What is Ham Radio? Real hurricane damage. Imagine the ability to up-link to a satellite and transmit your voice via a satellite dish to the other side of the world, or talking to a Japanese fisherman with a transmitter that uses less power than the light bulb in your bathroom. Imagine assisting stricken citizens after a tornado rips through Oklahoma, or the excitement of building an antenna for the first time that works and can send signals halfway around the world. Imagine passing emergency traffic to government aid agencies, and weather reports to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency from the Caribbean from the safety of your room after a powerful hurricane slams into the region. This is ham radio, but wait there is more. I have yet to go through half of all the facets of Amateur Radio, more commonly called ham An ambitious ham operator's antenna system. radio. Ham radio is so diverse and limit less in scope, that it may take a life-time to explore it in all its forms. In definition, ham radio is a radio service, that is monitored by the Federal Communications Commission, also known as the F.C.C. Ham Radio's purpose is to spread goodwill around the world through radio, provide volunteer emergency communications in disasters, and maintain a pool of experienced and knowledgable radio operators and electronics enthusiasts. Imagine a CB or an old car radio dial, where you have to tune with a knob to change the channel. Now, to visualize ham radio, imagine extending the dial beyond it's current limits thousands of kilohertz. This is an analogy that shows how much frequency spectrum ham radio operators have available. Ham radio operators have an enormous amount of frequencies dedicated specifically for their use for communications worldwide. This spectrum ranges from frequency segments near the AM broadcast band up into the microwave region. This vast amount of frequency spectrum allows hams to experiment, develop new technologies, launch communications satellites for use for free, exchange digital information, create wireless datalinks, exchange pictures and data, and best of all, communicate with their friends across the face of the earth. Well, this is all great, how do I become a ham? Continue to Learn... » How Do I Get My Ham License? Would you like to post this on your website? Reprint information, email at sam(at)hamquick.com "What is Ham Radio?" Copyright 2002. Samuel Szarka. www.hamquick.com