What is hobby radio?

Conor108

Like what do you do? Is it just radioing other people, playing games and stuff?

OKenora

Hobby radio is communicating via radio with other like minded people.

It is not always done by voice as there are many other ways to do it, the most obvious being by TV but there are digital modes too that allow data transfer via radio, somewhat similar to data transfer via the internet. Of course then there is the famous morse code.

For some hobbyists it is no more than a means to chat to their m8 down the road, some people enjoy the challenge of making contact with people from other countries all over the world. Some do it as they enjoy building their own equipment and some as they enjoy showing off the latest all singing and dancing radio they just paid several thousand euro for

Communication is not just confined to the earth either, hobby radio operators have satellites in orbit which can also be used to communicate, much like you receive your sky TV pictures.

Some people do not even communicate with others via radio, contenting themselves with simply listening for what they can receive, commonly known as SWL's (short wave listeners), if it was the internet they would be our equivalent of lurkers who read the forums but never contribute.

It's a diverse hobby with many facets to appeal to a wide variety of people of all technical skill levels.

How did i do in explaining that ?

DE GI7UIP

watty

Or it could be receiving weather satellites, Big aerials to receive far off broadcast stations. Or slight more grey, listening to Marine & Air traffic. (Both of these have weather reports).

Or even a bit of DIY radio astronomy.

Is passive radar legal?
You have a receivers only. one is fixed and recieves outward pulse from Radar base site. The other receiver picks up the aircraft echo and then you can build the display...