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IST 605: Amateur Radio (HAM)

Ham and Shortwave Radio for the Electronics Hobbyist

This book gives a step-by-step guide on how to set up and operate an amateur radio. This book also gives an extensive overview of the technical information in radio and provides nice graphics for understanding different concepts. The book is a useful resource for readers looking for a comprehensive guide on the technical details of amateur radio and want to learn how to use them. It has information that is relevant for beginners, but there is technical language and some assumptions of existing knowledge in some of the more complex topics discussed in the book. 

Exploring the Ham Bands: A Journey Through Radio Frequencies

This website provides a comprehensive overview of amateur radio bands. This includes information on what frequencies are granted for broadcasting based on your license class, and what radio frequency bands are popularly used for different activities and conditions. This can be a good reference for knowing what different bands are used for. For new people wanting to get their first radio, this is also important, as what activities you want to do on the air will influence your radio choice. The only limitation for this source is that it has some technical vocabulary that beginners may not know. 

Find a Club

This search tool from the ARRL website lets people search for affiliated clubs in their area. Most clubs in amateur radio are affiliated with the ARRL, so no matter where you are, there should be a club near you. It will give you the name of the club as well as other useful information, like the club's website. This source will be useful for people looking to find clubs to join or to see events to participate in hosted by clubs. For best results, I would recommend only searching with a zip code or searching by city and state, NOT both in the same search; it may not work correctly. The problem with the search can be improved for better use.

r/HamRadio

This source is an established forum page focused on discussing amateur radio. Its the easiest way to interact with the community and ask questions. People have contributed a lot of useful information for both beginners and experienced radio operators. You are able to search in r/HamRadio as well, so don't forget to take advantage of it. Your question may have already been asked before. Overall, most people who contribute leave links to resources that will guide you and give you further information on the topic, but it is an open forum, so quality can vary. Still, it's a good source to go to and gives you a good look into the amateur radio community.

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POTA (Parks On The Air)

This source gives information on how to get started with a popular amateur radio activity called POTA (Parks on the Air). This activity encourages amateur radio operators to go out to State and National Parks and make as many on-air contacts as possible. POTA is very beginner-friendly, so for new amateur radio operators, this is a good activity to try. This site only has documentation for POTA. The site people use for their account, which contains maps of locations, is on a separate site. They don't make it obvious, so below is the link for the other POTA website. 

Ham Radio For Dummies

This is a reference book on technical information surrounding amateur radio. This is a good resource to use to learn information or check your understanding on different topics. The language in the book is easy to understand and provides definitions for technical vocabulary, so even beginners can find use from this resource. What makes this book stand out is that it also has icons to notify readers of important information or when it's not necessary for the main idea of the topic, and can be skipped. This book does have limitations, however, with information on the history of amateur radio that may be useful for more context.