Red River Radio Amateurs

Amateur radio is an activity that falls between two camps, those who think of it as a service and those who approach it as a hobby.

I think that the notion of amateur radio as a service is often repeated, but in my time as part of this community, I’ve seen little evidence of actual service. That said, the idea of amateur radio as a service is often linked to emergency communications, for example, a phrase used by the Wireless Institute of Australia is “Amateur Radio - A Trusted Partner in Emergency Response” on a page outlining the long and fabled history of our hobby in service to the community in times of emergency, mind you, none of them in the past decade.

In this episode of ARRL’s monthly On The Air podcast: “Maintaining a junk box—a collection of odds and ends that can be used in future projects and repairs—is a time-honored practice among hams. Every ham radio junk box has to start somewhere, though. The cover story of the January/February 2024 issue of On the Air, A Fine Mess: Starting Your Junk Box, by Eric P. Nichols, KL7AJ, offers advice about how to do just that. The January 2024 episode of the On the Air podcast digs deeper by going on location to the workshop of W1AW, ARRL’s Hiram Percy Maxim Memorial Station. Station Manager Joe Carcia, NJ1Q, welcomes us into this working space to show us some real-life junk boxes and discuss how they come in handy. “¹

In this episode of ARRL’s monthly On The Air podcast: “This episode ties into a feature in the November/December issue called Bits and Baud, which discussed important elements of digital communication, namely the quantity of information a transmission delivers—known as bit rate—and the rate of speed at which the information is delivered, which is known as baud rate. The article’s author, former QST Editor Steve Ford, WB8IMY, joins us to explain more about the differences between bit rate and baud rate, as well as why hams are concerned with these measurements in the first place.” ¹

In this episode of ARRL’s monthly On The Air podcast:

“Contesting encompasses so much of the hobby,” says seasoned contester Craig Thompson, K9CT, “from station building, learning how to operate, understanding propagation, knowing rules, learning from your peers,” that there’s something in it for every ham radio operator. As current member and former president of the Society of Midwest Contesters, Craig knows the ins and outs of running a contest club and ensuring that the value proposition makes sense to the average member. In this episode, Craig talks about why you might want to get involved with a contest club, what it entails, and how these specialized clubs stir up on-air activity that benefits every ham.

In this episode of ARRL’s monthly On The Air podcast: “Gary Mikitin’s, AF8A, article, The Solar Eclipse QSO Party: A Fun Way Support Radio Science in the September/October 2023 issue of On the Air details how hams can contribute data to a study on how the ionosphere reflects radio signals during the eclipse via an easygoing on-air event called the Solar Eclipse QSO Party. Gary, who is the Amateur Radio Community Coordinator of HamSCI, joins us on the October episode of the On the Air podcast, to talk about just how easy it is to participate.”¹