[jjav]

> Now, cell phones and the internet make it a lot less magical.

I know people feel that way but IMO ham radio is still magical because you can communicate across continents without any dependency on anything or anyone else.

Sure the internet is faster and more convenient, but for that IP packet to reach its destination it depends on a cast of thousands of components across dozens of providers to all be working correctly.

With ham radio, you just need the radio and a generator and the laws of physics to communicate across the globe. That's pretty magical!

[markemer]

Maybe it’s just because I’m an EE, but I really got into the data modes too. Like did you know how stupid simple old school pagers are to create signals for? You have to make some slight modifications get them into the Ham Bands (or buy a new one, apparently a thing!) but after that it’s just 512 baud FSK.

[MobiusHorizons]

Fascinating! Is there overlap of some equipment with a ham band or do you have to modify the frequency of the equipment? What band do you use? Now I want to try this.

[topspin]

> Is there overlap of some equipment with a ham band or do you have to modify the frequency of the equipment?

There are many cases of overlap. The "upper" pager band is 929-931 MHz. There is a lot of adaptable commercial 900 MHz equipment knocking around. There are also agile transceivers ICs like STM32WL than can tune 150-960 MHz continuous, for example. The lower pager bands are at the lower end of VHF. You can make transceivers at those frequencies from through-hole parts and cheap tools.

The great thing that has emerged recently is low cost RF tools. You can get cheap, hobbyist grade RF instruments for a song today. NanoVNC, TinySA, affordable antenna analyzers and more can do things that cost thousands of dollars only 10 years ago.