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Family Radio Service Welcome to the South Florida FM Association Web page. You probably heard about this web site while using your Family Radio Service (FRS) radio. We would like to explain our hobby of Amateur Radio to you. You may also hear Amateur Radio referred to has 'ham radio'. While it has nothing to do with Pork, many of us enjoy public speaking, so in a a way, we're all 'hams'. By now, you know that your FRS radio has a limited range. About 1/4 mile, depending on where you are and how much is there to block the signal. Well, with similar handheld radios, we can communicate all over Dade and Broward counties. From our cars and homes, we can communicate from here to Cuba, Naples and Palm Beach, or even the entire planet. There are even some hams who use satellites to talk. There is also data communication, Morse code, even television transmissions we can enjoy. The sky isn't even the limit for us. There are hams who bounce radios signals off of the moon. On this web page, I hope to get input from other hams about our hobby so we can explain how it works without getting too technical. If you would like to learn more about our club, hit the Up button above and snoop around our web site. You'll see we're doing some very interesting things. All that stands between you and this exciting hobby is a license, issued by the Federal Communications Commission. Don't let that scare you. It's a very basic test and most people can pass it with just a few evenings of study. To talk around town, you don't even need to learn Morse code. We'll be happy to help you pass the test and get started. If you heard about this web page while you were using your FRS radio, there's a good chance it was during one of our weekly drills. Once a week, we all get on our radios and check with others in the South Florida area to make sure everything is working and we'll be able to communication in an emergency. Recently, we added FRS to the list of radios we test. So there's a chance you heard one of us on your radio, channel 1. Since some of us are also licensed in a service called GMRS, we're allowed to use a lot more power on the first 7 FRS channels. So that may be why you can hear us, but we couldn't hear you. We weren't being rude, we just couldn't hear you. Now that you know that other people can talk to you on your FRS radio, keep it in mind during an emergency. Try to keep channel 1 for calling your neighbors and for emergencies. FRS will work all the time, unlike phone lines and cell phones which can get knocked out by a storm. When you find someone to talk to, agree on another channel to go to then have your conversation there. Doing it this way helps everyone get in contact faster. We may also use FRS channel 1 to make one-way emergency announcements. Try to monitor it when there's something major going on. If you have a radio scanner, you call hear all of us on our system on 147.000, 146.760, 146.865, 147.315, 442.350 MHz and maybe others. We usually have our 'net' between 7 and 8 PM on Wednesday nights. Tune in to hear what we're up to. When you hear a lot of K's, W's A's and N's followed by other letters and a number, that's the call sign the FCC gave us. This tells everyone who we are and that we have earned the privilege of using all these radio channels with all the power. Some of the conversations will be hard to figure out at first, but in time you'll be able to understand what we mean. Between emergencies, we get to use the same equipment to have just normal conversations, like you would at school or work. Only it's a bit like a talk show. People can hear us for many miles. If they're also hams, they can join in and give their opinions. At some point you'll start to get bored with your FRS radio. We think you'll agree that Amateur Radio is your next logical step. If you have any questions, please click on my name below to send me an e-mail 07/15/2003 |