Alex Discovers Amateur Radio

12 Originally developed to speed up Morse Code contacts Radio Amateurs use Q codes to help, particularly when conditions are bad, or if they don’t both speak the same language. QSO is a contact - QSL contact confirmed – QRM interference to signal – QRZ who is calling. CQ is sent when you want anyone to reply to you rather than a particular station – it means seeking you. Signal reports are given as 1 to 5 for readability (5 best) and 1 to 9 for signal strength. (9 best). The number 256 means M3UAY was W1AWs 256th contact during this contest. Is that a radio they’re using? It doesn’t look like any radio I’ve ever seen. We hold contests to see how far and how often we can make a QSO – that’s a two way contact. But mainly we just enjoy chatting and making new friends over the air. That’s a radio all right. We call it a BASE STATION transceiver - which stands for trans mitter and re ceiver . Amateur Radio is a fun hobby but you don’t need to have an expensive rig with lots of features like that one to still have a great time talking to some other Radio Amateur in a country 6000 miles away with nothing but air between the two of you. Matty is working to get as many contacts as possible and Sharon is entering call signs into a computer for future verification. Contests can get very intense. Some people don’t like the way they can take the whole band over for several hours. Often we exchange QSL cards by mail or by the Internet to acknowledge the contact. …Whisky 1… albbbaa … weeee … ahead ... Mike three … niff .. … ccchhhh …Whisky 1 … That doesn’t sound like anything to me … You soon get to know what to expect and listen carefully and put all the bits together. W1AW go ahead Mike 3 Uniform Alpha Yankee 5 and 9, 256 QSL? Whisky 1 station go ahead please. … … Mike 3 Uniform Alpha Yankee this is… skee 1 Alpha Whisky over.