, or XYL, or any number of weird acronyms that make little or mainly no sense at all. Let me start with saying that sentence again, but now using english wor

What use is an F-call? In June 2011 I started a weekly net for new and returning Hams. It was born from the idea that there had to be a place where people could congregate and learn. At the time the ink on my license was barely dry and my amateur radio on-air time could be measured in minutes, rather than hours. The net is called F-troop and in the past I’ve spoken a little about it here, how you can participate and when it’s on. For the record, it’s on from 08:00 to 09:00 every Saturday morning, Western Standard Time, or midnight UTC. Locally it’s on VK6RAP, 146.7 MHz, or via VK3JED Echolink conference or IRLP node 9558. But that’s not what I want to talk about today. Its more about the impact of the net within Amateur Radio. As a direct result I have people contacting me via email, phone and radio and meet people face to face every week. These interactions stimulate inventions, ideas and experiments and in turn encourage new people to participate. I get regular comment about people listening in on the si

What use is an F-call? From DC to Daylight is a term that until I became an Amateur, I'd never heard of and since becoming licensed I've bumped into it more than a couple of times. Once you sit and think about it, the notion, from DC to Daylight makes perfect sense, but what does it mean? I'll start off with that I'm not talking about Cheap Therapy for your Inner Problem Child - the Rock band based in San Jose, California. So, DC, or Direct Current, as opposed to AC, or Alternating Current does not change frequency, that is, the positive and negative poles never swap over, so the frequency that they switch at is 0Hz or zero times per second. If you reverse the poles, the frequency at which you do that, say flick a switch once every second, the frequency is 1Hz. AC does it 50 or 60 times per second, or 50 or 60 Hz. As you keep increasing the frequency, you'll come past 160m, just below 2MHz, 80m around 7MHz, etc, onto 2m around 145MHz, 70cm and up to WiFi at 2.4GHz, then 5.8GHz, eventually, you'll get to

What use is an F-call? As a direct result of being involved in Amateur Radio, I find myself spending more time at my workbench figuring out things, repairing equipment and investigating new solutions. My workbench oscillates between clean enough to eat from, to a place where a cyclone went through in the past hour and all the stages in between. I realised that there are some contributing factors to this. Amateur Radio, a lot like LEGO, requires lots of little parts, the obligatory bolts and nuts, washers and the like, connectors and adapters, fuses and wire. Then there are a growing number of resistors, capacitors and other odds and ends. The projects waiting to be done and the failed ones. I started hunting for storage for all these little bits. I investigated little electronics drawers, but found them prohibitively expensive if you wanted to obtain enough to make a difference. If they were cheap, they were very thin and if they were nice and robust, they came in at a couple of bucks per drawer, which add

What use is an F-call? If you're new to Amateur Radio, like I am, it can be daunting to be surrounded by other amateurs who have seen that, done that and wrote the book. As you interact with those amateurs it will quickly become apparent that they got to that place because they started something and tried it. In today's culture we often solve a problem by throwing money at it. It's a perfectly valid approach to life, but it leaves behind the thrill of trying to make something work. Having an Amateur License doesn't instantly transform you into a builder or inventor, it sort of creeps up on you. You get your shack set-up and you find that a particular thing you need, a switch, a connector, a patch-lead, or some other gadget cannot be found, is too expensive or takes three weeks to ship and you cannot live without it. Perhaps you spend a little time online searching for other solutions and alternatives and you hit upon a web-page that has a fellow Amateur describing your problem and their solution, just as

What use is an F-call? Amateur Radio is a social experience, an activity that invites and thrives on communication. As a participant in the hobby, either recent or long standing, there are many amateurs around who share your interests and can participate with you in your exploration of what amateur radio means to you. These people who share your experiences are your own little amateur community and while it's safe to stay with those, you might consider that the hobby is a gateway into a wide range of experiences and disciplines, so your little view on the world is likely to benefit from interacting with new people. As is common in our society, this time of year is traditionally used for reflection and in my thinking about Amateur Radio, I'm using this time to reflect on the things I've learnt and the people I've met over the past 12 months. I have started with Morse, done some serious contesting, met a whole host of Amateurs from around the country, built a magnetic loop antenna, built my first electronics

What use is an F-call? The name of this segment is meaningful if you are aware of Amateur Radio Licensing in Australia, but if this is all new to you, then I might as well have said, What use is a Flux Capacitor? Let's start with some generic information. Unlike CB radio, where the license is based on the equipment itself, a so-called Type Approval, that is, if you use a certified CB Radio, you're licensed to use it, Amateur Radio works differently. In Amateur Radio, the approval is related to a person, they are licensed to be an Amateur and that in turn affords them privileges and responsibilities. In Australia, there are three basic license types, Foundation, Standard and Advanced. Each license has different requirements and obligations and grants you different privileges. When you obtain a license, you can apply for a callsign that is related to your level of license. The license that can get you on-air in a weekend is the Foundation License and the callsign associated with that starts with VK, which m

What use is an F-call? For a little while now I’ve been working towards obtaining my DXCC, contacting 100 countries. When I talk about it, often the first question is, how many contacts have you made? I’m always a little ashamed to admit that I’ve yet to make my first. Often I then get lots of helpful advice on what to do. Let me share with you what I’ve been doing since I made the commitment to obtain my Low Power, or QRP DXCC. As I said at the time, I don’t know if this is going to take a week, a month, a year or a decade, but I intend to get there, if not for others, but for myself as a personal challenge. My first quest along this road was to get on-air. I started thinking that I would do this from my car, set-up my mobile vertical at a suitable location and just start making QSO’s. I spent a fair amount of time scouting for locations, found a few to test and after sitting for a couple of days in these spots a number of things became apparent to me. My antenna, as great as it is, is a pain to set-up

What use is an F-call? If you've just passed your Amateur Radio exams and you're waiting for your license to arrive, you're where I was two years ago. Surrounded by people who have had their license longer than I've been on the planet, with so many options and not a single idea where to start. Let me start with saying, Welcome to Amateur Radio. There are many of us here and I'm confident that you'll find people around you in the community that share your interests and pursuits. Just like in any other community, you need to find the town square so to speak. That you're listening to this is an indication that you've found at least one part of the Amateur Community. This little corner, a weekly segment about having and using a Foundation Call is part of a weekly news system, in Western Australia, where this originates it forms part of the weekly News West news, nationally it's part of the VK1WIA news. Perhaps you've downloaded this, or you're listening to a local repeater, or any number of other ways that thi

What use is an F-call? Amateur Radio is as much about radio as it is about community. If you've only just received your license there is a vast treasure trove of information available on the Internet. Of course you'll find other amateurs online, search by callsign, since it seems that most amateurs include that somewhere in their post - seems like a badge of honour - seriously, there are billions of web pages around and finding those pertaining to amateur radio are greatly helped by the inclusion of your callsign. The Internet is used for all manner of things, information about choosing a radio, places to buy said radio and places to avoid. Information about buying or building antennas, information about propagation, online shacks with video streams, online receivers, clusters of computers sharing DX information, contests, logs and QSL information. There's software, maps, operation guides, buy and sell markets, discussion Fora, even what use is an F-call is online. One thing you might want to consider is

What use is an F-call? I hear regularly from other Amateurs in face-to-face conversation that they are not sure what to do and whom to talk to. These Amateurs, not all Foundation Licensees, for some or other reason feel that their contribution isn't nearly as valid as that of an Amateur who's been around the block a few times. Every experienced Ham I've ever spoken with has been nothing but gracious with their time and knowledge and serve as regular examples of getting on with it. They repair repeaters, do historical research, teach others, share anecdotes, provide skill and experience, encourage new comers and do so while dealing with failing health or other personal challenges. It would be absurd to think that you might get on with every person in life, and of course, Amateur Radio is a reflection of that. Some people are like kindred spirits and others just don't float your boat. This is a huge community, filled with many interests and activities all with the backdrop of a technically challenging hobby

What use is an F-call? I've now been an Amateur for a little longer than a minute and a half and my shed is beginning to resemble that of Amateurs who've been at it for much longer than I. There's a work-bench with two different type of soldering irons, boxes of connectors, spare antennas, rolls of cable, rope, clamps, testing tools, batteries, chargers and the like. There's screwdrivers, spanners, toolboxes and an overhead lamp and magnifying glass and I'm already running out of room. I've always had a shed of sorts, I'm a bit of a pack-rat, though I know others who take that moniker to an art-form, I'm not yet that advanced, call me an apprentice hoarder if you like. Today it occurred to me that what my challenge is, finding stuff, comes from something that I learnt whilst travelling around Australia for 5 years. For everything there is a place. My current shed hasn't yet learnt that lesson, so I'm going to be spending a little time doing some storage research and doing some organising. Who knows, per

What use is an F-call? If you've ever sat at home wanting to listen to HF but you're radio is out of commission, worse still, you haven't yet got a radio, or your antenna is a project in progress, I stumbled on a way to have your cake and eat it too. I was hunting for examples of a pile-up and I'd found in the past radios that had been hooked up to the Internet that you could tune and listen to. Today I stumbled across something of a different magnitude altogether. Something called Software Defined Radio on the Web, or websdr. A group of amateurs at the Technical University of Twente put up the worlds first websdr in 2007. It was conceived in an attempt to connect the 25m radio telescope in Dwingeloo to the world, for radio amateurs doing Earth Moon Earth or EME contacts, it snowballed from there. So, now you can go to websdr.org, pick from a list of 40 receivers around the planet and listen to what ever frequency is within the station's range. The Twente receiver does 0 to 29MHz, there are UHF, VHF and G

What use is an F-call? The excitement of participating in an Amateur Radio event, be it social, educational, competitive or otherwise is something that I've not seen or experienced in any other hobby. Every Amateur I interact with has a different history, a different bent, a different itch that they like to scratch. Some come to the hobby to design, build and use their inventions. Others come here to test their mettle against that of other Amateurs across the globe. Some come for the socialising and others for the mental agility they get from interacting with fellow enthusiasts. I've spent a year and a half trying to share with you what Amateur Radio is all about, it's from my perspective to be sure, but I try and find ways of highlighting different aspects of this all encompassing hobby. I've yet to put my finger on it, but there is something about Amateur Radio that other hobbies don't seem to have. Of course it's entirely possible that I've lived a sheltered life, but this crazy collection of people fr

What use is an F-call? On a regular basis I hear the phrase "When are you going to learn some more and upgrade your license?" I have no clear answer to that, other than to say that since I obtained my entrance into the hobby by spending a weekend learning and qualifying for my Foundation License, I have not stopped learning. I find myself surrounded by knowledgeable Amateurs on a weekly, if not daily basis who know their subject, are passionate about it and are happy to share it with anyone who is keen to learn. I've learnt about the practical implementation of antennas, am in the process of building my second antenna, have participated in several contests and to my surprise even won one. I am learning Morse, learning about propagation, have begun to learn to operate my own and other radios, have been exposed to social events, HAMfests, am part of the team that produce and present the weekly Amateur news, am an active club member and I still have time to host a weekly net for new and returning

What use is an F-call? I've spent the past couple of weeks investigating Magnetic Loop Antennas and during that process got distracted by propagation. I've talked about propagation before, but in talking with an Amateur with many years of experience, so much so, that they have had their licence longer than I've been alive, it transpired that there were still things that I was able to share that were new. The Australian Government, that is, the Bureau of Meteorology has a Department called the Radio and Space Services, which is their space weather branch. The more common name of this section is the Ionospheric Prediction Service or IPS and their website can be found at www.ips.gov.au. When you get there, you'll find a vast treasure trove of information, both historic and current, even live. Of particular interest to us as Amateurs is the section which innocuously is titled "HF Systems". Within that you'll find hourly area prediction charts, the current and past T-index with future predictions, M

What use is an F-call? You gotta love this hobby. A fellow amateur mentioned the notion of a Magnetic Loop antenna and now, several enjoyable hours later, I've been hunting and reading, learning and imagining what you might do with one of these contraptions. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, imagine an antenna that is small, efficient, simple to make and easy to lug around. Something that is especially interesting to me, since I'm getting a little worn out with putting up my 12m squid-pole for short outings. It's fine for a setup that's going to be there for a day, but I'm beginning to wonder if I couldn't improve on the antenna solution I've used to date. The build concept is pretty simple, a 1/10th wave-length circle with a smaller inner circle loop. Physically, there's lots of funky stuff happening, Magnetism, Capacitance and Resistance, all combining to make an amazing antenna - the full explanation is beyond a quick discussion, but excellent information is available. If you spend 20 minutes onli

What use is an F-call? If you're new to Amateur Radio, that is, you don't yet have a license, then some of what we talk about on the News each week very likely sounds like gobble-de-gook. Of course, the more you listen, the more you'll hear and likely the more you'll be able to join the dots. Amateur Radio is a regulated hobby, that is, there are rules and regulations, processes, procedures and conventions to observe. If this is all new to you, that might sound pretty strange and onerous, but you need to consider that Amateur Radio is a hobby that can affect people all over the planet. If you transmit on a frequency that interferes with some other service, then depending on conditions, you might knock an essential service off the air somewhere else. A regulated hobby also sounds pretty restrictive if you're new to all this, but the more you learn and participate, the more you realise that because there are strict conditions, there is great freedom within those conditions. It means that activities that you

What use is an F-call? It’s been said many times, Amateur Radio is about experimentation and learning. It bears repeating, Amateur Radio is about experimentation AND learning. I know you’ve heard it all before, but what does it actually mean? I regularly speak with Amateurs across the bands, via email, the phone and face-to-face. The single thing that strikes me is that there is lots of activity that you never see, never hear about, never even know about, unless you happen to bump into the Amateur who did the job or was part of the team doing it. We have the experimentation down pretty pat, that is, we all regularly fiddle with new stuff and fix, change, add or create contraptions or solutions regularly. Personally we’re doing that and each of us is personally learning from the effort. The thing that comes back to me in the conversations is that people are individually re-inventing the wheel over and over again. I see little evidence of inter-Amateur communication. There is some crossover in smaller gro

What use is an F-call? In 2005 there were no F-calls in Australia. Today there are more F-calls than Standard licenses. Clearly there is an influx of Amateurs coming from the introduction of the Foundation License. I know that there are many Amateurs who want F-calls to upgrade their license. This is not a new phenomenon. In the past there were Z-calls who were encouraged to upgrade their license. I suspect that if I spent enough time doing research and talking to HAMs who've been around the block, I'll find that there are examples going back to the dawn of Amateur Radio. In fact, a HAM, ie, us, is an example of that. In the official world of Radio Telegraphy a hundred years ago, us amateurs were not taken seriously as a group. Funny to think that today there are still people who distinguish themselves from Amateurs by calling themselves Professional. My point is this, being encouraged to upgrade or gain skill is nothing new. It's been around for over a century and it will continue long after everyone lis