How to Contact People on a Ham Radio

Video Transcript

"For Expert Village, I'm Kurt Glaser, N7QJM. On today's sessions we're talking about, there's a certain protocol when you make contact on the ham radio. Typically what you'll do is when you make contact; you identify who you are, who they are with call letters and call signs, and then from there, you establish what the signal strengths are. And, for just radio, for speaking, basically, it's just readability and signal strength and there is actually a meter here on the rig, I'll see if I can zoom in real quick to the meter. Yeah, there it is, the meter is right here. That's where the meter is and it tells you actually what the signal strength is on the unit itself. Anyway, that is the piece right there, we're going to pick up a conversation, just a real quick conversation of somebody answering me back on my C-Q. So, we actually have somebody now. "WA7OB, this is Nancy 7, Quebec, Juliet, Mexico. Fine business, thanks for coming back to my call, you are about ten over nine into Redmond, Washington. My location is Redmond, Washington and my handle or name is Kurt, Kilo United Romeo Tango. Back to you, give me your call one more time for the log. Over." That's his call, that's his call; Tom. He's right by us, here. So, there' is how you start a QSO, and you just start talking back and forth. They usually identify, and you can hear him back here a little bit, he is identifying himself, where he's located, what the signal strength is, and then usually talk about what type of gear that we run in the shack itself. So, we are having a little conversation with Tom."