The home of Terence M8IPK
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The home of Terence M8IPK
Foundation Licence
Ok, the easiest way to obtain your Foundation Licence is to
contact Essex Ham and get on one of their online Foundation
courses, it’s free to join and extremely informative and believe me
Pete (M0PSX) is a great tutor, he will talk you right through the
course and cover every module carefully.
Just click the pic to the left and follow all the links to the course,
also check out the provided video’s. Although you will need to
book the actual exam through the RSGB (Radio Society of Great
Britain)
I’ve added this here but will say that the RSGB website can be
difficult to navigate, they are aware of this and I believe they are
actively working to improve things. As with Essex Ham just click
the pic to the left and the link will take you straight there. If you
wish to take up any of the activities on this page you will require
the RSGB to get that Foundation licence as you can only book an
exam via them in the UK. I’m sure that in no time their site will be
better laid out, but in the meantime please use the services
provided.
Equipment
Radio’s
You don’t need much to make a reasonable
contact, a cheap handheld like I used (Baofeng
UV5R) got me over 100 miles, although
propagation and salt water helped with that.
A good second hand HF radio (until you are more
into the hobby) Second hand radio’s are readily
available from good stockists, EG Waters and
Stanton, Martin Lynch & Sons, Moonraker,
Lamco, Radioworld and others.
Antenna’s
It’s okay to have a fantastic radio but if you attach
a piece of string it simply isn’t going to work.
When I go out portable I use various vertical
antenna’s.
At home I use an end fed dipole and a 49/1 unun
(unbalanced to unbalanced, that gives me 40M,
20M, 15M, and 10M (don’t wory you will get used
to this terminology)
What Can I Do?
With 25 Watts of power you actually have the
potential to talk across the world and across Europe is
very do able.
Yeah I’m not joking about that either, I did say
potential to talk across the world didn’t I? First of all
there’s the Digital Modes, DMR, DStar, Fusion and
more and with these modes you can use a simple
handheld radio that pushes out 5 Watts of power.
With that 5 Watt radio you can chat ANYWHERE in
the world (with programming) the choice is limitless.
With HF how far you get on HF largely depends on
Propagation (See Propagation Page)
Use HF Radio and Digital Modes.
Build and use your own Radio.
Talk to the International Space Station and Orbiting
satellites.
Amateur Radio Direction Finding (ARDF).
Get involved using Raspberry Pi Projects.
Get involved with Youth On The Air (YOTA).
Summits on the air (SOTA) and Parks on the air
(POTA).
Get involved with the Amateur Radio Community (Via
RSGB).
Moonbounce.
Take a look at these three leaflets from the RSGB
there is much information within all designed to
help future Radio Hams.