Microwaves101 has a lot of visits from radio enthusiasts. So, we welcomed them with their own page on amateur radio! If any Ham has content that they'd like us to post, drop us a line!
Here's the Wikipedia story of how the word "ham" came to refer to amateur radio.
Here's a link to web site of the American Radio Relay League, a.k.a. the National Association for Amateur Radio.
Go to our book section and order a copy of the ARRL Handbook from Amazon. You can get used copy for just a few bucks, we did and we like it!
History of amateur radio
Radio, when you think about it, was invented by amateurs. It took years before big companies such as General Electric, RCA and AT&T screwed it all up by commercializing it. You can learn about some of the pioneers of radio in our Microwave Hall of Fame.
Check it out, John D. Kraus (W8JK) is also in the Hall of Fame!
Here's a public domain image of Hiram Percy Maxim, who founded ARRL in 1914. ARRL now boasts about 105,000 members.
If anyone wants to collaborate on an ARRL project, maybe we can help facilitate that. Example: how about a printed circuit board for a 24 GHz radio?
Bookmarks
We strive to be the web site that provides real content, not just links to other sites. But while we're waiting for our own material, we'll post some links.
New for July 2025. Do you want to explore software designed radio on the cheap? This site will set you up. Cribbing from radiosystemdesign.com:
Essentially your web connection allows you to listen in and control an SRD remotely and the guide show you:
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Examples of web SDRs and where you can find others
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How to control kiwiSDR, which is one of the most common
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How to record IQ data for further processing
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Examples of processing recorded signals using GNU Radio
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Some of the dedicated decoders available via web SDRs
Learn more about this resource here. Use at your own risk, we did not actually try it!
https://radiosystemdesign.com/GettingStarted/
Update June 2025: the links below accumulated over the years from contributions from readers. Many of these resources are (or were) personal websites of people involved in Ham radio. In many cases, the content has moved, or has been removed, and the links don't go anywhere. We went through every link, and if it was a dead end, we tried to find where the material went to, but in most cases it's just plain gone. For now, we will leave all the dead links with the hyperlinks removed. If anyone wants to play internet detective and finds some missing content, drop us an email and we will bring some links back to life.
Miscellaneous links
New for May 2025... Brian Beezley is a well-known amateur radio enthusiast, with some unusual skills in antenna design, particularly in Yagi antennas. His website includes a variety of articles on antennas and other RF topics, mostly at FM, broadcast TV and Ham frequencies, and some downloadable tools which are executables (but be aware that your employer may not want "unknown" executable files on their laptop...)
https://k6sti.neocities.org/
All About Circuits (an extremely active electrical engineering online community that provides both interesting content and useful resources for electrical engineers, including various engineering calculators as well as a free electrical engineering textbook.) Suggested by Kent!
https://admin.qsl.net hosts thousands amateur radio operators and organizations, at no cost (but they take donations)
AA9PW.com FAA and FCC Exam Practice
Elecraft Innovative Electronic Kits
electronics tutorials
HobbySpace - Space Radio
K8CU Home Page
Morse Runner
QRZ.COM - Practice Exams
UHF-Satcom.com - the online place for VHF to EHF satcom reception and monitoring
Carsten Groen, OZ9AAR
Down East Microwave Inc. Supplier of amateur radio equipment for 50MHz and above
G3SEK's Amateur Radio Technical Notebook
GO-Mars with AMSAT-DL's P5A-Mission (updated to AMSAT home page)
Links from here down no longer work...
23cm PA with GI-7
DF5AI.NET - Amateur Radio Propagation Studies (NICE Website!)
Douglas T. Smith Editorial Service Homepage - VERY GOOD
DSP-10 2-meter Home Built DSP Amateur Radio Transceiver by W7PUA
EA6VQ - Moon-Net discussions
EME ACTIVITY LOGGER!
EME Primer
EME, Earth-Moon-Communication. (W6-PA0ZN )
Find a ham in your area using zip code
K2 Rework Eliminators
KK7P.COM Your Resource for DSP Products and Services
N1BUG Web Polarization of EME Signals How to Succeed More Often
PE1ITR - 144 and 432Mhz EME EXPERIMENTS
PSKMeter Page
Solar Terrestrial Activity Report
Technician and General Class Training - MicroHAMS.com
WC8VOA - West Chester Amateur Radio Association
DSP-10 2-meter Home Built DSP Amateur Radio Transceiver by W7PUA
SSB Electronic Amateur Radio Products Index
EME, Earth-Moon-Communication. (W6/PA0ZN )
Welcome to Earth-Moon-Earth Home Pages.
Antennae
HFpack (Horizontal) Pedestrian Antenna Shootout 2002 Horizontal HFpack (Vertical) Pedestrian
W1GHZ Microwave Antenna Book ONLINE (an entire book!)
QRP (low power)
Four state QRP Group QRP Homebuilder QRPp International Radio Club ( QRPp, QRP, CW, SSB, PSK31, Tiny-Tornado, Pixie, Micro-80 )
The American QRP Club Rock-Mite (40m Transceiver)
EME (moon bounce)
Moonbounce Weak Signal and Astrophotography by Mike Cook AF9Y
GLEAP - The W7GJ 6m EME Array
DL4YHF's Audio Spectrum Analyser
OK1DFC EME Site - Very good stuff here
W7GJ 2m EME Tips
MoonSked Moon Tracking EME software for Macintosh, Windows and Linux
The GM4JJJ Modified W1SL 144MHz Power Amplifier
These pages have moved or no longer exist
N2UO Home Page (one of many dead pages on QSL.net)
Microwaves and MillimeterWaves - L. Cupido
EME VHF-UHF-SHF by F2TU
EME Operating Primer
Weak Signal Source
The Home Pages of Michael Fletcher - OH2AUE
Radio Astronomy
Deep Space Network Home Page
Radio-Sky Publishing - including Radio Eyes software
NASA Radio JOVE Project Home Page
Basics of Radio Astronomy
Dish Projects
4.5 Meter Dish Project
Dishes for Amateurs
1420 Mhz Radio Astronomy Antenna
Amplifier Projects
VHF Amplifier Projects (updated to QSL.net search tool)
These pages have moved or no longer exist
QRO via Russia
23cm PA with GI-7
23cm cavity amplifier.html
High performance 144-MHz PA
Hombrew Power amplifiers of HA1YA (By HA8ET)
Lazy Builders PA
Description of 144 MHz high power amplifier, 4CX250B
This link came from Kristi: (sorry, it no longer works)
I noticed you missed a great page on ham radios: http://www.answerconnect.com/articles/the-ham-radio-resource-guide. It looks like a very nice overview on hams, it provides a nice overview, along with providing links to very resourceful pages including technical specs, call signs, terminology, licensing, and equipment.
These links came from Wayne:
Owens Valley Radio Observatory and Ham Radio
San Bernardino Microwave Society (SBMS), one of the oldest ham radio clubs specializing in microwave technology.
Thanks to everybody!