Amateur radio is a popular technical hobby and volunteer public service that uses designated radio frequencies for non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, and emergency communications.

Amateur Radio is the only hobby governed by international treaty and is licensed in the UK by Ofcom.  As a radio amateur you are able to transmit radio signals in designated frequency bands .

Here are some of the activities undertaken by Radio Amateurs:

• Contacting people all over the world by radio which often leads to developing international friendships

• Competing in international competitions to test how effective your equipment is (some of which may be home built), and how good you are as an operator

• Technical experimentation — many leaps in radio technology have been initiated by radio amateurs

• Communication through amateur space satellites or with the International Space Station (which carries an amateur radio station)

• Providing communications at times of emergencies and undertaking exercises to ensure you keep the capability to do so.

Radio communication is a fundamental part of 21st Century communications which started over 100 years ago with the innovations of Marconi. Radio communications remain a key part of modern communications networks, including the internet. Amateur Radio has provided a number of technical innovations and a source of skills to all aspects of communications.

Radio amateurs are from a broad church with many different backgrounds and across all ages and genders. Some will have started in the hobby as youngsters leading them to full and fulfilling careers in communications technology. Others have come to the hobby later in life and enjoy the wide and various technical challenges. Whatever your interest in radio communications, you will find others sharing that interest — from “geeky” experimenters to those just interested in communicating by radio. So as a radio amateur, you simply do not know who you might talk to “over the air”. Using call signs as identifiers, there is no status on the air, and you talk, equal to equal, to everyone you contact.