04/18/2026
HAM RADIO 101 — “What IS Ham Radio?”
You’ve probably seen the antenna towers. Maybe spotted a bumper sticker with a weird callsign. Or heard someone mention “73s” and had no idea what that meant.
So what exactly IS ham radio?
Ham radio — officially called amateur radio — is a licensed communication hobby used by over 3 million people worldwide. And we say “hobby,” but that barely scratches the surface.
Ham radio operators talk to people across town… across the country… and across the entire planet — without the internet, without cell towers, without any infrastructure at all. Just radio waves bouncing off the atmosphere.
We communicate voice, Morse code, digital modes, even slow-scan TV images. We bounce signals off the moon. We talk to astronauts on the International Space Station. We provide emergency communications when disasters knock everything else offline.
And here’s what most people don’t know — you don’t need to be an engineer or a tech wizard to get licensed. The Technician exam is 35 questions. Study for a few weeks, pass the test, and you’re on the air with a legal callsign issued by the FCC.
Ham radio operators are emergency responders, experimenters, globe-trotters, and tinkerers. We’re retirees and teenagers. Pilots and teachers. First responders and scientists.
We’re a community built around one simple idea — connecting the world, one frequency at a time.
73, and welcome to ham radio.
