Ham radio license

[JoJo]

Morning everyone. Out of curiosity, why do they require a license to operate a ham radio?

 

[Steven Abra]

I didn't know the answer and went digging for it, interesting stuff:

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Almost every radio service requires a license, it just depends on the service as to how much the license costs and what you can do with it. Radio waves are controlled by almost every country on the globe, and all countries have rules and licenses.

As a Ham you are allocated a lot of band space and a lot of power. You are also representing your country on the air, as Ham radios can be heard all over the world. As such, you have a lot of responsibilities, such as operating a "clean" station, one that does not cause interference, operating in your allocated frequencies, operating in a way that you does not make your country look bad, and operating according to national and international rules.

Most radio services require licenses. If you own a store and want a radio system for communications, you will have to get a license. A person with a license to work on commercial radios (Radio Telephone license) will have to set it up for you. Your local police, fire, and ambulance services, plus your local railroad have to have licenses (and many more, like aircraft), and all these are allocated one specific frequency on which to operate.

Now, there are unlicensed services, covered in the US under Part 95 of the FCC rules, that is the various Citizens Radio Services. The one on the former 11 meter Ham band is called Citizens band radio or CB for short, and requires no license ("license by rule"), but is heavily regulated as far as what can be done with it (4 watts out, and less than 100% modulation), and it is not meant for distance talking or high power (though people do it all the time, and some actually get caught). There is also Family Radio Service (FRS) and Multi-Use Radio Service (MURS) which require no license, but have very strict rules. Even General Mobile Radio Service requires a license, and even it has rather restrictive rules. All of these services have channels, which means that you can only use certain frequencies, and over all these services mentioned for private citizens, there are just a few channels - 40 on CB, 5 on MURS, 22 on GMRS, and 14 on FRS, AND the GMRS, FRS and MURS channels are shared among the services - so you don't have a lot of flexibility. Plus, no digital modes allowed.

OK, now as a Ham, you have 10 BANDS of frequencies on the High Frequency (Short Wave) bands alone, giving you the room to have many hundreds, even thousands, of Hams talking (or otherwise communicating), plus, you have two VHF and several UHF bands, plus microwave bands. As a Ham, you have the legal right to run "power" (as the CB'ers call it) up to 15oo watts (!!!), though in practice you should only use what is necessary to initiate and establish communication. You have the ability to use several modes of communication, including Single Sideband, AM, FM, Morse Code, digital (several modes). You also have the capability to cause massive interference, not only on the Ham bands, but to other radio services, quite possibly emergency ones.

All this makes for a lot of room for causing problems, and a lot of stuff that has to be learned before even transmitting a signal. This learning process is not that hard (Technician license) to moderately difficult, but doable (General License) to hard as heck (Amateur Extra Class), and each class has more privileges. All the licenses are free!!! There is no charge for the license itself, and renewing it is free (every 10 years, no test required), but there is a $20.00 fee for taking the test for the Volunteer Examiners. Note: There is no longer a Morse Code test in the US.

I got my license 37 years ago when there was a code requirement, and the tests were hard. I have a station that talks all over the world (I talked to Lesotho last week!), can do 600+ watts, and I have the capability to talk on 14 different bands! I can talk to a station down the street (UHF and VHF) to all the way around the world (HF bands)."

Why is a license required to become a ham radio operator?

Answer (1 of 29): I can think of two reasons. First, Ham radio was originally intended to be an experimental service. If you look at the back of an antique or a modern amateur radio transceiver, you won’t see a label “No user serviceable parts inside.” Ham radio operators are expected to tinker w...

www.quora.com

This was the best answer I found.