Should you get into Amateur Radio?

Often when I hear conversations about getting into radio communication, a popular recommendation is to get an Amateur Radio license. I'd like to clarify a few things about the topic because the overlap is somewhat thin between Amateur Radio and using two-way radios for your event or your group of friends.

For the sake of this article, "event radio" will be used to describe tactical, practical, event, activity, and work communications. Everything involved in event radio technically can fall under the umbrella of Amateur Radio, but the facts on the ground are that they're really very different worlds with very little overlap. The exception to this is long-range communications. If you plan to get into HF and DX and bouncing signals off the D, E, and F layers of the ionosphere, then absolutely pursue ham radio to hone those skills.

Amateur Radio culture is about the joy of learning technical things and connecting with people. Event radio is about getting work done or using communication to accomplish a goal.

People often think the natural path to get into radios is to study for and obtain an Amateur Radio license, but that may be the long way around, depending on what they're looking for. Consider that the Radio Communication Training takes 40 minutes to turn new users into proficient event radio users, and often a radio training for a specific task or event can take a lot less time than that.

What is Amateur Radio? I should start off by saying that it's a great hobby to get into, if it fits you.

Amateur Radio, or ham radio, or "the bands" are sets of designated frequencies with specific rules. One key rule is that you need your own FCC license to transmit on those frequencies. To get an Amateur Radio license, you study for, schedule, and pay for an in-person test that covers technical information about the science, wavelengths, frequency bands, electricity, and other technical information that is almost entirely outside the scope of the skill set of using a radio with your own group. Basic Amateur Radio enthusiasts often use repeaters that pick up and then broadcast people's transmissions to facilitate communication with large networks of people who can be separated by towns, states, or even oceans, but there's a whole lot more to the hobby that you can get into.

Keep in mind that when you get an Amateur Radio license your legal name and mailing address are listed publicly along with your license number, which you'll need to transmit every time you're talking on the air waves. So everyone that's listening can look at a street view photo of your home or, for that matter,  go look at it in person if they want.

Another way to communicate with other radio enthusiasts out there is with the General Mobile Radio Service. You can purchase a GMRS license online for $35, and it doesn't require a test. You can use GMRS radios to communicate with FRS radios, since they use the same frequencies. You can also use them with established repeaters and networks similar to Amateur Radio repeaters or set up your own. The frequencies you can use are far more limited, and the laws for GMRS are very similar to the Amateur Radio laws about usage and providing personally identifying information, but there are some interesting benefits - ease and low cost of entry into the hobby and the fact that your whole immediate family can use the same single $35 license.

Why Amateur Radio isn't often used for events or friend groups: The Amateur Radio frequencies do not lend themselves well to being used by a specific group or event because of the rules, laws and intentions around their use. Everyone transmitting would need a license, so you can't just issue radios to the people who show up to volunteer. Other rules also make their use too constrained, and their intent is much more around the hobby and providing highly controlled emergency communications alongside government and nonprofit organizations.

The amateur radio frequencies are monitored by people with a strong reputation for turning people in for using them wrong. Some of them are very possessive and protective.

Sometimes the ham bands do get used for events. There have been some occasions of, for instance, domestic terrorist groups who have used the amateur radio frequencies for their activities. I don't imagine each person involved in those has been licensed and identifying their call sign every 15 minutes during their felonious actions. They're simply breaking the federal laws about radio usage and expecting they won't be caught. In fact, there's even a federal law about breaking the law while using a radio.

How to make your decision about Amateur Radio: My tip for deciding if you'd like to get an Amateur Radio license is to listen to your local GMRS or Amateur Radio repeaters. Listen to the conversations for an hour. Then try it again a few days later. If you find that you'd like to join those conversations, consider getting your Amateur Radio or GMRS license.

You'll hear the GMRS stations on an FRS radio (channels 15-22), and you can find your local amateur radio repeaters here: https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/ and then program your dual band radio to the local repeaters' frequencies. Without a license, you're free to listen all you want, and you can even transmit on the Amateur Radio frequencies for emergencies.

Why doesn't Amateur Radio prepare you for task-based radio usage? With Amateur Radio, the learning is very focused on technical information in order to select and assemble equipment and to set up communication with stationary towers and other ham enthusiasts. It's very static, there are no emergencies, you transmit from a quiet and controlled environment, and it's extremely indoors. That means when people talk to each other, it's often under ideal conditions, and it's very conversational. 

Radio communication that is task-based is very different from sitting indoors at a desk in a quiet room with a finely tuned, hand-built radio that communicates with the same towers every day. Likely, there won't be a repeater, and each radio will be communicating directly with every other radio. There are skills to be learned to mitigate poor connection, background noise, brief and clear speaking, high radio traffic, and more.

Amateur Radio and event radio are just two very different worlds, each with their own type of equipment, manner of speech, technical knowledge, challenges, and rules.

The Radio Communication Training content is not closely related to Amateur Radio and won't prepare students for the tests, although it would be a worthwhile introduction before following that path.