Listen first

45 minutes · Grades 9 to 12

Bring: two handhelds set to receive only; a laptop with a WebSDR open; the repeater list for the school's grid square.

Goal

Students can tune a handheld to a repeater from the list, recognise a net, and explain what a callsign is by hearing a dozen of them.

Tune (15 minutes)

Pair the students with a radio each pair. Using the repeater page for the nearest machine, enter the output frequency, the offset and the tone from the record; the radio profile for the club's handheld lists the exact key presses. Receive only: the volunteer keeps the push-to-talk covered.

Listen (20 minutes)

Most repeaters carry a weekly net. Pick the evening or lunchtime net from the club's page and listen to the check-ins: net control calls, stations answer with a callsign, net control acknowledges. Write down every callsign heard and look three of them up on the lookup page.

What do the letters and the digit mean? (Prefix, region number, suffix.)
Who is net control and how do you know?

WebSDR (10 minutes)

For a school with no line of sight to anything, a WebSDR in the browser shows the same bands with the same etiquette. Compare what the handheld hears with what the web receiver hears.

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