Amateur Radio Club
LVL1 has a small but active community of amateur radio hobbyists. LVL1 has a club call sign, N1LVL, and a small ham station.
Contents
What is Amateur Radio?
Amateur radio (ham radio) is the licensed and private use of designated radio bands, for purposes of private recreation, non-commercial exchange of messages, experimentation, self-training, and emergency communication.
In reality, ham radio crested as a hobby in the 1970s, and has been in a state of gradual decline ever since. Among the principal draws of amateur radio were the ability to speak to people across the globe. With the advent of the Internet, this is no longer such an incredible feat. Many other amateur radio communities are insular, and resistant to change in policy and change in technology. N1LVL differentiates itself from these groups by embracing the experimental spirit of amateur radio, and trying to bring hackers into the amateur radio fold.
In order to use the sections of spectrum provided by the FCC, you must be a licensed amateur radio operator. The test is dead simple for the lowest class of licensing, and you can now buy cheap Chinese handheld radios for under $100.
If you want to get involved, contact (either in person or via the mailing list) any of: Brad, Tad, Joe L., Brian or Jamie.
Club Resources
Currently, our ham shack consists of an Icom MODEL NUMBER HERE 2M transceiver, and a BRAND NAME HERE MODEL NUMBER HERE HF transceiver.
Don't transmit on the HF Transceiver, the antenna isn't tuned at all!
Future Resources
Incoming Radio Items:
- Harris Transceiver HF Rig with broken transistors on IF board
- Multiband verticle antenna
Club ideas
- Club 70cm repeater
- Club 2m or 70cm digipeater (maybe run TCP/IP across it!?!)
- DSTAR repeater? (pricy for all involved)
- Open Source DSTAR repeater?
- Asterisk Enabled repeater?
- See if Mumble can be converted to be used with radios (direct I/O of PTT and Carrier Detect for prompt Radio Communications). Replace Echolink with Mumble-based communications.
- any other ideas?
Louisville Area Radio Resources
| Frequency | Description |
|---|---|
| 147.510 | Unofficial N1LVL Simplex Frequency |
| 162.475 | Weather Radio |
| 145.410 | KK4CZ Repeater (Use PL 151.4 downtown) |
