complete blog

posts/amateur-radio-licence.md

@@ -5,16 +5,74 @@ date: 2026-03-12
 tags: ["radio"]
 ---
 
-In February I finally bit the bullet and booked the exam for the UK Amateur
+In February I bit the bullet and booked the exam for the UK Amateur Radio
-Radio Licence (Foundation Level).
+Licence (Foundation Level).
 
-My natural learning style is both meandering and thorough. I like to work at my
+Having the exam in the calendar helped me concentrate and remain focused, as my
-own pace and pursue rabbit holes and tangents. I dislike exams and any aspect of
+learning style is naturally quite slow and meandering. I really wanted to earn
-competition injected into the learning process. At school my grades were always
+my licence so that I could get on the air and begin to advance my practical
-lower than my actual knowledge level because I never studied for the test, I
+knowledge.
-pursued what was interesting to me to depths not required by the exams.
 
-I think all people who love learning for its own sake are like this but I did
+I used the official Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) textbook and a
-actually _need_ the licence in order to be able to transmit and start gaining
+simplified syllabus from [Essex Ham Train](https://www.essexham.co.uk/train/).
-practical knowledge. Having the test booked for the end of the month helped me
+
-concentrate and stay on target.
+![Flash cards from my studying](./img/flash-cards.jpg)
+
+In the mocks, I was averaging an 80% pass rate but in the exam itself I did
+particularly well and scored 92%, getting only two questions wrong (one of which
+didn't come up at all in the training materials). I completed the exam remotely
+but there was an RSGB invigilator observing my screen and environment to check I
+wasn't cheating! (Thank you Malcolm, G3ZNU.)
+
+Having received my certificate I was able to apply to Ofcom for my callsign. I
+chose **M7SYO**. The first two characters are mandatory and denote my
+qualification level ("Foundation") and the last three are your personal choice,
+based on what is available. Luckily I was able to choose letters reflecting
+"Systems Obscure". When appropriate to do so, I can add "E" as my regional
+secondary locator to indicate that I am operating from England (e.g. ME7SYO).
+
+The Foundation level is pretty generous given that it is the entry-level. I can
+transmit up to 25W and am permitted to use most of the amateur bands (10m, 12m,
+15m, 17m, 20m, 30m, 40m, 80m) at HF, apart from 60m, and many of the VHF/UHF
+bands.
+
+I am lucky that my uncle, Greg, is an experienced amateur operator and secretary
+of his local amateur radio club in Macclesfield. He has been helping me with my
+practical knowledge and advising on what gear to start with. For now, I have
+ordered the affordable and well-regarded
+[Baofeng UV-5RM Plus](https://www.baofengradio.com/products/uv-5rm-plus-8w-multi-band-radio)
+handheld along with a NA-771 antenna. This will enable me to connect to
+repeaters and hopefully make my first QSOs (contacts). I also plan to construct
+some home-made antennas that I can attach to the handheld and experiment with.
+
+![Monitoring over SDR](./img/monitoring-sdr.jpg)
+
+As I'm still waiting for the radio to arrive, I am currently limited to
+monitoring transmissions via my
+[SDR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio#Amateur_and_home_use)
+(RTL-SDR v.4). I've been able to pick up some Morse conversations and a faint
+read of the strange - possibly Iranian - number station that is currently
+[perplexing the amateur community](https://youtu.be/ErmbTpxAM7Q?si=auxTnY8HSSnu1xZ5).
+
+In order to access the HF band and reach contacts further afield by exploiting
+[ionospheric propagation](https://www.qsl.net/4x4xm/Propagation/Ionosphere-propagation-of-radio-waves.htm),
+I will need a better and more powerful tranceiver. I am looking into getting a
+second-hand portable Yaesu through one of Greg's contacts. My plan is to drive
+or cycle to good spots locally and work in the field. I also eventually want to
+communicate over CW using Morse code and experiment with some radio astronomy.
+The possibilities are pretty limitless with this hobby!
+
+![The new to me X1 and some light reading](./img/thinkpad-x1-carbon.jpg)
+
+To facilitate my field work I wanted a small and robust laptop so I bought a
+second hand ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen.9). It's very sleek compared to my old T15
+and the i7 processor really makes a difference. I'm running Fedora Workstation
+for a hassle-free and easily maintainable Linux environment.
+
+Finally, I joined the RSGB. This gives me access to lots of useful radio
+resources, free access to the
+[National Radio Center](https://rsgb.org/main/about-us/national-radio-centre-gb3rs/)
+at Bletchley Park, and the print edition of the monthly _RadCom_ magazine which
+is a really good read.
+
+Once I start transmitting I will report here on my progress...