Amateur Radio

Amateur Radio is a hobby for those that experiment.

The picture at the top of the page is me trying all sorts of different ways to get my Baofeng UV-5R to program using CHIRP. The cable was good, the software seemed to work, but darn it, the radio would just stop communicating. Turns out I needed to apply some serious pressure to the cable so that the connection would be consistently made inside the radio. Gotta love the real world.

This is a hobby that is meant to be explored with failure and success being good friends.

Getting Started

Find a training course. Many are free with the only cost being the fee to sit for the exam. Salvation Army locations that handle disaster/emergency response offer them. You can find training classes through the American Radio Relay League (ARRL). The ARRL training page is here.

You will want to purchase the study guide, which you can get through Amazon or the ARRL. I found the book to be helpful but, if I didn’t get additional education through a class or youtube videos, I would probably just end up memorizing the answers to the questions.

Useful Links