What do you think about when somebody mentions “amateur radio” (also
know as “ham radio”)?
If a mental image pops up in your head of a truckers talking in a
microphone in his cab about “the bear in the sky”, or old men doing
morse code using a vintage radio with vacuum tubes, be prepared to have
that idea challenged!
The International Telecommunication Union (the “radio” organisation of the UN) described hamradio as “a service for the purpose of self-training, intercommunication and technical investigations carried out by amateurs, that is, by duly authorized persons interested in radio technique, solely with a personal aim and without pecuniary interest”.
The “amateur radio for hackers” is a presentation of amateur radio from a technical perspective. It starts with a 40 minutes grand tour of what is amateur radio (in all its aspects) and the amateur radio infrastructure, continues with “What’s it like to be a radio amateur?” to explain the ham radio build-it-yourself ethos and ends with some legal and practicle issues.
So if you think that amateur radio is just for people nostalgic of the 70s, or a hobby that has become irrelevant with the advent of the internet, the talk aims to show that, yes, amateur radio has also entered the 21th century and does in fact include with quite a few very geeky elements!
