i am at the ham radio village and it is
tucked back in a corner right around
hardware hacking and i had to jump on
over to hear about what it all is about
now ham radio has been around i think a
long time a little over 100 years over a
hundred years but specifically at the
village can you just tell me a little
bit about like what is ham radio and i
know that's like a big conversation but
like technically like what is it like am
fm radio type of thing or so ham radio
basically the license it gets you the
catalyst to do whatever you want on a
huge amount of frequencies dedicated for
just hams so from as low as 200 and 2
200 meters long wavelengths to 900 or
1400 megahertz you can do basically
a bunch of experimentation talking to
people sending packets a bunch of fun on
these frequencies just for hammers and
yeah you can do frequency stuff without
a license but with ham radio you can do
a lot higher power stuff so you can get
farther and longer distances and have
more fun so like you you said like uh
frequencies and things like that it's
all talking right like i'm gonna tune
into my frequency and i broadcast my
voice across for other people here yeah
well so you can't talk to people so like
with stuff like a handheld you can talk
to people in your local area or with
using repeaters you can go farther but
there's also digital modes and packing
modes such as aprs which can beacon
locations to be seen all around the
world so if you don't like talking to
people there's digital modes like packet
and if you like talking to people sweet
and there's also experimentation stuff
too like drone pilots who do fpv racing
they use 900 megahertz and a ham radio
license to be able to fly farther
because they can transmit a higher
powers with the license oh that's so
cool so it's not even just like just for
talking but there's like you can use
your frequency for whatever you want
so
at the ham radio village like when
you're it seems like there's a ton of
people in there just talking as a
community
is ham radio more about like getting
your voice out and getting creative or
is it a lot of community based things
where you want to meet that it really is
it is honestly it's about community it's
about meeting people literally we are
all about getting people in groups and
clubs it is family friendly my family of
four we all got it literally same day
and we went to ham day field day
together we streamed we did all these
things it is about getting to know your
community it's also about getting to
know people around the world this is an
international thing so can you how far
does ham radio go you said it's
international international yeah if the
government is okay with it in other
countries you can stream to anybody
there's these free software's online you
can get on your computer you can project
to anybody around the world if it's okay
that's so that's so cool now like with
so many people going in i see another
room which is ham radio exams
at def con
you can study and actually like get your
ham radio license absolutely yesterday i
had a study chain of 90 plus people for
three plus hours they were helping each
other out i was getting them registered
and they were popping in and i get
people walking out i'm a general i
didn't even think i could get tick oh
it's so cool like it's so easy and fun
oh that's awesome like what are some of
the coolest uses of ham radio that
you've seen it really depends on your
use case and if you like talking to
people you can talk to people from all
around the world a couple weeks ago i
talked to some folks in cuba down south
america and saudi arabia or you can just
send messages through aprs or modes like
bpsk31 which is basically texting using
ham radio and you can just talk to
people all around the world see how the
weather is there or spread information
and there's so much experimenting you
can do everything in ham radio is done
by hands and forehands it's very much
volunteer base so it's catered just
towards hams this whole community that's
so cool so like last question which is
if they come to defcon next year how
much does it cost to get registered and
go do the exam it is free 93 honey
that's awesome so you can come here you
can study have the support of the sport
of everyone who's working the contest
area and then you go and get your free
that's awesome absolutely all right one
more question because i have to know if
i got into ham radio what's like the
cost entry for like
like a simple rig to start getting
involved so yeah the cheapest radios are
basically around thirty dollars and
those are
by brands such as battlefin and they're
well known people you usually get them
from amazon and then from there you can
get more expensive handhelds they start
at around 60 to 100 and the nice price
the next price bracket is around 200.
and then once you get your higher
licenses you can get the bigger more
fancy radios and that typically start
about 500 and up i would say and that's
brand new so not used man so the cost of
entry is not that hot what are you gonna
say or you can go to swap meets i had a
guy who told me he got a 2500 rig for 20
bucks because someone was giving it away
to swap me that's awesome
i mean one thing we find out within
hardware is like tends to people the
passionate people keep keep upgrading
love giving away their old stuff
absolutely thank you so much for your
time like this is so cool like
something we're already talking about is
like better communication farther
communication and at def con 29 we're
talking about don't stop the signal so
like had to come to ham radio thank you
so much thank you for watching and hack
on