QSO App markQSO App

Plain words

Learn amateur radio

What the hobby is, how a contact actually happens, what all those networks are, and what each site and tool people mention is for. No background assumed.

  1. What amateur radio is · 2 min A licence to transmit, a radio, and people who answer. No network in between.
  2. How a contact happens · 2 min Person to person, through a repeater, through a linked network, or over the long-distance bands. The same call, four very different paths.
  3. The networks · 2 min AllStarLink, EchoLink, DMR, D-STAR, Fusion, APRS, Winlink: what each one is, who uses it, and why there are so many.
  4. The sites and tools people use, and why · 3 min QRZ, LoTW, HamStudy, Wavelog, POTA, RepeaterBook, CHIRP, NetLogger and the rest, each in a sentence or two, and which QSO App connects to.
  5. Clubs and nets · 2 min Why the hobby runs on clubs, what a net is, and how a club uses QSO App.
  6. Licences, callsigns and "Sign in with callsign" · 2 min What the levels mean, how verification works, and why one identity for the whole hobby matters.
  7. What still needs a computer, and what does not · 4 min FT8 and the digital modes, programming a radio, Winlink and satellite passes: which of them a phone can do today, which want a desk, and why the line falls where it does.