6- I'm Licensed, what do I do now?

6 - I'm Licensed, what do I do now?

How to avoid mic-shyness. Join other beginners and get some practice in.

If you have never listened to Amateur Radio conversations, where have you been? Listen and learn, it’s invaluable.

How not to screw up a simple contact.

There are only two protocols really for making a QSO, direct contact, and calling via a repeater. So long as you state your callsign and reply with your and the other operators (not ever single over, maybe every 10 minutes or if someone else joins the conversation with BREAK [callsign]) you’ll be fine.

Here’s how to make a smooth entrance and ensure your gear is ready.

The first thing to do is to make sure you are on the right frequency in the allocation spectrum, basically the first 100 khz of a band is for Morse code, CW or continuous wave operation and QRP use (low power < 25 watts). Then there is generally an allocation for digital modes like FT8, WSPR, JS8Call and other space sounding transmissions.

Grab a notepad and pencil, it’s not easy to use a PC or App while operating a radio!

You should write callsign, date and time in UTC, frequency and mode [FM/DMR/SSB]

Now listen, make sure there is nobody transmitting on that frequency. Set your transmitter to a low power say 10 Watts and check the SWR of the antenna.

Once the SWR is good by all means up the power to either what you are licensed for or say, 30 watts. If they reply with a poor report you can increase it towards what you are licensed for.

Remember 40 watts is only received as one S-point more than 10 watts. Don’t use 1000 watts to talk to the guy or gal 20 miles away.

https://qso365.co.uk/2017/10/increasing-transmitter-output-power-what-effect-does-it-really-have/

By all means ask, “Is this frequency in use please [callsign]?”

After 10 -20 seconds you can call CQ (I Seek you)

How a brief QSO might take place, some people just swap callsigns and location and strength reports, 59 reading you strength 5 quality 9 (5 and 9 is the max, 1 and 1 would be unintelligible). Some people hold longer, more detailed conversation or rag chew (Americanism).

You Recipient

CQ CQ CQ [mycallsign]

[mycallsign] [theircallsign] you are 59, my QTH is London UK and it’s 20 degrees today

[theircallsign] [mycallsign] thanks for

answering, you are 57, its 16 degrees

here and you are my first QSO (contact)

That’s great to hear, thanks for the QSO 73!

Yes, thanks for my first QSO, 73.

Repeaters are even easier, same for digital modes

[mycallsign] listening through [repeatername]

[theircallsign] [mycallsign] thanks for

answering, it’s 16 degrees here and you are my first QSO (contact)

[theircallsign] [mycallsign] thanks for

answering, you are 57, its 16 degrees

here and you are my first QSO (contact)

Answering a call to your callign just swaps the left and right sides

Just listen to how other people do it, you’ll soon get the hang of it but don’t ignore advice from more expereince operators, we all make mistakes.

Repeaters

These are designed to allow better coverage from areas that might be in a dip. They can range from 5 to 50 watts and most are on VHF/UHF and work in duplex mode. This means that the receive and transmit frequencies are different. They also generally require a CTSS tone.

CTCSS (Continuous Tone-Coded Squelch System) uses a low-frequency tone sent along with your voice so the radio only unmutes when it detects the correct preset CTCSS tone. These tones are in the range 67.0–254.1 Hz, and they reduce annoying interference but do not provide real privacy or security.

You can find a list at

https://www.repeaterbook.com/row_repeaters/index2.php?state_id=GB

These will generally be stored in your radios memory as selecting the transmit, receive and CTSS frequencies would be a nightmare. You only need to store frequencies that you can actually use, do not try and store them all.

Note: not all repeaters work in the same modes

Simplex – transmit and receive on the same frequency

Duplex – transmit and receive are on different frequencies or even bands!

Modes -

FM – the majority

DMR – A digital system developed by Motorola, most popular mode.

Others way to complex to include here

D-Star, M17, NXDN, P25, System Fusion (C4FM)

There are also Internet linked modes such as Extended Freedom Network System and FreeStar System so that you can talk to people using a different digital mode and in a normally not accessible location, even across the world.

These include

AllStar, Autopatch, E-Power, Echolink, IRLP, Wires-X, Wide Area, WX.

You can also use these without a radio using a PC. Laptop or Mobile phone but need a license as part of the signals journey involves radio transmission. Yes it is proper radio!

In simplex (normal direct contacts) you are transmitting and receiving on the same frequency. For repeaters you will have preset the Tx and Rx frequencies beforehand to the daat for that repeater. Some low power nodes will work in simplex.

* note; signal reports are meaningless on repeaters if you can hear someone. Just say, your loud and clear and how their volume and quality is. The repeater’s transmission power is doing all of the work probably at 25-100 watts. You putting 1000 watts in will just be wasted. I can open Lincoln repeater and have a clean QSO on 1 Watt, it’s 50 miles away! Same with digital modes, it makes almost no difference!

* Note: if someone is local enough, you can listen to them on the repeater’s input freqeuncy.

20 repeaters within 25km of my location on 2m and 70cm only, there are way more!
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