Most of the world uses a 24 hour clock. Anything over 12:00 hours is PM, as in 21:48 being 21:48 – 12:00 = 9:48 PM Americans, except emergency service personnel and Amateur Radio Operators use a 24 hour world clock, so as to a avoid confusion. It’s good to learn.

  Amateur radio, also known as “ham radio”, is a hobby in which enthusiasts are licensed to communicate on a number of bands in the radio frequency spectrum non-commercially and for their own enjoyment.Ham radio provides the broadest and most powerful wireless communications capability available to any private citizen anywhere in the world. They may also provide emergency and public service assistance. This has been very beneficial in emergencies, saving lives in many instances. Radio amateurs use a variety of modes, including nostalgic ones like Morse code and experimental ones like Low-Frequency Experimental Radio. Several forms of radio were pioneered by radio amateurs and later became commercially important including FM, single-sideband (SSB), AM, digital packet radio and satellite repeaters. Some amateur frequencies may be disrupted by power-line internet service.

   A housewife in North Carolina makes friends over the radio with another ham in Lithuania. An Ohio teenager uses his computer to upload a digital chess move to an orbiting space satellite, where it’s retrieved by a fellow chess enthusiast in Japan. An aircraft engineer in Florida participating in a “DX contest” swaps his call sign and talks to hams in 100 different countries during a single weekend. In California, volunteers save lives as part of their involvement in an emergency response. And from his room in Chicago, a ham’s pocket-sized hand-held radio allows him to talk to friends in the Carolinas. This unique mix of fun, public service and convenience is the distinguishing characteristic of Amateur Radio. Although hams get involved for many reasons, they all have in common a basic knowledge of radio technology and operating principles, and pass an examination for the FCC license to operate on radio frequencies known as the “Amateur Bands.” These bands are radio frequencies reserved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for use by hams at intervals from just above the AM broadcast band all the way up into extremely high microwave frequencies. Listen to this spot, “What Is Ham Radio?”

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