Ham Radio For Dummies, 4th Edition

Chapter 16

Hands-On Radio

IN THIS CHAPTER

Acquiring tools and components

Maintaining your station

Troubleshooting

Repairing your equipment

Building equipment yourself

Ham radio is a lot more fun if you know how your station equipment works. You don’t have to be an electrical engineer or a whiz-bang programmer, but by keeping things running smoothly and dealing with the inevitable hiccups, you will learn a variety of simple skills. As you tackle problems, you’ll find that you’re having fewer of them, getting on the air more, and making more contacts. Trying new modes or bands will also be much easier for you.

To help you get comfortable with the hands-on part of ham radio, this chapter provides some guidance on the three parts of keeping a ham radio station on the air: making sure your equipment doesn’t break often, figuring out what’s wrong when it does break, and fixing what’s broken.

Before exploring the insides of your equipment, please take a minute to visit the section on RF ...