Sorry in last bread but it didn’t last…repeating re ham radio.

Someone asked earlier today about ham radio or more officially amateur radio and why the bad guys are using it.

Ham radio uses radio frequencies or RF.

Ham radio is in no way tied to text message, or internet, or phones, or blog sites or anything like that.

It is or would be difficult to trace.

Ham radio has available a huge range of frequencies on which to put a transmit signal.

Ham radio is basically a broadcast mechanism, one transmit to virtually any number of receivers…

The transmitter doesn’t need to be identified other than call letters; and none of the receivers need to be identified at all.

Ham radio is also basically analog signaling (versus the digital signaling or VOIP that is used in our internet)

Ham radio transmitter can be in virtually any of the allowed frequencies, which are many; there is a lot of bandwidth available.

A receiver does not need to be identified.

Anyone can have a receiver; anyone can listen; a receiver doesn’t need a license, only a transmitter needs a license.

When you transmit, if you didn’t have a license, no one would really know; it is an honor system.

Ham radio also can use FM, AM, SSB, or CW to transmit the signal. The receiver/s has to be capable of receiving that type of signal.

To communicate, the transmitter and receiver for the most part are tuned to the same exact frequency and use the same signaling.

So to communicate with someone specific or a group, you would have to know the exact frequencies and the exact time. That would require coordination.

You would not be likely to “overhear” a communication unless you were tuned exactly to that frequency with the same signaling. Overhearing would be random.

Ham radio for the most part doesn’t have channels on the LF HF frequencies…so you can’t really apply a scanner to it like you could CB radio.

Ham radio CW (continuous wave) signaling basically uses Morse code … the old dot dot dash from a telegraph key…most people no longer know it; and it’s is virtually impossible to tune over a CW signal and pickup what’s being broadcast with listening for a while.

So ham radio is broadcast and not publisher subscriber and is one transmit to many receive (unlimited, like old broadcast TV) and the many don’t need any registration or ID or license or anything. You have no idea how many are receiving.

And obviously with any of it you can have coded messages or different language that make it very difficult to decipher, especially if you are trying to hide something.

FYI … the very basics…a lot more to it but that’s a basic description.