H. Ward Silver - Ham Radio For Dummies

Website and newsletter: If you can write, edit, or maintain a website, don’t hesitate to volunteer your services to the club newsletter editor or webmaster. Chances are that this person has several projects backlogged and would be delighted to have your help. You’ll also become informed about everything happening with the club.

Find out who’s currently in charge of these areas and offer your help. You’ll discover a new aspect of ham radio, gain a friend, and make a contribution.

Along with holding ongoing committee meetings and other business, most clubs sponsor several activities throughout the year. Some clubs are organized around one major activity; others seem to have one or two going on every month. Here are a few common club activities:

Public service: This activity usually entails providing communication services during a local sporting or civic event, such as a parade or festival. Events like these are great ways for you to hone your operating skills.

Contests and challenges: Operating events are great fun, and many clubs enter on-the-air contests as a team or club. Sometimes, clubs challenge each other to see which can generate the most points. You can either get on the air yourself or join a multiple-operator station. (For more on contests, see Chapter 11.)

Work parties: What’s a club for if not to help its own members? Raising a tower or doing antenna work at the club’s station or that of another member is a great way to meet active hams and gain experience with station building.

Construction projects: Building your own equipment and antennas is a lot of fun, so clubs occasionally hold “show and tell” or “homebrew” meetings. Some sponsor group construction projects in which everyone builds a particular item at the same time. Building your own equipment saves money and lets everyone work together to solve problems. If you like building things or have technical skills, taking part in construction projects is a great way to help out.

Take part in activities for newcomers even if you think you already understand the topic or technique. You’ll get some practice and may learn a thing or two that you had overlooked. If you do have it down pat, lend a hand to another new ham who needs a little help. That’s mentoring!

Supporting your club by participating in activities and committees is important. For one thing, you can acknowledge the help you get from the other members. You also start to become a mentor to other new members. By being active within the club, you strengthen the organization, your friendships with others, and the hobby in general.

The American Radio Relay League (ARRL; www.arrl.org ) is one of the oldest continuously functioning amateur radio organization in the world. It provides services to hams around the world and plays a key part in representing the ham radio cause to the public and governments. That ham radio could survive for more than 100 years without a strong leadership organization is hard to imagine, and ARRL has filled that role. I devote a whole section of this chapter to ARRL simply because it’s such a large presence within the hobby for U.S. hams (and for those in Canada who belong to its sister organization, Radio Amateurs of Canada).

ARRL is a volunteer-based, membership-oriented organization. Rest assured that even as a new ham, you can make a meaningful contribution as a volunteer. To find out how to join, go to www.arrl.org/membership .

The most visible benefits of ARRL membership are the magazines that you receive month (see Figure 3-1). The largest, oldest, and most widely read ham radio magazine, QST includes feature articles on technical and operating topics, reports on regulatory information affecting the hobby, the results of ARRL-sponsored competitions, and columns on a wide variety of topics.

Courtesy American Radio Relay League

FIGURE 3-1: QST , On The Air, QEX, and NCJ cover nearly every aspect of ham radio plus product reviews and ads from almost every ham radio vendor.

The magazine On The Air is intended for the new ham with articles and projects to help you get going. Two other publications, QEX for technical experimenters and National Contest Journal or NCJ for competitive radio, are also available with your membership. These four publications cover everything from current events to state-of-the-art technology.

Along with the magazines, ARRL maintains an active and substantial website, providing current news and general-interest stories; the Technical Information Service, which allows you to search technical documents and articles online; and several free email bulletins, online newsletters, and social media services.

Why does W1AW transmit bulletins over the air in this day and age of broadband connectivity? Bulletins may sound old-fashioned but they offer an opportunity to test equipment, assess radio propagation, and practice copying live Morse code on the air.

ARRL also manages the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), which helps hams organize at the local level to support local government and public-safety functions with emergency communication services. These teams also perform public service by providing support and communications services for parades, sporting events, and similar events. You can find out more about ARES and public service activities in Chapter 10.

In addition, ARRL is the largest single sponsor of operating activities for hams, offering numerous contests, award programs, and technical and emergency exercises.

By far the most visible aspect of ARRL on the ham bands is its headquarters station, W1AW (see Figure 3-2). Carrying the call sign of ARRL founder Hiram Percy Maxim, the powerful station beams bulletins and Morse code practice sessions to hams around the planet every day. Visiting hams can even operate the W1AW station themselves (as long as they remember to bring a license). Most hams think that being at the controls of one of the most famous and storied ham stations in the world is the thrill of a lifetime.

FIGURE 3-2:The world-famous W1AW station in Newington, Connecticut.

The ARRL is a volunteer examiner coordinator (VEC) organization. You may take your licensing test at an ARRL-VEC exam session. (See Part 2for information about the licensing process.) With the largest number of volunteer examiners (VEs), the ARRL-VEC helps thousands of new and active hams take their licensing exams, obtain vanity and special call signs, renew their licenses, and update their license information of record. When the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could no longer maintain the staff to administer licensing programs, ARRL and other ham organizations stepped forward to create the largely self-regulated VEC programs that are instrumental to healthy ham radio.