Amateur Radio
The practice of operating a shortwave radio transmitter for non-commercial two-way communications is known as amateur radio. Licenses are granted by authorized government agencies.
Amateur radio operators have made many technical advancements in the field of radio, and make themselves available to transmit emergency communications when normal communications channels fail. Some amateurs practice operating off the power grid so as to be prepared for power loss. Many amateur radio operators started out as Shortwave Listeners (SWLs) and actively encourage SWLs to become amateur radio operators.
Read more about this topic: Shortwave Radio
Famous quotes containing the words amateur and/or radio:
“I have been reporting club meetings for four years and I am tired of hearing reviews of the books I was brought up on. I am tired of amateur performances at occasions announced to be for purposes either of enjoyment or improvement. I am tired of suffering under the pretense of acquiring culture. I am tired of hearing the word “culture” used so wantonly. I am tired of essays that let no guilty author escape quotation.”
—Josephine Woodward, U.S. author. As quoted in Everyone Was Brave, ch. 3, by William L. O’Neill (1969)
“Now they can do the radio in so many languages that nobody any longer dreams of a single language, and there should not any longer be dreams of conquest because the globe is all one, anybody can hear everything and everybody can hear the same thing, so what is the use of conquering.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)