Ham Radio School

Being a licensed Ham radio operator will open up a whole new world of activities you can participate in. Most people will find several of these activities interesting. In Tromsø we have licensed operators that participate in

• VHF/UHF communication, using anything from shack stations, portable handhelds and mobile rigs in cars
• DMR, which is a modern digital mode on VHF/UHF bands
• HF for long distance communication, covering the whole earth
• HF tests, context activity
• CW, communication with morse signals
• FT8/FT4 short automatic digital communication on HF bands
• Satellite tracking and communicating using these for long distance communication using VHF/UHF bands
• ATV, Amateur TeleVision, sending video feeds over Ham bands
• AREDN, a computer WiFi network over Ham bands primarily used as a Emergency Data Network
• APRS tracking with GPS positioning using Ham bands
• Winlink, sending emails over Ham bands
• SOTA, Summit On The Air, activating mountains with radio transmissions from the summit
• Radio orienteering, locating radio signals by signal strength and other teqniques
• Search And Rescue operations together with other FORF members
• Building and soldering your own radio station, tracker, antennas and more
• Emergency communication

Becoming a licensed Ham Radio operator requires that you pass an exam by NKOM. The exam is rather technical, and you need to learn about electronics, equipment, antennas, radio wave theory, mathematics and much more. On this page we have collected a few pointers to articles and videos to get you started.

In Norway, the book “Veien til Internasjonal Radioamatørlisens” covers most of what you need to know. There is also an online course in Norwegian that we highly recommend.

If you are interested in HF communication you can listen in on the bands on internet based WebSDR´s such as this one at the University of Utwente in the Netherlands.

In Norway we only have one license class, meaning that you are a full Ham radio operator with a Norwegian license. In many countries, such as USA, the license is split in three, where the technical license will not give you access to the HF band. In any case, videos on the internet for any Ham radio license will most likely apply to Norway as well. Radio waves, antennas and electronics operate just the same anywhere in the world. As such, there exists a lot of videos explaining what is needed to pass a license exam. While reading the book we recommend watching a lot of these videos to get a better understanding of the subject. KEØOG, Dave Casler, has some excellent videos on his website, and it is well worth watching them all. Here you can find his videos for the technical exam, and here are the videos for the general exam.

Random videos

These videos are only meant to be a supplement to the theory in the book. They might help and support you in your study of the various components.

If you know of a video that should be listed here please send us a note.

Electronics

Introduction into how to read a schematic.

Grounding

• Video on the importance of grounding

Capacitors

• Simple explanation of how a capacitor work
• Frequency and Capacitance vs Reactance

Inductors

• Simple explanation of how an inductors work
• Capacitors and Inductors together
• Frequency and Inductance vs Reactance
• Inductance vs Reactance

Transistors

• What is a transistor?
• How a transistor operates in detail

Antennas

• Antenna types and terminology
• How does an antenna work
• Radio wave propagation

Ham radio general

• Intro to HF bands (focus on bands in USA, but a good intro)