Advantages of Ham Radio (Amateur Radio) | disadvantages of Ham Radio (Amateur Radio)
This page covers advantages and disadvantages of Ham Radio (Amateur Radio). It mentions Ham Radio (Amateur Radio) advantages or benefits and Ham Radio (Amateur Radio) disadvantages or drawbacks.
What is Ham Radio (Amateur Radio)?
Introduction:
The Ham radio is the station which operates using different radio frequencies as per
applications and geographical locations. It is also known as amateur radio.
It consists of radio transmitters, radio receivers, antenna, computer and other components
as shown in the figure.
There are large community of ham radio operators across the world. Operators include students, professionals, politicians, movie artists, truck drivers, missionaries, charity organizations etc. They use ham radio for non-commercial communications or messages or emergency situations. Ham radios use 26 total frequency bands which consist of many frequencies supporting different distance coverages. Refer Amateur bands and Ham radio frequencies >>.
Ham radio service is managed across the globe by ITU.
Moreover its technical/operational characteristics are examined by national governments
before issuing licenses with individual call signs.
Operators use call signs on the air to identify other operators/stations.
Call sign structures are usually prescribed by ITU. For this purpose, ITU has categorized
all the countries into three regions.
Example: INDIA falls under ITU region-3 and it has been assigned call sign blocks such as
8TA to 8YZ, VUA to VWZ and ATA to AWZ.
Benefits or advantages of Ham Radio (Amateur Radio)
Following are the benefits or advantages of Ham Radio (Amateur Radio):
➨Ham radio operator can talk to other operators with transmit power of about 10 Watts or less.
➨It helps in communication when other systems (cellular, internet etc.)
are down due to some failure or disaster.
➨It provides long hours of communication during emergency situations and easy to setup.
➨It can be used for experiments with easy configurations anywhere and can be interfaced with
computers for data transmission/reception.
➨Ham or amateur radio operators can communicate with astronauts in space station.
Drawbacks or disadvantages of Ham Radio (Amateur Radio)
Following are the drawbacks or disadvantages of Ham Radio (Amateur Radio):
➨Ham radio operations can be affected due to weather and terrain conditions as
it operates using radio frequency waves.
➨Ham radio requires skilled operators.
➨Ham radio requires power source for its operations which is
required to be carried along with radio equipments and laptop.
➨Also refer advantages and disadvantages of Radio Frequency (RF)>>
and Radio Broadcasting >> more information.
RF(Radio Frequency) RELATED LINKS
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RF Terminology
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Types of RF Connectors
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RF signal generation and analysis
Advantages and Disadvantages of other wireless technologies
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