this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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To answer you seriously, yeah kinda! It's a way of communicating without any internet access. You can talk with people around the world if you want. And it opens up to a whole community of people that really like the hobby.
So people pick a topic and just start talking? It's kinda a niche hobby, so there's probably a lot of like-minded people, but what if somebody starts going off on a tirade?
Then you switch to someone else. Also its not just about talking. You can track a number of things: sensor readings, track satellites, airplanes, boats, etc...
What is the practical application of tracking stuff, like are you guys literally just telling each other where stuff is or what does an average tracking session look like?
Edit: I’m very interested in the idea of amateur radio operating, but I guess I’m trying to picture what it would be like practically and wondering if that’s something I’d be into, you know?
Sometimes, in times of disaster or something like that, ham radio operators can keep the flow of information in and out going when Internet or phone communication lines are down.
Other than that, it's mostly just experimentation and trying to push the envelope of wireless communications. People flex on each other by making contacts further and further away, and as the other person said, doing cool shit like talking to the ISS.
tracking is mostly done via software. the airplane, satellite, boat, etc will have some way of transmitting data (lat/long, speed, weather data...) and a receiving station (for instance, a computer a ham operator controls) will pick up that transmission and usually post it somewhere. An example would be something like APRS
Ham operators themselves can track in a way. When you are communicating with another ham, you will usually give your callsign, location, other pertinent info, and then you can log/record that you talked to someone from a certain area.